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The Generation of ’Eighty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Thomas F. McGann
Thomas F. McGann*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Extract

Before the argentine revolution of 1810, land was the principal source of wealth and the sanction of social position in the otherwise resourceless Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. The revolution of May did not significantly alter the fundamental social, political and economic relationships between the masses of the people, the landowners and the soil. And although the administration of Rivadavia in the 1820’s and the dictatorship of Rosas in the next two decades were poles apart in their philosophies of society and government, each bore the same fruit in the further concentration of land in the hands of a relatively few men. After the fall of Rosas and the return of the exiled unitarios in 1852, the position of the landed gentry was not changed, despite the work of men like Urquiza, Mitre and Sarmiento, who applied themselves to the task of awaking Argentina from its long sleep of reaction. These victorious leaders were liberal and pragmatic, but there was no Argentine Homestead Act during their administrations. They accepted the land system as it was and tried to build upon it by spinning out the means of communication and transportation and technical development that would make it workable and by bringing in immigrants to make it fruitful. Aside from the establishment of a few colonies, the methods of land distribution and the laws of landownership remained essentially unchanged. Indeed, the governments that came after the Rosas regime, needful of revenue and concerned with the white elephant that was the government domain, embarked on much the same types of real estate deals as had the tyrant. In one case, in 1857, the government leased 3,000,000 hectares of land to 373 people; in 1867 Mitre’s government sold this land on easy terms to its renters.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , October 1953 , pp. 141 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1953

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References

1 The most useful history of Argentina landownership is Oddone, Jacinto, La burguesía terrateniente argentina, Tomo I [no other vol. published] (Buenos Aires, 1930)Google Scholar. This blunt book presents the important Argentine land laws and decrees, the numbers of men who obtained property under these laws (in many cases identified by name), and the extent of their holdings. Even if allowance is made for the author’s Socialist Party membership, one may accept his scholarship in delving into municipal and other judicial records of actual ownership in his effort to provide documentation for what ordinary observation demonstrates—that most of the best land in Argentina was owned (and still is) by a singularly small number of people.

Under the ill-fated laws of emphyteusis inspired by Rivadavia and promulgated between 1822 and 1830, approximately 600 men received 9,000,000 hectares of land, most of which they or their descendants came to own outright with the passage of time and other legislation (p. 64). In 1832, by decree of the Rosas-controlled government, grants of suertes de estancia (a suerte was about 19 square kilometers) to a total of 2,000 square leagues, or 50,000 square kilometers, were sold at modest prices to 300 people, many of whom had shared in the Rivadavian distribution (pp. 53–55). The details of the lease-sell laws of 1857 and 1867 are given on pp. 93–101.

The best account in English of the history of Argentine landownership is Taylor, Carl C., Rural Life in Argentina (Baton Rouge, 1948), pp. 174–190.Google Scholar

2 Mulhall, M. G. and Mulhall, E. T., Handbook of the River Plate, Comprising the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Paraguay (6th ed., Buenos Aires, 1892), p. 99.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 346.

4 Ibid., p. 348.

5 Ibid., p. 352.

6 Regal offers of cheap land were made by the government to the officers and less regal offers to the men who participated in the conquest of the desert. The issues of paper which represented these distant and unpromising lands became a major speculative device as they slipped out of the hands of their original takers, through the fingers of the speculators, and into the strongboxes of men who knew that a few square miles of cheap Argentine land was potentially one of the world’s best investments. Cf. Oddone, op. cit., pp. 215–218. The same author has computed that Argentine land rose in value as much as 438,000 per cent in the period from 1836 to 1927 (p. 146).

Additional facts with regard to land distribution in the 1880’s, including President Juárez’s desperate effort in 1889 to salvage national credit by the attempted sale in Europe of 24,000 square leagues of Argentine land (an area slightly smaller than France), may be found in Cárcano, Miguel Angel, Evolución histórica del régimen de la tierra pública, 1810–1916 (2nd. éd., Buenos Aires, 1925), pp. 345–357, 394–404.Google Scholar

7 Jefferson, Mark, Peopling the Argentine Pampa (New York, 1926), especially pp. 22–23, 32–36 and 84–85 Google Scholar, although the entire study emphasizes the status of the native Argentine and foreign immigrant tenants and laborers. It is worth noting that the two best works on the reality (and not the theory) of the Argentine land system and forms of agricultural use have been written by Americans—Jefferson’s based on residence in the country in the 1880’s and a trip made in 1918, and Taylor’s, which was the result of field studies carried out in 1942–1943.

8 Grandmontagne, Francisco, Los inmigrantes prósperos (Madrid, 1944)Google Scholar [date of first edition not given], pp. 98–103. This book is a useful and delightful collection of fictional essays on immigrant life, written by a Spaniard who resided in Argentina in the last years of the nineteenth century.

9 It was not until 1949 that the Argentine government ordered every person in the country to register with the police as a preliminary to legislation aimed at eliminating the status of alienage which unknown thousands of Argentine residents enjoy.

10 Cf. the comment in Alsina, Juan A., La inmigración en el primer siglo de la independencia (Buenos Aires, 1910), p. 11 Google Scholar: “… the immigrant has not looked to the political interests of his new Argentine patria, but rather to his own exclusively economic cares, leaving to the Argentines the responsibility of social and political interests.” See also Federico Rahola, Sangre nueva. Impresiones de un viaje a la América del Sud (Barcelona, 1905), pp. 124–134 and passim, for observations on the centripetal nature of Argentina’s foreign groups.

11 Jefferson, op. cit., pp. 164–167.

12 Alsina, op. cit., pp. 42–46. This book is more than a history of immigration; it is an attempt to provide solutions to the problem of assimilation. It should be pointed out that the non-assimilative character of Argentine society in the years after 1880 was a two-way affair. If there was at first, and understandably, little adaption by the immigrant to his new society, neither was there any serious effort on the part of the Argentine government or directing class to bring the newcomers into closer relationships with that society. Routine schooling for immigrant children there was—probably to a surprising degree—thanks to the education system which Sarmiento and Avellaneda had largely organized. Beyond this there was nothing. The problem of “integrating” the strangers into the life of the nation was not a problem in those years (although it was not long before it became one); the whole matter was simply disregarded in a general stampede for wealth and, perhaps more important, because the prevailing liberal philosophy made no allowance for the existence of such an issue. Only after the turn of the century, in the period we may call the era of disillusionment, did men like González, Rojas and Alsina come to the fore and insist on the formulation of new definitions of the legal and social responsibilities of all Argentines, and on the need for a revision of the methods of education, particularly the teaching of history.

13 The following analysis of the Argentine political scene may be verified in differing degree (and not always in accord with the intent of the authors cited) in almost all the sources for this period, whether these be political, economic or social in character. If further verification is needed it may be found in the revolutions of 1890, 1893 and 1905, and in their grandchild, the revolution of 1943.

Among the few good specific studies of Argentine political practice, as distinct from histories of political theory, are the following: Matienzo, José Nicolas, El gobierno representativo federal en la República Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1910), especially pp. 107–119 Google Scholar for a discussion of the fluidity of political parties, and pp. 203–215, which deal with the techniques of presidential domination of provincial governors; Melo, Carlos R., Los partidos políticos argentinos (2nd ed., Córdoba, Argentina, 1945), pp. 5–25 Google Scholar, and Melo, Carlos R., La campaña presidencial de 1885–1886, Conferencia pronunciada en el Instituto Popular de Conferencias de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, el 23 de Mayo de 1946 (Córdoba, Argentina, 1946)Google Scholar.

14 Pellegrini: 1846–1906: Obras, Precidadas de un ensayo biográfico por Agustín Rivero Astengo (5 vols., Buenos Aires, 1941), II, 77.Google Scholar

15 Martínez, Carlos [Carlos Alfredo D’Amico], Buenos Aires: su naturaleza, sus costumbres, sus hombres. Observaciones de un viajero desocupado (Mexico, 1890), pp. 131–132.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., pp. 57–58. Pp. 53–57 and 123–137 describe some of the fraudulent political methods typical of this period.

17 La Prensa, October 13, 1880. La Nación, the other important Buenos Aires paper, was the property and political instrument of sixty-year-old Mitre. In an editorial on October 12, Mitre (or his editor) reserved judgment on Roca, but on the same page printed a long article praising the good [sic] example of United States political practices. On the 13th, La Nación attacked the “peace and administration” statement made by Roca in his inaugural address. “The country needs peace,” said La Nación, “but peace with justice and liberty.”

Both La Prensa and La Nación held a unique place in Argentina in these and in later years. Their importance should be construed in inverse ratio to the small number of men who formed the upper class of the nation and controlled its course. La Prensa, and to a lesser degree in these early years, La Nación, adopted positions of unswerving morality and doctrine. They were the outlets for much of the most important national and international thought of the day. They were the voices of freedom and justice which, if not always obeyed, were always heard.

18 Cf. Matienzo, José Nicolas, La revolución de 1890 en la historia constitucional argentina. Conferencia dada en la Academia de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, 1926), pp. 6–7 Google Scholar, where this leading Argentine authority on the political history of his country and class writes: “In the decade from 1880 to 1890, not only did the personal power of the president grow immeasurably, but a deep political and administrative corruption spread throughout the nation, converting the government into an instrument for the satisfaction of private interests.”

19 Astengo, Agustín Rivero, Juárez Celman, 1844–1900. Estudio histórico y documental de una época argentina (Buenos Aires, 1944)Google Scholar, letter from Roca to Juárez, October 26, 1879, p. 144.

20 Ibid., Roca to Juárez, July 24, 1878, p. 105.

21 Rivero Astengo shies away from demonstrating that Juárez became president of Argentina only because Roca wanted him to be president. But any doubt of Roca’s tremendous influence over Juárez may be dissipated by reading the correspondence between the two men, which much resembles that of a father and his dutiful, apprentice son. Cf. ibid., pp. 53–56, 79–150, 297–311, 338–340. Roca and Juárez married two sisters, Clara and Elisa Funes, of Córdoba.

22 Ibid., Roca to unnamed addressee, n. d. [1880], p. 164.

23 The question of Juarez’s partial alienation from his political sponsor needs only a passing comment here. It was an incident in the game of ins and outs played by the ruling element with the government of the nation. For interesting correspondence between Roca and Juárez in 1889 concerning their mutual political suspicions, cf. ibid., pp. 496–499.

24 Ibid., p. 395.

25 Ibid., pp. 376–377. On the day of Juárez’s inauguration (October 12, 1886), La Prensa denounced the prevailing low state of political morals in the government, attributing it to an unchecked pursuit of personal wealth and power. Fulfilling their editorial duty, but with a sound much like loud whistling in the dark, the editors of La Prensa called on Juárez to lead a “moral regeneration of politics and administration.” La Prensa, October 13, 1886.

26 Rivero Astengo, op. cit., p. 44.

27 Ibid., Roca to Juárez, September 5, 1872, p. 48.

28 Ibid., p. 332.

29 Ibid., p. 442.

30 Delpech, Emilio, Una vida en la gran Argentina. Relatos desde 1869 hasta 1944. Anécdotas y finanzas (Buenos Aires, 1944)Google Scholar, is a naïve but instructive autobiography by a rugged individualist looking back on the glorious days after 1880 when private individuals and public officials played with the Argentine government as though it were a private concern. The author sanctifies the very names of Roca, Pellegrini and de la Plaza; he is silent with regard to Juárez, the man who failed, yet who did so much for his friends.

31 Mabragaña, Heraclio [compiler], Los mensajes…. [etc.] (6 vols., Buenos Aires, [n. d.]), IV, 343–347.Google Scholar

32 Juarez’s resignation was written for him by Ramón J. Cárcano, whom Juárez had groomed as his successor in the presidency. See Cárcano, Ramón J., Mis primeros 80 años (Buenos Aires, 1943), pp. 166–175 Google Scholar. This book, like that of Delpech just cited, is an account of the good old days, but written by one who was a member of the inner circle. It is characterized by the same silence with regard to the realities of that wild, corrupt era; not once in its pages can one find the words “speculation,” “loans” or “land sales.”

33 Mabragaña, op. cit., IV, 147–148.

34 La Prensa, October 12, 1886.Google Scholar

35 Sarmiento, A. Belin, Una república muerta. Introducción por Lucio V. López (Buenos Aires, 1892), p. 1.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., pp. 20–21. Cf. also Estrada, Ezequiel Martínez, Radiografía de la pampa (2 vols., Buenos Aires, 1942), I, 213–216 and II, 118–123 Google Scholar for a masterful analysis of the internal role of the army in Latin America, where external enemies have for decades been nearly non-existent.

37 Ibid., pp. 163–173.

38 Pellegrini, Carlos, Discursos y escritos, 1881–1906 (Buenos Aires, 1910), pp. 40–41.Google Scholar

39 A discussion of the origin and meaning of the word in Argentine political history may be found in an article by Rodolfo Rivarola, “La oligarquía según los constituyentes del 53,” Revista de Derecho, Historia y Letras, Año X, tomo 29 (March, 1908), 492–507. The author states that the word was first applied by the drafters of the constitution of 1853 to cabals of provincial governors.

40 Matienzo, José Nicolas, El gobierno representativo federal en la República Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1910), p. 322.Google Scholar