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Costa Rica Before Coffee: Occupational Distribution, Wealth Inequality, and Élite Society in the Village Economy of the 1840s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Lowell Gudmundson
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Recent research on Costa Rican social and economic history has made notable advances regarding the classic coffee economy of the 1850–1950 period. Major works by Hall and Stone, and essays by Cardoso, Pérez, Vega, and Samper have offered suggestive new materials and perspectives on the basic dynamics of coffee culture and the social antagonisms which developed within it. Nevertheless, the differences in opinion in this literature on the coffee economy, in particular the degree of land concentration and proletarianization within the Central Valley region, tend to obscure an even more basic agreement of the pre-coffee starting point: the predominance of dispersed, self-sufficient smallholders on privately owned plots, with a very weak elite structure and minimal social division of labor in artisanry or agriculture.

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Articles
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Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , November 1983 , pp. 427 - 452
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 Samuel, Stone, La dinastía de los conquistadores: La crisis del poder en la Costa Rica contemporánea (San José, Educa, 1971);Google ScholarCarolyn, Hall, El café y el desarrollo histórico-geográfico de Costa Rica (San José, Editorial Costa Rica, 1976);Google ScholarCiro, F. S. Cardoso, ‘La formación de la hacienda cafetalera en Costa Rica’, Estudios sociales centroamericanos, No. 6 (09–12), 1973, pp. 22–48;Google ScholarJosé, Luis Vega Carballo, ‘El nacimiento de un régimen de burguesía dependiente: El caso de Costa Rica’, Estudios sociales centroamericanos, No. 6 (09–12), 1973, pp. 83–118;Google ScholarHéctor, Pérez Brignoli, ‘El ciclo en las economías agrícolas de exportación de América Latina (1880–1930): Hipótesis para un estudio’, Revista de Historia (Heredia, Costa Rica), No. 5 (1977), pp. 9–46;Google Scholar and, ‘Economía política del café en Costa Rica, 1850–1950’, Avances de Investigación, No. 5 (University of Costa Rica, 1981), mimeographed;Google ScholarMario, Samper K., ‘Los productores directos en el siglo del café’, Revista de Historia, No. 7 (1978), pp. 123–217.Google Scholar

2 The origins of this rural democratic vision of pre-coffee society appear most clearly in the works of Rodrigo, Facio, Estudio sobre enonomía costarricense (San José, Editorial Zurco, 1942);Google ScholarEugenio, Rodríguez Vega, Apuntes para una sociología costarricense (San José, University of Costa Rica, 1933);Google Scholar and Carlos, Monge Alfaro, Historia de Costa Rica (San José, Editorial Trejos Hermanos, 1966).Google Scholar The authors cited in note 1 elaborate, with varying degrees of caution, upon this basic theme in the following passages: Stone, , La dinastía…, pp. 93–110; Hall, El café…, pp. 25–7;Google ScholarCardoso, , ‘La formación…‘, pp. 168, 170, 180;Google ScholarSamper, , ‘Los productores…’, pp. 124–9, 131–4.Google Scholar For further discussion of works by Vega Carballo and, in particular, Mitchell, Seligson, Peasants of Costa Rica and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism (Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1980),Google Scholar see the author's doctoral dissertation, ‘Costa Rica Before Coffee: Society and Economy on the Eve of Agro-Export Based Expansion’ (University of Minnesota, 1982).Google Scholar

3 Seligson (Spanish edition, San, José, Editorial Costa Rica, 1980, pp. 27, 33) makes this claim explicitly, while the general idea underlies the arguments of many others as well. This represents essentially the same view as that put forward by Facio in 1942, with only minor variations. See the above-mentioned thesis (chapter 1) for further details.Google Scholar

4 Stone, , La dinastía…, pp. 72–3, 93–4.Google Scholar

5 Rodolfo, Cerdas, Formación del Estado en Costa Rica (San José, University of Costa Rica, 1964, 2nd edn. 1978).Google Scholar

6 Although Cerdas makes reference to several different activities (tobacco, sugar cane, etc.) developed more extensively in San José according to his view, the weight of the argument rests upon the restriction of tobacco-growing to San José by the Royal Monopoly Post of the late eighteenth century. However, Victor Hugo Acuña's work on tobacco exports and cultivation (‘Historia económica del tabaco: Epoca colonial’, Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos, No. 4 (1979), pp. 279–392) demonstrates how, despite significant expansion of external trade, no more than a favored minority of households were able to grow the product legally. It was, thus, unable to revolutionize either productive relations society-wide or local land tenure patterns. Moreover, both Cartago and Heredia continued producing some tobacco and exporting it illegally. Cerdas' more general point, that of direct or ‘semi-feudal’ extraction by the élite from the village peasantry, remains an important advance upon earlier mythological visions of a colonial ‘rural democracy’, even though we would argue that both Cartago and San José functioned on this basis prior to coffee culture.Google Scholar

7 The 1840s saw the initial take-off with coffee culture around San José and Heredia, Direct exports to London, by way of Cape Horn, began in 1843 and burgeoned thereafter, from 23,000 kilograms sent to Chile in 1832, to over 1,000,000 the 1840s, 4,000,000 in the 1850s, 11,000,000 by 1870, and over 20,000,000 by 1900 (Seligson, , Peasants…, pp. 19–20). The major data source for this paper is a manuscript census of the Central Valley region in 1843–6. For the documentary sources see: Archivo Nacional de Costa Rica (hereafter ANCR), Congreso, nos. 6564 (San José, 1843); 6547 (Alajuela, 1843); 5425 (Heredia, 1844); 5431 (Escazú, 1844); 5430 (San José, 1844); Gobernación, nos. 24906 (Cartago, 1844); 24905 (Alajuela, 1846); and Municipal Heredia, no. 481 (Heredia, 1 846). These are all manuscript census originals which report household level data. Most of these materials were coded for an SPSS program and processed mechanically. Some of the 1846 material was discovered only recently and was processed manually.Google Scholar

8 This population total for the city of Cartago includes the inhabitants of the two closest suburban parishes of Carmen and La Puebla. These criteria for defining Cartago's size were employed in the 1864 census and all later counts as well. Both were within immediate walking distance of the central city, at any rate.

9 Contemporaries characteristically referred to the close-in suburbs as part of the city population of San José. Foreign travelers consistently commented upon such compact, nucleated settlement in the midst of plentiful outlying lands. (Ricardo, Fernández Guardia, Costa Rica en el siglo XIX: Antología de viajeros (San José, 3rd ednEDUCA, 1972, 1st edn, 1929).)Google Scholar

10 That nucleated settlement predominated even in outlying villages is suggested by the 1824 census of Cartago (ANCR, Provincial Independiente, no. 939) in which the number of manzanas or blocks is reported for each settlement, regardless of size. Very little difference existed in terms of houses per block between larger and smaller settlements.

11 In one Cartago village, San Rafael de Oreamuno, the distinction was made within agriculture between agricultor and jornalero, with 22% of the male heads of household found in this latter category. Heredia's villages reported jornalero occupations in block, perhaps out of fear of taxation. Late colonial and early independent household lists often had such a taxation purpose as well. See ANCR, Gobernación, no. 9247 (13 11, 1829), in which 328 Cartago males were listed as pudientes and contributed 4 reales, while 625 appeared as jornaleros and paid with a day's labor on public roads.Google Scholar

12 Common village lands were still critically important through the first half of the nineteenth century. Extensive documentation exists for all four major settlements. Expropriation was carried out gradually, accelerating in the late 1850s.

13 For further details of village level inequality see chapter III of my thesis, and Estratificación socio-racial y económica de Costa Rica, 1700–1850 (San José, Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia, 1978), pp. 129–62.Google Scholar

14 Moritz, Wagner and Carl, Scherzer, La República de Costa Rica en la Américan Central (San José, Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes, 1974), p. 208.Google Scholar

15 ANCR, Provincial Independiente, no. 917, ‘Cartago Sur’ in 1824. The owners of the telares were all males, only one of whom was a tejendero. In total there were sixteen who declared this occupation in the city (tejedor, tejendero, etc.).

16 In San José in 1824 in addition to the 110 fábricas or household shops reported, there were 142 persons listed as cotton spinners (telar algodón), 39 in the centre, 46 north of the city in Tibás and 57 others in surrounding villages (ANCR, Provincial Independiente, no. 939, folio II). Local textile work was quickly replaced by imported cloth after the 1840s. Previous imports of raw cotton had come from both Panama and northern neighbors (Nicaragua and Guatemala). For a list of cotton imports in 1837 (66 shipments totaling 343 cargas, or 686 sacks) see ANCR, Hacienda, no. 10595. For earlier imports see ANCR, Guatemala, no. 967 (1813); Complementario Colonial, no. 3593 (1781); Federal, no. 801 (1825).

17 For reference to colonial apprenticeship see Estratificación…, pp. 24–5. Metalworking was not well documented in the contemporary sources. However, a leading Cartago merchant left nearly 6,000 pounds of iron in 18 lots when he died in 1850, likely to be supplied to the Puebla artisans for their work. (ANCR, Mortuales Independientes de Cartago, no. 1221, folio 21.)Google Scholar

18 For a suggestive comparison see Rosemary, D. F. Bromley, ‘The Functions and Development of “Colonial” Towns: Urban Change in the Central Highlands of Ecuador, 1698–1940’, Institute of British Geographers, vol. 4, no. 1 (1979), pp. 30–43.Google Scholar

19 ANCR, Municipal Alajuela, no. 468 (29 03, 1813), fo. 15v.Google Scholar

20 Victor, Hugo Acuña Ortega, ‘Historia económica del tabaco…’, pp. 279–392;Google ScholarCarlos, Araya Pochet, ‘La minería en Costa Rica (1821–1843)’, Revista de Historia, no. 2 (1976), pp. 8–123.Google Scholar

21 Four merchant designations are listed in the 1824 census of Cartago (mercader, pulpero, tratante, maritatero). The terms comerciante and trucbero were also commonly used at this time.

22 For lists of exporters and importers and their goods in 1836, 1839, 1845, and 1846 see the following sources: ANCR, Hacienda, nos. 10599, 10673, 10419, 6355, and La Gaceta, LVI, 16 (24 05, 1934), pp. 973–4.Google Scholar

23 Carlos, Araya Pochet, ‘La evolución de la economía tabacalera en Costa Rica bajo monopolio estatal (1821–1851)’, Avances de Investigación, no. 4 (University of Costa Rica, 1981), mimeographed. Clotilde Obregón Quesada, ‘Las relaciones entre Costa Rica y Gran Bretaña: I Parte, 1821–1860’ (unpublished manuscript).Google Scholar

24 Acuña, , ‘Historia económica del tabaco…’, pp. 325–6.Google Scholar

25 See Fernández, Guardia, Costa Rica en el siglo XIX…; and Wagner and Scherzer, La República de Costa Rica…Google Scholar

26 ANCR, Gobernación, no. 25809, ‘listas de vendedores de ropa en San José los sabados’. These ambulatory vendors paid one real tax per week in lieu of commercial patents. Their number varied from about thirty in March to over fifty in December and January of 1844–5; None was recognizable as a merchant from either notary or census records.

27 Victor, Hugo Acuña Ortega, ‘Capital comercial y comercio exterior en América Central durante el siglo XVIII: una contribución’, Estudios sociales centroamericanos, no. 26 (05–08) 1980, pp. 71–102, states flatly that ownership of commercial capital was more important than landholding during the late colonial period. This judgement would likely be shared by analysts of the major colonial centers of Spanish America as well.Google Scholar

28 Exclusion of women heading households from the sample leads to an understatement of reported inequality since most such women had little or no capital worth to report. The fifty peso estimate was based on the figures presented by Yolanda, Baires, ‘Las transacciones inmobiliarias y la expansión cafetalera en Costa Rica, 1800–1850’ (University of Costa Rica, 1976), mimeographed, p. 68, in which she calculated average sale prices of land over the period. This sum would still have purchased a one hectare plot of land in 1844, except in the closest areas surrounding San José.Google Scholar

29 The city of Heredia was dominated by a half-dozen leading merchant-landlord families. The top thirteen households reported almost 90% of all declared wealth among 553 families.

30 At the village level Heredia was only slightly less egalitarian than San José and Alajuela. The percentage of males with some capital worth in Heredia increased from 37 to 60 between age groups 15–29 and 40–49. The figures for San José were 41–64, and for Alajuela 50–69.

31 Wilhelm, Marr, in Fernández, Guardia, Costa Rica en el siglo XIX…, pp. 178–9.Google Scholar

32 ibid., pp. 181–2.

33 For citations to the notarial documentation supportive of this élite analysis see Gudmundson, ‘Costa Rica Before Coffee…’, Chapter III and Appendices A and F.

34 For the Mora–Montealegre battles see Carlos, Meléndez, Dr José María Montealegre (San José, Academia de Geografía e Historia, 1968), pp. 49–59;Google Scholar and Ciro, Cardoso and Héctor, Pérez, Centroamérica y la economía occidental, 1520–1930 (San José, University of Costa Rica, 1977), p. 238.Google Scholar

35 John, Lloyd Stephens, in Fernández, Guardia, Costa Rica en el siglo XIX…, p. 82.Google Scholar

36 ANCR, Provincial Independiente, no. 914 (1824).Google Scholar

37 See Gudmundson, , Hacendados, precaristas y políticos: La ganadería y el latifundismo guanacasteco, 1800–1950 (San José, Editorial Costa Rica, 1983), for details on this expropriation. Coffee production was specifically exempted by the new national administration from payment of the tithe after the early 1830s. For this reason, tithe revenues declined from locally important levels in the 1820s to relative significance by the late 1840s.Google Scholar

38 ANCR, Provincial Independiente, no. 728 (1823). The remainder of those on the list were leading merchants. Similar lists of major merchants and coffee planters in San José, against whose property forced loans were levied, can he found in Gobernación, nos. 23229 (1842) and 25010 (1846).Google Scholar

39 Eugenia, Garnier Castro, ‘La institución testamentaria en la colonia’, (Licenciatura Thesis, University of Costa Rica, 1977), describes the legal framework and examples of contrary colonial practice.Google Scholar

40 Seligson, Peasants of Costa Rica…, argues this more forcefully than any other recent analyst, but elements of this vision can also be found in the work of Stone and Vega Carballo as well. They are all ultimately traceable to various idealistic visions of the Facio-inspired paradigm of ‘closed’ economies amid smallholder self-sufficiency.