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On Comparative History: A Reply to Tom Brass

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Laird W. Bergad
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Extract

In his comment on my article ‘Coffee and Rural Proletarianization in Puerto Rico, 1840–1898’ (Journal of Latin American Studies, XV, no. 1, May 1983, pp. 83–100), Tom Brass is to be lauded for the comparative observations used to contest my conclusions on proletarianization in the coffee-producing regions of 19th-century Puerto Rico. By examining some of the literature on coffee expansion in Brazill and Colombia, and comparing these cases with Puerto Rico, Dr Brass concludes that the development of capitalist agriculture, when accompanied by labour scarcity, results in ‘unfree labour’ rather than the development of free wage labour as I have indicated to be the case for Puerto Rico' coffee sector.

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Articles
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Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 153 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 In the conclusion of my book Coffee and the Growth of Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 211–23, I offer some brief comparative observations on coffee's development in Costa Rica, Cuba, Colombia, and Brazil. Much of the same literature noted by Dr Brass was used.Google Scholar

2 Dr Brass has erred in his reading of my analysis of the 1849 jornalero law in Puerto Rico. I concluded quite clearly that this law did not produce a class of day laborers but rather a class of renters bound to the landed élite through rental contracts that exempted them from the jornalero classification.

3 Population increased from 583, 308 in 1860, 810, 394 in 1883, to 953,000 in 1900. See Bergad, , Coffee and the Growth, pp. 69 and 222.Google Scholar For coffee prices see Bergad, , ‘Coffee and Rural Proletarianization’, p. 87.Google Scholar

4 One only must look to population density statistics to underline the vast difference between the three countries. In 1900 Puerto Rico had a population density of 277.4 inhabitants per square mile. By way of comparison, in the same year the figure for Cuba was 35.6; for Costa Rica 14.6; for Colombia 8.4; and for Brazil 5.3. See Bergad, , Coffee and the Growth, p. 222.Google Scholar

5 I must thank Dr Brass for pointing Out the contradiction between my contention that the 1849 jornalero law resulted in the development of a ‘free’ labour force and the ‘unfree’ conditions resulting from the law. The term ‘non-slave’ rather than ‘free’ would have been more appropriate.

6 Upward trends in wage rates are noted for Colombia by Dr Brass in his comment and for Puerto Rico in my article. For Costa Rica, see Ciro, F. S. Cardoso, ‘The Formation of the Coffee Estate in Nineteenth-Century Costa Rica’, in Kenneth, Duncan and Ian, Rutledge (eds.), Land and Labour in Latin America: Essays on the Development of Agrarian Capitalism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 165–202;Google ScholarCarolyn, Hall, El café y el desarrollo histórico-geográfico de Costa Rica (San José, Editorial Costa Rica y Universidad Nacional, 1977),Google Scholar and Mitchell, A. Seligson, Peasants of Costa Rica and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1980).Google Scholar