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The Search for a Series of Small Successes: Frontiers of Settlement in Eastern Bolivia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

J. Valerie Fifer
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Extract

Few thinly populated regions of the world represent genuine frontiers of settlement. The tendency to describe almost any area of sparse population as a settlement ‘frontier’ is not uncommon, especially in studies of Latin America. What matters, however, is what is going on within such sparsely populated zones, or indeed within more densely populated zones which are in an active frontier stage.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , November 1982 , pp. 407 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Details may be found in Fifer, J. V., Bolivia: Land, Location, and Politics since 1825 (Cambridge, 1972).Google Scholar

2 See Fifer, J. V., ‘The Empire Builders: A History of the Bolivian Rubber Boom and the Rise of the House of Suárez’, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 2 (1970), pp. 113–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 This was echoed in the report of the Superintendent of the Census (1890): ‘Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into… that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it can nor, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports.’ Frederick Jackson Turner took these words as his text for his influential paper read in Chicago in July 1893 on ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History.’ What little European migrant ‘overspill’ occurred in South America was mainly into countries of the southern cone, not into Bolivia. In fact, the greatest period in United States' immigration was about to begin. Between 1900 and 1914, an unprecedented flood of new immigrants entered the USA, over 9 millions, most of whom were absorbed into the cities and the manufacturing industries.

4 In addition to official reports, an extensive literature on Bolivian land reform and colonization includes: Heath, D. B., ‘Land Reform in Bolivia’, Inter-American Economic Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1959), pp. 3–27,Google Scholar and ‘Commercial Agriculture and Land Reform in the Bolivian Oriente’, ibid., XIII, No. 2 (1959), pp. 35–45; Crossley, J. C., ‘Santa Cruz at the cross-roads, a study of development in Eastern Bolivia’, Tijdschrift voor Econornische en Sociale Geografie, Vol.. 52 (1961), pp. 197–206 and 230–41;Google ScholarMarus, J. W. and Monje Rada, J., Análisis de la características sócio-económicas de las colonias: Estudios de Colonización en Bolivia (2 vols, La Paz, 1962);Google ScholarMonheim, F., Junge Indianerkolonisation in den Tieflandern Ostboliviens (Braunschweig, 1965);Google ScholarFifer, J. V., ‘Bolivia's Pioneer Fringe’, Geographical Review, Vol. 57 (1967), pp. 1–23;CrossRefGoogle ScholarEdelmann, A. T., ‘Colonization in Bolivia: Progress and Prospects’, Inter-American Economic Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 4 (1967), pp. 39–54Google ScholarWessel, K. L., ‘An Economic Assessment of Pioneer Settlement in the Bolivian Lowlands’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1968);Google ScholarHeath, D. B., Erasmus, C. J., and Buechler, H. C., Land Reform and Social Revolution in Bolivia (New York, 1969);Google ScholarThompson, S. I., ‘San Juan de Yapacaní: a Japanese pioneer community in Eastern Bolivia’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1970);Google ScholarNelson, M., The Development of Tropical Lands: Policy Issues in Latin America (Baltimore, 1973),Google Scholarpassim;Google ScholarCrist, R. E. and Nissly, C. M., East from the Andes: pioneer settlements in the South American heartland (Gainesville, 1973), pp. 125–54;Google ScholarStearman, A. M., ‘Colonization in Eastern Bolivia: Problems and Prospects’, Human Organization, Vol. 32 (1973), pp. 285–93;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHiraoka, M., ‘Pioneer Settlement in Eastern Bolivia’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1974);Google ScholarFletcher, G. R., ‘Santa Cruz: a study of economic growth in Eastern Bolivia’, Inter-American Economic Affairs, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1975), pp. 23–41;Google ScholarWennergren, E. B. and Whitaker, M. D., The Status of Bolivian Agriculture (New York, 1975), pp. 260–75, and passim.Google Scholar

5 Rens, J., ‘The Andean Programme’, International Labour Review, Vol. 84 (1961), pp. 423–61;Google Scholar and ‘The Development of the Andean Programme and its Future’, ibid., LXXXVIII (1963), pp. 547–63.

6 Anstee, M. J., Gate of the Sun: a prospect of Bolivia (London, 1970), pp. 200–4.Google Scholar

7 Zeballos-Hurtado, H., ‘From the Uplands to the Lowlands: an economic analysis of Bolivian rural-rural migration’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1975), pp. 178–81.Google Scholar

8 The role of the sindicato has been widely studied in a variety of Bolivian settings, e.g. Patch, R. W., ‘Bolivia: the restrained revolution’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 304 (1961), pp. 123–32;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Peasantry and National Revolution: Bolivia’, in Silvert, K. H. (ed.) Expectant Peoples: Nationalism and Development (The American Universities Field Staff, 1963; New York, 1967), pp. 95–126;Google ScholarHeath, D. B., ‘The Aymara Indians and Bolivia's Revolutions’, Inter-American Economic Aftairs, Vol. 19, No. 4 (1966), pp. 31–40,Google Scholar and ‘Bolivia: Peasant Syndicates among the Aymara of the Yungas - a view from the grass roots’, in Landsberger, H. A. (ed.) Latin American Peasant Movements (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969), pp. 170–209;Google ScholarBuechler, H. C. in Land Reform and Social Revolution in Bolivia, pp. 227–40;Google ScholarClark, R. J., ‘Bolivia’ in Dorner, P. (ed.) Land Reform in Latin America: issues and cases (Madison, Wisc., 1971) pp. 129–64;Google ScholarMcEwen, W. J., Changing Rural Society: a study of Communities in Bolivia (New York),Google ScholarKohl, J. V., ‘Peasant and Revolution in Bolivia, April 9, 1952-August 2, 1953’ Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 58 (1978), pp. 238–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Spontaneous colonization does not of course invariably result in higher family incomes when compared with those in the home area or in a directed colony. Much depends, for example, on location, soils, access to market, individual skills, and outside sources of income at critical periods. See reports of the National Colonization Institute, La Paz, passim; also, on related issues, see Wennergren, E. B. and Whitaker, M. D., ‘Investment in Access Roads and Spontaneous Colonization: additional evidence from Bolivia’, Land Economics, Vol. 52 (1976), pp. 88–95;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMaxwell, S., ‘Colonos Marginalizados al norte de Santa Cruz: avenidas de escape de la crisis del barbecho’, Working Paper No. 4, Centro de Investigación Agrícola Tropical (Santa Cruz, 1979),Google Scholar and ‘Differentiation in the colonies of Santa Cruz: causes and effects’, Working Paper No. 13, ibid. (1980).

10 Stevens, C., ‘The San Julián Consolidation Project Engineering Analysis’, Working Paper No. 1, prepared for US/AID, La Paz, Bolivia (Experience Incorporated, Washington, D.C., 1979).Google Scholar

11 Harper, H. and Clyburn, L.Google Scholar, Working Paper No. 2, ibid.

12 This includes the Japanese colonies of Okinawa and San Juan de Yapacaní, the Mennonite colonies, and small numbers of German, Italian, Russian and a few other foreign colonists, nearly all of whom arrived during the 19505 and 1960s. In the late 1970s, the so-called Anglo Bolivian Land & Cattle Co. was launched by a US businessman with the aim of attracting foreign, including Rhodesian, homesteaders to ‘the booming new frontier in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.’ The venture has not proved popular either with the Bolivians or with overseas settlers. In 1981, a new company was organized, Bolivian Land and Forestry Ltd., to market 5-hectare eucalyptus tree plantations directly to investors.