Gaúcho and gaucho: comparative sócio-economic and demographic change in Rio Grande do Sul and Buenos Aires Province, 1869-1920

Complex socio-economicchanges dramatically altered the composition and functioning of ranch society in Rio Grande do Sul and Buenos Aires province during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This essay examines comparatively some of the major socio-economíc and demographic changes that reshaped those regions and tests the validity of the theory of the demographic transition for both. Protests by the Brazilian nationalist Moysés Vellinho to the contrary notwithstanding, the pampean cattle regions of southem Brazil and Argentina displayed remarkably similar cultural characteristics and pattems of development. Differences arose in timing and degree, but both areas «rnodernized» according to the same general pattern, and both populations experienced the changes associated with the beginning of the demographic transition to lowered mortality and fertility. Their most significant difference lay in the realm of national politics. Rio Grande had a relatively weak voice in national poliey-making compared to the political hegemony of pampean cattle ranchers in Argentina. (1) Dense clouds of myth and symbol, exciting and occasionally half-true but at variance with social realities, obscure the histories of both Rio Grande and Buenos Aires province. Demographic data, principally from published censuses, offer a useful scalpel to slice through the veil of romanticism and reveal how both societies changed from the late 1800sto the early twentieth century. Gaúcho and gaucho defining the tenns is as difficult as detennining the social realities encompassed by them. The word «gaúcho» has been in use since the last quarter of the eighteenth century in the Rio de Ia Plata and most frequently referred to vagabond horsemen who chased, killed, and skinnedwild livestock and traded the hides illicitly. The term implied marginality and criminality, but by the nineteenth century it broadened to include virtually all rural horsemen who owened no land. The etymology and useage of the term «gaúcho» parallels that of gaucho and also suffers from a number of conflicting interpretations. (2) Both tenns are utilized in a non-pejorative sense throughout this paper to indicate the rural ranchworkers of Rio Grande and Buenos Aires province. Hoary myths of frontier individualism, independence, and egalitarianism clothe both Brazilian and Argentine horsemen. Mythical kníghts of the pamp!l pervade literature in both areas. Riograndense writers praise gaúchos as «vi-

rele, unafraid, rustic, strong, and chivalrous,s and romantícíze him as a eugenic paradigm -«a splendid animal of combat» who was at the same time jovial and noisily happy. This mythical, equestrian superman supposedly possessed a democratic spirit evidenced in the equal sharing of ranch work and in the «equality and familiarity between patrons and servants» that precluded the formation of rural social Classes. (3) Myth and romance also dominate the image of the Argentine gaucho. Twentieth-century nationalists rehabilitáted the once maligned horseman and cast him as the idealized paragon of Argentine national virtues. The lord of the pampa putatively exhibited generosity, valor, binding friendship, honesty, independence, and a tremendous latent energy and dynamism. «Free air and fat meat» , the ringing cry of the gaucho, bespoke the elegant simplicity of his straight forward, uncomplicated values and desires. ,(4) Such romantic depictions contain kemels of truth but reduce the gaúcho and gaucho to static, unidimensional caricatures. By analyzing demographic and socio-economicchanges as revealed in successive censuses, we may eschew the traditionalist fascination with the heroic, epic, and mythic and turn toward a more empirical examination of ranch society. Demographic variables indicate the rate, direction, and intensity of change. In general, the demographic similarities of Rio Grande and Buenos Aires underscore their cultural commonalities and point to differences in degree rather than type of social change. (5) Of the three major regions within Rio Grande -the Serra, Litoral, and Campanha -the latter most clearly evidences the state's cattle culture. Since the eighteenth century, the rolling hills of the Campanha, lluxuríant with grasses and umbu trees, have nourished livestock, prized first for their hides, later for jerked beef, and finally for high quality chilled and processed meat. The municipios or counties of the Campanha include Alegrete, Bagé, Dom Pedrito, Livramento, Quarahy, Rosario, and Uruguayana. Of all Brazilian counties in 1920, those of the Campanha ranked first in number of horses (Alegrete), first in sheep (Uruguayana), and first, second, and third in cattle (Alegrete, Uruguyana, and Livramento). (6) Argentina's cattle culture, spread over 21 million hectares of some of the world's richest, deepest topsoil, presented a more extensive but nevertheless distinctive region. Buenos Aires province, because of its political hegemony and the ready access of its port to overseas markets, dominated livestock production throughout the nineteenth century. The IProvincepresents a useful unit to compare to the Campanha, but owing to the disparity in size, selected partidos or counties will be analyzed more closely. These southem counties, Arenales, fAyacucho,Azul, General Alvear, Loberia, Olavarria, Tandil, and Tapalqúe, contained large ranches and vast herds of livestock like the Campanha and lay a sufficient distance from the national capital to dilute its powerful, urban influence. (7) Turbulent civil wars disrupted the Campanha and Buenos Aires province in the mid-nineteenth century as uncompromising factions battled for economic and political control. In the riograndense civil wars of 1833 to 1845, the catleranching elite struggled unsucéessfully for the regional autonomy necessary to ímodernízethe region' s economy and to compete favorably with Uruguay and Argentina. In 1852 a coalition of Argentine modemizers who sought to attract Europeu immigrants, capital, and markets, banded together with the Federalist caudillo from Entre Rios, General Justo José de Urquiza, to oust Juan Manuel de Rosas. Thereafter the processes of modernization began to transform both regions. New technologies, including wire fencing, windmills, hybrid livestock breeding, rairoads, and refrigeration, altered the traditionaI concentration upon hides and jerked beef. Both areas experienced the compelling forces of technological changes as well as an infusion of foreign influences. The impact came earlier and with greater force to Buenos Aires province, but both regions changed profoundly. (8) . Both Brazilian and Argentine ranchers eagerly pursued new tmarkets and technogical improvements to increase profits and consolidate their economic and political power. Argentine ranchers successfully operated as a dynamic, flexible, directing elite whose political might insured favorable tax, land, immigration, and labor policies. Provincial and national govemments played a positive, supportive role for the landed elite by promoting immigration, railroad building, land control, territorial expansion, and other policies consonant with rancher interests. (9) Riograndense ranchers harbored similar ambitions and sensed their deteriorating competitive position vis-a-vis neighboring Uruguay and Argentina. But coffee fazendeiros in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo ably wielded political clout to maintain taxes and duties that discriminated against cattle interests in the south. The Revolution of 1893-1895in Rio Grande may have signaled theranchers' violent raection to the longterm political marginality that hindered the economic growth of the region. (10) More than any other single factor, the political hegemony of ranchers in Buenos Aires province and the marginality of Campanha landowners in national affairs accounts for the relatively slower and less extensive modemization of Rio Grande.
Argentine estancieros, confidently controlling the national and provincial political machinery throughout the nineteenth century, responded creatively to changing world market demands. Exports shifted from the traditional emphasis on hides and jerked meat to chilled beef production. Table I illustrates this shift from 1876 to 1914. The traditional meat export, jerked beef, peaked in 1896 and dropped rapidly thereafter because of Uruguayan and Brazilian protectionism and because chilled beef shipped to Europe yielded a higher return. Sheep, prized for both mutton and fine wool, continued as an export mainstay. Live cattle shipments overseas had a precarious existence because of the constant thereat and ultimate reality of quarantines enacted by the United States and Great Britain to halt the spread of hoof and mouth disease. (11) The most dramatic success story on the Argentine pampa carne in cereals production. In addition to an impressive export tonnage (seeTable I), the relative proportion of total Argentine exports contributed by cereaIs shows a marked trend toward rural diversification. For the period from 1880 to 1884, livestock accounted for 89 percent of total Argentine exports and agriculture only 7 percent. Twenty years later the contribution of agriculture had risen to 47 percent of the total, and by 1920-1924,agriculturé provided 59 percent of total exports and livestock 37 percent. The rural economy of Buenos Aires province prospered and modernized as ranchers skillfully utilized foreign capital, markets, tenant farmers, and agricultura! laborers but still maintained control of the land. (12) Campanha raehers, unable to manipulate Brazilian policies in their favor, could not provide the same inviting milieu to foreigners. Economic growth and diversification Iagged behind Argentina. Jerked beef production (charque) remained the mainstay of the Campanha economy welI into the twentieth century. Rio Grande still maintained 31 charqueadas producing jerked beef in 1920. Eleven functioned in the Campanha. As Argentina vacated the charque market in favor of chilled beef, Rio Grande expanded a trend shown clearly in table 11.Six charqueadas were established in Bagé alone between 1897 and 1914. Although the first chilled beef processing plant opened in Rio Grande in 1903, only a decade after similar developments in Argentina, not until mid-World War I did Armour and Swift commence truly large scale operations in Lvramento and Rio Grande (city) respectively. These modern plants pointed the future direction of the livestock industry because together they could process more cattle than alI the charqueadas in the state. Meatpackers further altered traditional livestock management by lending technical assistance to breeders to improve the quality of the animais and to render them more suitable for chilled beef production. (13) Extensive cereal production carne to the Campanha later than to the Argentine pampa, but in both regions the inexorable advance of wheat brough dislocation and margina1ization to the ranch labor force. The technologicalIy unemployed gaúcho .exchanged bis horse for a tractor, watched livestock trails widened to aecomodate trucks, and heard the' clank of machinery shatter the pastoral peace of the Campanha grasslands. Long denied access to land ownershipe, the gaúcho, like bis Argentine counterpart, suffered the 108sof his means of livelihood -tending caUle and sheep. (14) Large landholdings remained a constant on both the riograndense and Argentina pampa despite the welter of rapid, complex changes. Some Argentine estancias had been estalished withlandgrants as large as 65,00 hectares or more. During the 18208, Santiago Tobal received nearly 46,000 hectaresin Tandil, Bartolo Pereyra 54,000 hectares in Loberia, and Juan M. Silva nearly 65,000 in AzuL In 191493 percent of rurallandholdings in the southern Argentine couties listed above contained only 53 percent of the land, while a mere 7 percent of the holdings held nearly half the land. Absentee ownership accom panied land monopoly as hired managers administered more than 58 percent of ali ranchs and farms. (15) The concentration of landownership in Rio Grande showed an even greater imbalance. In 1920 93 percent of a1lnative landholders controlIed only 30 percent of the land while the largest 7 percent controlled the other 70 percent of the land. The top 3 percent of alI landholdíngs 'accounted for 50 percent of the land. The rate of absentee ownershipe ran far below that of Buenos Aires province. SaJaried managers ran on1y 6 percent of ali holdings (representing 19 percent of the ruralland area), whereas owners themselves ran 88 percent of the holdings representing 72 percent of the land. (16) Riograndense ranchers personally managed their estates more often than their Argentine counterparts. The proximity of the Argentine national capital and the early development of an extensive rail network radianting out from Buenos Aíres permitted estancieros to enjoy both the income and pretige of landowning and the amenities of cosmopolitan, urban life in the port city.
The major demographic processes -migration, fertility, and mortality _ reinforce the similarities evident in land tenure and cultural traits of the two regions.lmmigration, however, played a greater role in Buenos Aires province and can be assessed the most significant social difference between the two regions, and, after the differential in political power within the nation, the second most important overall. After the fall of Rosas at Caceros in early 1852, liberal immigration policies together with the attractiveness of New World economic opportunity brought a flood tide of Europeans to the Argentine pampa. The percentage of foreigners in Buenos Aires province climbed from 20 in 1869 to 31 in 1895 and reached 34 by 1914. Ranching frontier areas such as the southem counties drew proportionately fewer ímmmíngrants than did agricultural and urban areas but still showed major increases in the foreign population. Foreigners accounted for only 15 percent of the total J!Opulationof the southem counties in 1869 but had doubled to 30 percent in 1914. (17) This trend also appeared in Rio Grande until 1900 but then reversed itself. The percentage of foreign and naturalized persons rose from 9 in 1872 to 12 in 1900 but then felI back to 7 in 1920. European immigrants to rio Grande most often settled in the litoral in agrícultural colonies such as São Leopoldo, These prosperous farming settlements of German and ltalian immigrants aided in the growth and diversification of the state' s economy. On the other hand, relatively few ventured into the Campanha ranching region. (18) The foreign-born populations of the two ranching areas exhibited the skewed age and sex distributions characteristic of European immigration to the Americas at the time. Adult males constituted a disproportionately large share of the population. The resulting surplus of manpower depressed wages and reduced the bargaining power of rural workers. Argentine price inflation outstripped real wages, and rural employers increased their profit margins at the expense of workers. A similar but less acute circumstance obtained among native workers in Rio Grande. According to Wolfgang Holffmann-Hamisch, a German traveler, the gaúcho cared nothing about money but rather concemed himself only with living a free, unfettered life. (19), This viewpoint only partially represents the true gaúcho mentality but it hints at a broader economic facto Lack of effective bargaining power, not simply lack of pecuniary interest, shaped the workers seeming indifference tomoney matters. Ranchers could dictate conditions and wages, and laborers could accept them or seek employment elsewhere.
A social manifestation of the age-sex imbalance among the immigrants was enforced bachelorhood for many rural males because of the relative shortage of young adult women.1n 1914 men in Buenos Aires province aged 20 to 39 outnumbered women of the same age by a ratio of 3 to 2. Among foreigners the ratio stood at 7 to 3. The sex ratio for Rio Grande do Sul ran about even for the total population between the ages of 21 and 39, but foreign men outnumbered foreign women 3 to 2. (20) Other demographic changes in addition to immigration affected and were affected by the many processes of modernization. The theory of the demographic transition -first formulated by Warren Thompson in 1929, and refine by Donald Cowgilland others -summarizes the major relationships between demographic change and other aspects of modernization. Because of improved health, better medical care, developing contraceptive technology, Estudos Ibero-Americanos, 11 (1980) and changing values, mortality and fertility decline during modernization. Mortality decline precedes fertility decline thereby prompting a rise in the rate of natural population increase during the early stages of the transition. A societh also becomes on the average «older», more evenly balanced between men and women, and more urbano This change from high mortality and high fertility toward lower rates of both creates major social changes for a modernizing society. (21) The pattern of demographic change in Buenos Aires province appears consonant with this theory. Its populations became older on the average. The percentage of children under age 10in the total population of Buenos Aires province felI from 33 to 28 between 1869 and 1914. The percentage of older adults above the age of 60 rose from 2,2 to 4.3 for the same period. Rio Grande seeemingly represents an anomalous case because the percentage of children apparently rose from 15 to 31 while that of older adults dropped from 14 to 4 from 1872to 1920. In an evaluation of past censuses carried out in 1943, the eminent Brazilian demographer Giorgio Mortara concluded that enumerators in 1872 under counted children under age 6 and overstated the ages of the elderly. The age-sex structure for Rio Grande in 1872 should probably conform closely to that of the southern Buenos Aires couties in 1869, but further demographic study is necessary. (22) As the populations became older or more mature on the average, the proportion of women also increased. The trend is clearest for Rio Grande where the manculinity ratio (number of males por 1000 total population) dropped from 521 in 1872 to 508 in 1900 and reached 506 in 1920. although immigration disrupted the even balance of the sexes, especialIy in Buenos Aires province, the native populations there and in the Campanha tendent to equalize. The masculinity ratio for native Argentines in tghe province stood at 509 in 1914 -close to the 506 registered for Rio Grande in 1920. (23) By the second decade of the twentieth century, both regions had commenced the journey toward more mature, sexually balanced societies characteristic of modern nations.
Change in fertility, a demographic measure of central importance, can be gauged by a fertility ratio; that is, the number of children aged Oto 5 per 100 women aged 15  War L The ARgentine rate fluctuated within a narrow range between 34 and 39. the crude birth rate for Rio Grande dipped during l!he fist 5 years of the twentieth . century then climbed rapidly from a low of 23 to 36 in 1915 -a figure nearly equal to the Argentine rate. Long term fertility decline in Rio Grande commenced about 1918 when the rate began to fall from its high point of 36. Argentina also made an initial transition toIower fertility during World War L (25) Other factors, notably age of marriage, require investigation for a better understanding of rio Grande's generally lower fertility during the período Mortality trends, like fertility rates, appear consistent with the theory of the demographic transition. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the crude death rate (number of deaths per 1000 total population) declined in Buenos Aires province while it rose in Rio Grande until it coincided with the ARgentine rate from 1912 to 1915. Long term decline in "rio Grande's mortality figure began after 1918 when it peaked at 16 deaths per 1000 populations. The Argentina rate, except for a brief rise from 1903 to 1907, showed a similar decline after the turn of the century. Once again, the demographic changes appear to begin earlier on the Argentine pampa than in the Campanha. The rates of natural increase (births minus deaths) climbed in both areas although the Argentine figures showed signs of leveling off jus prior to World War I. The «fit» of the data is perfect in neither region, but the theory of the demographic transition seems to hold explanatory potential. (26) Urbanization forms an integral part of the transitiõn processo Both the Campanha region and Buenos Aires province urbanized albeit less extensively than other parts of Brazil and Argentina. In the Campanha the administrative seat of the município usually represented the only urbanized area in the county. The city of Uruguayana, described iniunflattering terms by a traveler in the 1880s as "a large cemetery,» likely resenbled other towns of the Campanha. It boasted the best theater on the border, the «Carlos Gomes», but unplastered building and poor street lighting marred the tow's appearance. Inconstant mail and telegraph service and inadequate rail conhections, chronic problems in the entire region, also plagued Uruguayana. Similarly, a traveler on the southern Argentino pampa in 1875 describe Olavarria as "a sad desert». On a return visit four years later he found a town of 1000 persons with simple buildings of sun-dried brick and no planted gardens despite the pampa's rich soil. (27) From these humble origins, some towns grew to modest size. In the Campanha, BAgé 'grew to a population of. 12,500 and Uruguayana to 12,000 by 1900, but a rural ambience remained. When juxtaposed with the burgeoning centers of thelLitoral, the dispersed Campanha towns appeared backward ando relatively static in population well into the twentieth century. At the turn of the century ,the region continued to be 66 percent rural, with Rosario still 94 percent rural. Urbanization in Argentina followed the same general pattern as county seats grew into the only significant towns of each partido. Loberia, 100 percent rural in 1869, remained 75 percent rural in 1914 as did Olavarría. Of the counties of the southern pampa, only Azul, with 39 percent of its populations residing in the countryside, could de classified more urban than rural in 1914. Larger towns such as Azul grew to 20,000 and Tandil to 16,000 in 1914, but mos county seats ranged from 2,400 to 8,000 inhabitants. The entire pro-vince of Buenos Aires moved from 82 percent rural in 1869 to 65 percent in 1895 to 46 percent in 1914, but most pampean towns survived by serving the rural economy and generated few self-sustaining features. (28) Serial discussion of these factors obscures their .interrelationships. IFor example, the concentration of landownership blocked an important avenue to economic well-being and forced many persons to migrate to cities. This stimulated urbanization. Furthermore, the social demensions of demographic change are far more significant than the figures themselves. Lowered mortality influences cultural mores such as mouming practices, religions beliefs, family structure, the intensity of parent-child ties, time orientation, and fertility. Large numbers of children, prized during high mortality eras as a form of old-age social security and necessary to the survival of the lineage, appear less necessary as more people live to an older age. Thus mortality and fertility decline closely interact. As the age composition of a society shifts toward maturity, the average age and hence flexibility of the labor force increases and consumption pattems alter because «younger» societies must devote relatively more income to services for dependent children. (29) These putative advantages of a more mature society; however, were largely attenuated in the two regions discussed by the continued domination of large landowners. The rural masses reaped few of the advantages of «modernization». Class mortality differentials -what has been termed the «social inequality of death» -meant that the wealthier segment of tbe rural population benefited more._Improvements in medical knowledge, health care, and technology did not distribute themselves equally over the entire population. Comparative rural class differentials in mortality, fertility, and social measures require further examination. (30) The skewed sex composition of the Campanha and the Argentine pampa, with a disproportionate percentage of adult males, probably increased fertility by encouraging women to marry atan earlier age. Massive immigration, the factor responsible for sexual imbalance, disrupted rural society, sometimes to the point of violent nativism. One such outbreak occurred in 1872 in Tandil on the southem Argentine pampa when a xenophobic horde of gauchos massacred about seventeen foreigners. Immigration also intensified competition for jobs and land, further constricted economic opportunity, and necessitated migration to larger cities, usually along the coast. (31) Given the general conformity of the demographic histories of Rio Grande and Buenos Aires province to transition theory, other changes associated with the teory perhaps obtain. According to the theory, individualism should gain and familialism decline as core social values. The division of labor should become more complex as economic and social structures become more specialized and differentiated. Faced with longer life expectancies, people should marry at a later age thereby automatícallyjreducing total fertility. Geographical mobility, rural to urban migration in particular, should increase as men and women seek better employment and more promising marital prospects in larger cities. (32) These theoretical conjectures go beyond the bounds of empirical research at it now stands. But the socio-economíc and demographic data presented above indicate that the ranching societies of Brazil and Argentine presented a more complex and variegated fabric than the simplistic mythology of the areas would indicate. The colorful, romantic stereotypes of the gaúcho and gaucho popularized in myriad fictional works did not actually ride the (southern pampas. On the other hand, rural workers who lived 00 the pampa changed in composition and in their relative concentration in various sectors of the economy. Migratory gauchos, termed a «dying or extinct class» by a Briton in 1911, were transformed into sedentary ranch laborers with altered equipment and reduced numbers. The rural division of labor from peon up to manager and landownerlbecame more complex and specialized as modernization and mechanization altered the nature-of ranch work. (33) Women, the forgotten half of rural society, also played significant economic roles. They oftenoperated country stores and tavems, served as midwives and teachers, husked com and reaped wheat on farms, and sheared sheep on ranches. (34) Ranching are as of Rio Grande and Buenos Aires province exhibited many socio-economic and demographic similarities and appear to conform to the broad outlines of the theory of the demographic transition. As one scholar has noted, «the press of hard .times and the opportunities of happier periods are reflected in historical demography like ímages in a camera obscura.. (35) Census and other statistical data, however imprecise and incomplete, add further pieces do the mosaic of history for the two regions. Theories, such as that of the demographic transition, provide useful working hypotheses to point up new areas of investigation. The applicaton of such tools can help to move the vision of ranching society from the realm of myth toward that of historical study and empirical understanding. The true gaúchos and gauchos of the South American pampas will then emerge.