CHAPTER I

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THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

+----------------------------------------------+

| _BY PIERRE DENIS_ |

| |

| BRAZIL |

| |

| Translated, and with an Historical |

| Chapter by BERNARD MIALL. |

| With a Supplementary Chapter |

| by DAWSON A. VINDIN, |

| a Map and 36 Illustrations |

| |

| _Cloth, 15/- net. Third Impression_ |

| |

| |

| "Altogether the book is full of information, |

| which shows the author to have |

| made a most careful study of the |

| country."--_Westminster Gazette._ |

| |

| T. Fisher Unwin Ltd London |

+----------------------------------------------+

[Illustration: THE FALLS OF THE YGUASSU.

_Thirteen miles above the confluence with the Parana. Like the

Parana at the Salto Guayra, the river cuts through a layer of basalt

intercalated in the red sandstone. The forest of the province of

Misiones has a tropical character near the river. The araucarias cover

only the higher parts of the tableland._

PLATE I. Frontispiece.]

THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

Its Development and Progress

by

PIERRE DENIS, D. ES L.

Agrege d'Histoire et de Geographie

Translated by Joseph McCabe

T. Fisher Unwin Ltd

London: Adelphi Terrace

First published in English in 1922

(All rights reserved)

INTRODUCTION

In the following chapters I have endeavoured to indicate the

essential aspects of colonization in modern Argentina: the conquest

of the soil by man, the exploitation of its natural resources, the

development of agriculture and cattle-breeding, and the growth of the

population and enlargement of the urban centres.

For a new country like Argentina it is not convenient to adopt the

strictly regional plan which seems to be the best means of giving

a complete and methodical description of the historic countries of

western Europe, where it is the only way to keep in close touch with

the geographical facts. In western Europe each region is really an

independent unity. It has for ages lived upon its own resources; each

population-group has its horizon definitely limited; and the complex

action of the environment upon man, and of man upon the country,

has proceeded in each district rather on the lines of an isolated

and impassioned dialogue between the two. It is quite different in

Argentina. There, many of the facts which we have to record consist in

an expansion of the population, a spread of methods of exploitation

from zone to zone of the country, and the influence upon colonization

of commerce and of the varying needs of the markets of the world.

It may be well to reply in advance to a criticism which my Argentine

friends are sure to make. They will complain that I have paid no

attention to the people of Argentina, the creators of the greatness of

the country. It is true that I have deliberately refrained from any

reference to the political and moral life of the Republic, the national

character and its evolution, the stoicism of the gaucho, the industry

of the colonist and the merchant, or the patriotism of the Argentinians

generally. My work is not a study of the Argentine nation, but a

geographical introduction to such a study.

I began the work during a stay in Argentina which lasted from April

1912 to August 1914. In the course of these two years I was able to

visit most parts of the country; and, as the information I gathered

during my travels is one of my chief sources, I give here a summary of

my itineraries.

_October-November 1912_: Rosario--Region of the

colonies of Santa Fe--Forestry-industries of the Chaco

Santiagueno--Banados of the Rio Dulce--Salta--Jujuy--Sierra de

la Lumbrera.

_November-December 1912_: Tucuman--Valley of Tapi--Santa Maria

to the west of Aconcagua--Cafayate (Valley of Calchaqui).

_December 1912-January 1913_: Catamarca--Andalgala--Valley of

Pucara--Cordoba--Villa Maria.

_January-February 1913_: Region of the Pampas (Province of

Buenos Aires, south of Cordoba and of S. Luis, district of the

Central Pampa).

_March 1913_: Corrientes--Posadas--Asuncion--Forest-industries

of the Chaco of Santa Fe.

_August 1913_: Region of the Pampas (Province of Buenos Aires).

_March 1914_: Lake Nahuel Huapi--Valcheta--San Antonio--The

Rio Negro.

_April 1914_: Rioja--Sierra de los Llanos--San Juan--Mendoza.

_July 1914_: Entre Rios.

These journeys, by rail or on well-known roads, were not supposed to

be for the purpose of exploration or discovery. Their one object was

to enable me to make a provisional classification of the chief types

of country and forms of colonization, and to draw up a methodical

programme for more thorough research. The work which I trusted to

do in a more leisurely way was, however, suspended in 1914, and, in

spite of my very strong desire to do so, I was unable to resume it on

the spot in 1919. I have therefore been compelled to publish my first

observations, completing them, as well as I could, by a bibliographical

study of the country. I have made use of some fragments of a popular

work which I began, at the request of the Argentine Commission, for the

International Exhibition at San Francisco, of which several chapters

were published in my absence by the University of Tucuman (Pierre

Denis, _Modern Argentina: Chapters of Economic Geography_. Publications

of the University during the Centenary of the Congress of Tucuman of

1816. Buenos Aires, 1916).[1]

[1] I take the opportunity to thank M. J. B. Teran, who

undertook to edit these chapters, and to express, with him, my

satisfaction that events have falsified his rather pessimistic

predictions as regards the author.

My knowledge of the publications on Argentina has two conspicuous

gaps. The first is deliberate. I declined to study at second hand the

documents and chronicles which are our sources, to the end of the

eighteenth century, for the history of the various provinces that were

to form Argentina. Hence the historical data on colonization which

will be found in the following chapters relate almost entirely to the

nineteenth century.

The second gap I was, to my great disappointment, unable to fill up.

A large part of the local publications--official or other--maps,

statistics, etc., never reached Europe, and Buenos Aires is the only

place where one can make a thorough study of them. These publications

were available to me until 1914. Since then I have been restricted to

the resources of the Paris and London libraries, which are very scanty;

and less has been sent from Argentina since the war. I have not the

complete statistics up to date.

I trust, however, that this picture of Argentina has much more than

a retrospective character; that it is not out of date before it is

published. I may add that no statistics would enable one to solve

the problem which Argentina in 1920 presents to an observer. Has the

European War merely retarded the economic evolution of the country,

or has it given that evolution a new direction? Will or will not the

relations which Argentina is now resuming with the rest of the world be

of the same character as the pre-war relations?

The effects of the war upon the life of the country must not all be

put on the same footing. That some of the exporters to Argentina

have gained by the war and others lost--that the share of the United

States, and even of Japan, has greatly increased--is a fact that

may be regarded from the Argentinian point of view as of secondary

importance. The war has, moreover, had the effect of disorganizing

marine transport and bringing about a sort of relative isolation which

is not yet quite over. The reduction in the imports of English coal has

made the petroleum wells of Rivadavia of greater value to the country.

It has compelled the Argentinians to make a hurried inventory of their

natural resources in the way of fuel. Local industries have tried to

meet the needs of the Argentinian market, where they had no longer to

bear the competition of European goods. The grave disturbance of prices

has enabled them to export certain products which had hitherto been

confined to home markets. The war has, moreover, not interfered with

the existing streams of export on a large scale from Argentina. The

Republic continues to send its cereals, meat, hides and wool to Europe;

and there is no reason to suppose that the competition of buyers is

likely to diminish, or that the cultivation of wheat and lucerne must

become less profitable.

The two essential effects of the war seem to have been the stopping of

the stream of immigration and the progressive reduction of the support

which Europe gave to the work of colonization in the form of advances

of capital.

From 1914 to 1918 only 272,000 immigrants landed at Buenos Aires, while

482,000 emigrants left the country. In 1918 the figure of immigration

and emigration was only 47,000, less than a tenth of what it was in a

normal year before the war. The withdrawal of European capital was felt

from the very beginning of the war, and it has gone on uninterruptedly,

capital from North America not being enough to supply the deficiency

entirely. At the same time the extraordinarily favourable balance

of trade has led to the storing of an ample reserve of capital in

the country. Argentina has, in a very short time, won a financial

independence which, in normal conditions, would have entailed long

years of work and prosperity.

However it may seem, these two facts--the interruption of immigration

and the accumulation of capital--cannot be considered independently

of each other. The inquiry opened by the Social Museum of Argentina

(_La inmigracion despues de la guerra_, Museo Social Argentino, "Bol.

Mensual," viii, 1919, nos. 85-90) show that a speedy restoration of

immigration is expected in the Republic. Certainly it seems clear

that the political and social insecurity in Europe, the misery of the

old world, will probably enhance the attractions of Argentina. We

must remember, however, that the stream of emigration from Europe to

the Republic in the nineteenth, and the beginning of the twentieth,

century was provoked by a complex combination of economic conditions

which were closely related to each other. High wages in Argentina were

connected with the high interest on money; that is to say, in other

words, with the scarcity of capital. The future will decide whether

immigration, and the rapid progress of colonization and production,

which characterize pre-war Argentina can be adjusted to the policy of

accumulation of capital to which the war has condemned the country.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 5

CHAPTER I

THE NATURAL REGIONS OF ARGENTINA 17

The physical environment--Colonization and the natural

regions--The struggle with the Indians--Argentine

unity--Argentina and the world.

CHAPTER II

THE OASES OF THE NORTH-WEST 36

The inhabited zones of the Andes in the north-west--_Valles_,

_Quebradas_, _Puna_--The irrigation of the _valles_--The

historic routes--Convoys of stock--The breeding of mules and

the fairs--The struggle of the breeders against drought--The

Sierra de los Llanos.

CHAPTER III

TUCUMAN AND MENDOZA 68

Tucuman and the road to Chile--The climate and the cultivation

of the sugar-cane--The problem of manual labour--Irrigation at

Mendoza--Water-rights--Viticulture--Protection and the natural

conditions.

CHAPTER IV

THE EXPLOITATION OF THE FORESTS 96

Manual labour on the _obrajes_--The land of the _banados_

and the agricultural cantons of Corrientes--The timber-yards

of the Chaco and the tannic-acid works of the Parana--The

exploitation of the _mate_--The forestry industry and

colonization.

CHAPTER V

PATAGONIA AND SHEEP-REARING 119

The arid tableland and the region of glacial lakes--The

first settlements on the Patagonian coast and the indigenous

population--Extensive breeding--The use of pasture on the

lands of the Rio Negro--Transhumation.

CHAPTER VI

THE PLAIN OF THE PAMPAS 161

The limits of the prairie--The rains--The wind and the

formation of the clay of the Pampas--The wind and the

contour--The zones of colonization on the Pampas--Hunting

wild cattle and primitive breeding--The sheep-farms--The

ranches--The region of "colonies"--The region of lucerne,

maize, and wheat--The combination of agriculture and

breeding--The economic mechanism of colonization--The

exchanges between the different zones of the Pampas.

CHAPTER VII

ROADS AND RAILWAYS 209

Roads on the plain--The salt road--The "trade

route"--Transport by ox-waggons--_Arrieros_ and

_Troperos_--Railways and colonization--The trade in

cereals--Home traffic and the reorganization of the system.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RIVER-ROUTES 234

The use of the river before steam navigation--Floods--The

river plain--The bed of the Parana and its changes--The

estuary and its shoals--Maritime navigation--The boats on the

Parana.

CHAPTER IX

THE POPULATION 260

The distribution of the population--The streams of emigration

to the interior--Seasonal migrations--The historic towns--The

towns of the Pampean region--Buenos Aires.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 277

INDEX 291

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE

I. THE FALLS OF THE YGUASSU _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

II. THE ARID ANDES--

PUNTA VACAS, ON THE TRANS-ANDEAN RAILWAY 22

QUEBRADA DE IRUYA 22

III. THE PATAGONIAN ANDES 38

IV. VEGETATION OF THE INTERIOR VALLEYS (ANDES OF THE NORTH-WEST) 48

FOREST ON THE OUTER SLOPE OF THE SUB-ANDEAN CHAINS 48

V. DRY SCRUB OF THE CENTRAL CHACO 58

MARSHES (ESTEROS OR CANADAS) OF THE EASTERN CHACO 58

VI. THE _VALLE_ OF SANTA MARIA, NORTH-WEST OF MOUNT ACONCAGUA 70

THE OASIS OF ANDALGALA 70

VII. THE OASIS DEL RINCON, BELOW SAUJIL (ANDALGALA LINE,

PROVINCE OF CATAMARCA) 82

THE MONTE AT EL YESO 82

VIII. A VINEYARD AT SAN JUAN 92

A VINEYARD AT MENDOZA 92

IX. THE LAND OF THE BANADOS 100

LORETO: FARMING BY INUNDATION 100

X. LORETO: THE RIO PINTO IN THE DRY SEASON 112

LA BANDA (SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO) 112

XI. QUEBRACHO TRUNKS LYING AT THE STATIONS 116

XII. YOKE OF CREOLE OXEN USED FOR THE TRANSPORT OF TIMBER ON THE

EASTERN CHACO, OR CHACO OF SANTA FE 128

WORKS AT TARTAGAL (EASTERN CHACO) FOR MAKING TANNIC ACID 128

XIII. THE VOLCANO PUNTIAGUDO 142

CERCAS ON THE LIMAY (RISING IN LAKE NAHUEL HUAPI), NEAR THE

CONFLUENCE OF THE TRAFUL 142

XIV. THE PATAGONIAN TABLELAND (NEUQUEN) 154

XV. THE PAMPEAN PLAIN--

TRES ARROYES (BUENOS AIRES PRAIRIE BETWEEN THE SIERRA DE

TANDIL AND THE SIERRA DE LA VENTANA) 166

TOAY, ON THE CENTRAL PAMPA (590 FEET) 166

XVI. THE PAMPEAN PLAIN--

THE RIO BAMBA (IN THE SOUTH OF THE CORDOBA PROVINCE,

500 FEET ABOVE SEA-LEVEL) 182

BUENA ESPERANZA (SAN LUIS PROVINCE, 1,166 FEET

ELEVATION) 182

XVII. THE PAMPEAN PLAIN--

BUENA ESPERANZA (SAN LUIS PROVINCE) 194

JUNIN (150 MILES WEST OF BUENOS AIRES, 330 FEET

ELEVATION) 194

XVIII. AN OX WAGON 210

THE MAIL COACH 210

XIX. THRESHING ON THE PAMPA 220

SACKS OF WHEAT READY FOR LOADING ON THE RAILWAY 220

XX. CONFLUENCE OF THE YGUASSU AND THE PARANA 236

XXI. THE PARANA AT CORRIENTES 244

THE BARRANCA AT PARANA (ENTRE RIOS), LEFT BANK 244

XXII. THE PARANA ABOVE THE ESTUARY 250

XXIII. THE OLDER INDUSTRIES OF THE PAMPA--

DRYING HIDES 262

DRYING SALT MEAT 262

XXIV. A HERD OF CREOLE CATTLE 268

A HERD OF DURHAM CATTLE 268

MAPS

I. ARGENTINA: THE NATURAL REGIONS 28

II. IRRIGATION IN THE WEST AND NORTH-WEST OF ARGENTINA 52

III. THE CATTLE-BREEDING AREAS 188

IV. DENSITY OF THE MAIZE CROP 198

V. DENSITY OF THE WHEAT CROP 200

VI. THE RAILWAYS 226

VII. ESTUARY OF THE RIO DE LA PLATA 254

The Argentine Republic

CHAPTER I

THE NATURAL REGIONS OF ARGENTINA

The physical environment--Colonization and the natural

regions--The struggle with the Indians--Argentine

unity--Argentina and the world.

The South-American continent is divided, from west to east, into three

great zones. The lofty chains of the Andes stretch along the Pacific

coast; at the foot of these are immense alluvial tablelands; further

east are the level plains of the Atlantic coast. The eastern zone,

the tablelands, ends southward at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata.

It enters Argentine territory only in the north-east corner of the

province of Misiones. Below 35 deg. S. lat. the alluvial plains open

freely upon the ocean. The position of Buenos Aires, in the threshold

of the plain of the Pampas, is somewhat like that of Chicago at the

beginning of the prairies; if you imagine the north-eastern States

and eastern Canada struck off the map, and the sea penetrating inland

as far as the Lakes.

The three essential aspects of Argentine scenery are mountain, plain,

and river. The Parana, indeed, is a whole natural region in itself,

with its arms and its islands, and the ever-changing low plain over

which its floods spread, as one sees it from the top of the clay

_barrancas_ (cliffs); though it is so broad that one cannot see the

opposite bank. It wanders over the plain like a foreigner, an emissary

from tropical America; for it has a flora of its own and tepid waters

which often cause a fog over the estuary where they mingle with the

waters of the sea.

From the general mass of the Argentine plains, we must set apart the

region between the Parana and the Uruguay, which Argentinians call

"Mesopotamia." While aeolian clays form the soil of the Pampa on the

right bank of the Parana, fluvial deposits--sands and gravel, in which

it is impossible to distinguish the contribution of the Uruguay from

that of the Parana--cover a great part of Mesopotamia. The earlier beds

of the rivers may be traced here, not only by the alluvial deposits

they have left, but by the lagoons which still mark their course.

Running waters have shaped the landscape and scooped out a system of

secondary valleys, and these reflect the history of the river itself

and the variations of base-level which led to alternate periods of

erosion and deposit.

On the right bank, on the contrary, the Parana has no tributaries of

any importance except at the extreme north of the country. The scarcity

of running water is, in fact, one of the characteristic features of

the plain of the Pampas. Except in the east, along the Parana, where a

network of permanent streams develops on a comparatively impermeable

and fairly humid soil, and except at the foot of the mountains, where

irregular torrents and streams, swollen after a storm and scanty in

the dry season, disappear, as a rule, within sight of the hills that

gave them birth, there is no superficial organized drainage. As a

whole, the alluvial covering of the Pampas, the upper beds of which are

cut through by the _barranca_ of the Parana, is not of river origin;

it was brought and distributed by the wind, which took the place of

running water. The clay of the Pampas is a present from the winds. The

increasing dryness of the climate toward the west, as one approaches

the Cordillera, explains the feebleness of the erosion by water and the

extent of the erosion by wind.

It is aridity, too, that gives their particular character to the

Argentine Andes. They have little trace of perpetual snow, the lower

limit of which approaches to within about four miles of the Bolivian

frontier. There are no glaciers there; they reappear in the south

only in the latitude of San Juan and Mendoza, on the flanks of the

three giants of the southern Cordillera, Mercedario, Aconcagua, and

Tupungato. Below the small number of steep furrows which the glaciers

have carved, and usually up to the top of the mountain, there spreads

what has been called, very expressively, "the zone of rubbish." In this

the winter's snows, fretted by the sun in that clear atmosphere, form

those multitudes of narrow pyramids which the Argentinians compare to

processions of white-robed pilgrims. The underlying rock is rarely

visible. It is covered with a thick cloak of rubbish, split off by the

frost, which the slow-moving waters released by the melting of the

snows heap up at the foot of the slopes, at the bottom of depressions.

The half-buried summits are succeeded by basins of accumulation. In

the valleys round the mountains there are immense beds of detritic,

half-rounded shingle. The torrents have cut their way through the

alluvial mass, and they flow at the foot of high terraces which mark

the sites of former valleys.

The spread of colonization toward the south during the last generation

has extended Argentine territory beyond the limits of these classic

scenes. The Patagonian Andes differ profoundly from the Northern Andes;

and the change is not more sudden than that of the climate, to which

it is due. Going toward the south, one passes, almost without a break,

from the Atlas Mountains to Scandinavia. The moisture increases in

proportion as the mean temperature falls. The mountains are covered

with snow, and the glaciers lengthen. In one part of Patagonia they

still form a continuous cap, an "inland sea," concealing the rock over

the entire central zone of the Cordillera; though they are only the

shrunken remainder of a glacial cap which was once far more extensive.

Here ice was the chief sculptor of the scenery. It has made elevated

tablelands, broadened the deep valleys which cut the flank of the

mountain, polished their sides, and deposited at the point where they

open out the amphitheatres of the moraines, behind which the waters

have accumulated and formed lakes; and these lakes stretch back like

fiords to the heart of the Cordillera, and are the pride of Patagonia.

The waters of these moisture-laden mountains have, to the east, carved

out the Patagonian tableland. It is crossed by broad and boldly cut

valleys, several of which, abandoned by the rivers which scoured

them, are now dead valleys. The rubbish from the wearing down of the

mountains and the glacial moraine has been spread over the whole face

of the tableland in the form of beds of gravel. But the rivers that

rise in the Andes cross a country of increasing aridity as they descend

eastward. There is no tributary to add to their volume. There is none

of that softening of lines, of that idle flow of a meandering stream

which characterizes the final stage of a river in a moist district.

Their inclination remains steep, and their waters continue to plough up

coarse sediment; and everywhere, up to the fringes of the valleys, the

fluting of the sandstone and steepness of the cliffs bear witness, like

the edges of the _hamadas_ of the Sahara, to some other form of erosion

than that effected by running water--the influence on the country of

the westerly winds. On the tableland the wind polishes the rounded

pebbles, makes facets on them, and gives them the colouring of the

desert.

Thus from the north to the south of Argentina there is a complete

contrast in the way in which the controlling forces of the landscape

are distributed. In the north the moist winds come from the east;

the rains lessen as they pass westward. The clays, capped with black

soil, of Buenos Aires are aeolian deposits, brought by the wind from

the desolate steppes which close the Pampa to the west, fixed and

transformed by the vegetation of a moister region. In the south, on

the contrary, the rains come from the Pacific, and the fluvio-glacial

alluvial beds of the Patagonian tableland are evidence of copious

reserves of moisture in the Andes; but the arid climate in which the

waters have left them has made its mark upon their surface.

This diversity of the physical environment is only fully brought

out by colonization. It is colonization, the efforts and attempts

of human industry to adjust agricultural or pastoral practices to

the natural conditions, which enable us to assign the limits of the

natural regions. In this differentiation it is essential to notice the

historical element.

The introduction of new crops gives a geographical meaning, which

had hitherto escaped observation, to climatological limits such, for

instance, as the line of 400 millimetres of rainfall which is the

western frontier of the region of cereals. These limits of crops remain

uncertain for a time, then experience and tradition gradually fix them.

They always keep a certain elasticity, however, advancing or receding

according as the market for the particular produce is favourable or

unfavourable.

Improvement in the methods of exploiting the soil--the adoption of

better agricultural machinery, dry farming, etc.--usually leads to the

extension of the sphere of a particular type of colonization, as it

enables this type to overcome some natural obstacle which restricted

its expansion. Sometimes, however, it brings to light a new obstacle

and creates a new geographical limit.

To this category belongs the northern limit of the belt of selective

breeding, which slants across the plain of the Pampas from the Sierra

de Cordoba to the Parana. The more or less degenerate cattle of the

natives had spread over the whole of the South American continent,

except the tropical forests, since the seventeenth century, adapting

themselves easily to very different climatic conditions, from the

Venezuelan _llanos_ to the _sertao_ of Bahia and the plains of

Argentina. But pedigree animals, more valuable and more delicate,

introduced on to the Pampas fifty years ago, are not able to resist the

malady caused by a parasite called the _garrapate_. Hence the southern

limit of the _garrapate_ suddenly became a most important element in

the economic life of the Republic. It would lose its importance if we

discovered a serum that would give the animals immunity against Texas

fever.

The range of one and the same cause varies infinitely with the

circumstances. The limit of the prairie, as of the scrub (_monte_)

which surrounds it on every side, and keeps it at a distance of 320 to

440 miles from Buenos Aires, had no decisive influence on primitive

colonization. Whether covered with grasses or brushwood, the plain

is equally suitable for extensive breeding. The ranches are the same

on both sides of the border. At the end of the nineteenth century,

however, when the area of cultivation increased, the prairie was

at once found to be superior. The labour required for clearing the

brushwood before the plough can work is enough to divert from it, at

least for some time, the stream of agricultural colonization. While the

population of the _monte_, wood-cutters and breeders, are indigenous,

the prairie has absorbed the immigrants from Europe, and the border of

the scrub has become in many places an ethnographical frontier.[2]

[2] See E. A. S. Delachaux, "Las regiones fisicas de la

Republica Argentina," _Rev. Museo Plata_, XV, 1908, pp.

102-131.

[Illustration: THE ARID ANDES. PUNTA VACAS, ON THE TRANS-ANDEAN RAILWAY.

_The bottom of the valley is 8,000 feet above sea-level; the sides

buried under rubbish. It is especially in this latitude, above a height

of 10,600 feet, in the zone where the moisture falls as snow even in

summer, that the rock is everywhere buried under its own rubbish. This

is Keidel's_ Schuttzone. _It extends to the foot of the Alpine peaks,

carved by glaciers._

Photograph by Moody, Buenos Aires.]

[Illustration: QUEBRADA DE IRUYA.

_Eastern slope of the Sierra de Santa Victoria, 65 miles from the

Bolivian frontier, in the zone of summer rain. The valleys have

been filled with an enormous mass of torrential alluvia. The water

afterwards made a course through the mobile deposits._

Photograph by Keidel, Mines Division.

PLATE II. To face p. 22.]

The changes which man has made in the floral landscape are, as a rule,

slight. The limits of the forest zone have scarcely been altered. The

beech forest of the southern Andes seems to be less tenacious than the

_monte_ which surrounds the Pampa, and it has been ravaged by fire

along the whole edge of the southern steppe at 37 deg. S. lat. The work

of man is generally confined to changing the primitive complexion of

the natural formations, without altering their general appearance. Thus

valuable essences are disappearing from the forest and the scrub, the

larch and the cypress from the district of the Patagonian Lakes, and

the red _quebracho_ from Santiago del Estero.

A change that is scarcely visible, but is of considerable economic

importance, thus takes place in the vegetation of the prairie owing to

the presence of herds. The _pasto fuerte_, composed of rough grasses,

which is the natural vegetation, is being succeeded by the _pasto

dulce_, in which annual species, soft grasses, leguminous plants,

etc., predominate. It is mainly composed of plants of European origin.

The difference between the _pasto dulce_ and the _pasto fuerte_ or

_duro_ is so important for the farmer that there is hardly a single

work on Argentina which does not dwell on it. The idea, however,

that the _pasto dulce_ has advanced steadily westward, starting from

the vicinity of Buenos Aires and constantly enlarging its domain, is

not strictly accurate. In 1895 Holmberg[3] traced the western limit

of the zone of the _pasto dulce_ through Pergamino, Junin, Bragado,

Azul, Ayacucho, and Mar Chiquita. When we compare this with earlier

observations, we see that in the course of the nineteenth century the

zone of the _pasto dulce_ has extended by about a hundred miles on the

southern Pampa. When Darwin travelled from Bahia Blanca to Buenos Aires

in 1833, he found no _pasto dulce_ except round Monte, on the right

bank of the Salado. Further north, on the other hand, the extent of the

_pasto dulce_ does not seem to have altered appreciably. The expedition

to the Salt Lakes in 1778 found that there were already thistles beyond

the line of the ranches, and these are characteristic of the _pasto

dulce_ in the Chivilcoy region on the Salado, which was then abandoned

to herds of wild cattle. "There was thistle enough to cook," says

the journal of the expedition. The difference is connected with the

history of colonization in the province of Buenos Aires, where ground

was gained only toward the south between 1800 and 1875. Since 1895 the

_pasto duro_ has been eliminated by agriculture rather than by the feet

of the herds. Hence the advance of the _pasto dulce_ is no longer in

a continuous line moving toward the west. It is sporadic, depending

upon the construction of new railways which open up the plain to the

plough.[4]

[3] Holmberg, "La Flora de la Republica Argentina," in the

_Secundo Censo de la Republica Argentina_, vol. i. (Buenos

Aires, 1898).

[4] _Diario de la expedition de 1778 a las Salinas_ (Coll. de

Angelis, iv.).

Colonization does more than emphasize the individuality of each of the

natural regions. It connects together different features, and blends

them in a complex vital organism which goes on evolving and renewing

itself.

The occupation of the whole of the soil of Argentina by white colonists

is quite a recent event. The second half of the nineteenth century was

characterized by a rapid territorial expansion, and over more than

half the country the expression "new land" must be taken literally. It

is only one generation since it was taken from the Indians. There can

be no question here of tracing the history of the relations between

the white population and the free Indians of the Chaco and the Pampa.

The most formidable of these were, in the north, the Abipones and

the Tobas. On the Pampa, the foes of the colonists were Indians of

Araucanian descent, Ranqueles, Pehuenches, etc., who came down from the

mountains and took to horses. At the close of the eighteenth century

the frontier of Buenos Aires was on the nearer side of the Salado, and

was bordered on the south-east and north-west by the fortresses of

Chascomus, Monte, Lobos, Navarro, Areco, Salto, Rojas, and Melincue.

The proposal of D'Azara to extend it as far as the Salado was not

carried out, and it was not until 1828 that there was a fresh advance

westward.[5]

[5] _F. de Azara, Diario de un reconocimiento de las guardias

y fortines que guarnecen la linea frontera de Republica

Argentina_ (1796, Coll. de Angelis, vol. vi.). The documents

collected by de Angelis show clearly that there had been some

idea in the middle of the eighteenth century of occupying the

whole plain to the east of the Sierra de Tandil. These ideas

of expansion, of which D'Azara's plan is another instance,

were interrupted by the Revolution (_Diario de D. Pedro Pablo

Pabon_, Coll. de Angelis, iv. etc.).

The new frontier, which would not be altered until 1875, passed by

Veinte Cinco de Mayo and Blanca Grande, at the north-western extremity

of the Sierra de Tandil. It included the entire region which lies

between the Sierra de Tandil and the lower Salado, where the village

of Tandil had been established in 1823. In addition, a line of forts

stretched from Blanca Grande in the south-west to Bahia Blanca. The

expedition sent in search of a port south of the mouth of the Plata

had not found any nearer site that was suitable. But Bahia Blanca was

to remain an isolated advance post until 1880, sharply separated from

both the colonized zone of the Pampas and the establishments on the

Patagonian coast.

While the cultivated area was thus growing toward the south, it was

being reduced in the north of the province of Buenos Aires and the

south of Cordoba. The lands of the lower Rio Cuarto were not occupied.

About 1860 (Martin de Moussy) the farthest establishments in this

sector were S. Jose de la Esquina and Saladillo on the Tercero. The

road to Chile by the Rio Cuarto, Achiras, and San Luis was threatened.

The advance of colonization in this zone was at first in the west to

Villa Mercedes on the Rio Quinto. The line of the Rio Cuarto by Carlota

was reoccupied, and before 1875 the frontier had been pushed back to

the Rio Quinto, where it joined the forts of southern Buenos Aires by

way of Sarmiento, Gainza, and Lavalle.

At last, in 1878, General Roca abandoned the classical methods

of fighting the Indians, and took the offensive. He deprived the

Indians of their refuges to the south of San Luis and the Central

Pampa, and threw them back toward the desert. The Argentine troops

followed in their steps as far as the Andes and the Rio Negro. There

are to-day few traces in the immense territory that was won of the

indigenous population. Its extreme mobility had masked its numerical

inferiority.[6]

[6] M. J. Olascoaga gives (_La conquete de la Pampa: Recueil

de documents relatifs a la campagne du Rio Negro_, Buenos

Aires, 1881) valuable documents concerning both the details

of the fight with the Indians and the distribution of their

_invernadas_ (common lands) in the region of the Pampas.

Olascoaga translates it "winter quarters"; it was pasturage on

which they kept their cattle and from which they set out on

their expeditions.

The history of the northern frontier is much the same. At the end of

the eighteenth century the Spanish outposts ran along the course of

the Salado. To the north of Santa Fe, at Sunchales, Soledad, and San

Javier, they protected the direct route from Santa Fe to Santiago del

Estero. These outposts were abandoned during the revolutionary period,

and the Indians advanced as far as the suburbs of Santa Fe. The roads

both to Santiago and, by the Quebracho Herrado, to Cordoba were cut.[7]

Urquiza reorganized the Santa Fe frontier, first as far as San Javier,

then below 29 deg. S. lat. between Arroyo del Rey on the Parana and

Tostado on the Salado. The expedition of 1884 brought the Argentine

army as far as the Bermejo, and broke the resistance of the Tobas. The

forts which, more to the north, guarded the province of Salta, on the

further side of the Sierras de la Lumbrera and Santa Barbara, had been

dismantled at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as the tribes

in this part of the Chaco were not hostile.[8]

[7] See Thomas J. Hutchinson, _Buenos Aires and Argentine

Gleanings_.

[8] See Geronimo de la Serna, "Expedicion militar al Chaco,"

_Bol. I, Geog. Argentino_, xv. 1894, pp. 115-79.

The memory of the fights with the Indians is so completely blotted out

to-day, and the menace of invasion by the tribes has been so rapidly

extinguished, that it is difficult to realize fully the profound

influence they once had on colonization. The line of forts was a frail

barrier that was constantly broken through. The Indians of the Pampa

stole cattle from the ranches of Buenos Aires, and sold them in Chile.

Colonel Garcia calculates in 1816 that about 40,000 animals were stolen

every year.[9] Colonel Roca gives the same figure in 1876. The Pampa

put no natural difficulties in the way of the movements of the Indians,

no points which might serve as bases for the frontier. D. Pedro Pablo

Pabon points out that the proximity of the Sierra, instead of giving

protection to outposts in the Tandil region, would be an additional

source of insecurity, as it increased the difficulty of keeping watch.

In the north the Indian incursions followed the clearings in the scrub,

avoiding the dense and impenetrable parts. The lagoon of Mar Chiquita,

to the west of Santa Fe, was a valuable rampart, in the shelter of

which a fairly large population had established itself round Concepcion

del Tio.

[9] _Nuevo plan de fronteras de la provincia de la Republica

Argentina_ (Coll. de Angelis, vol. vi).

The enlargements of the frontier were sometimes due to expansive

movements of colonization, the breeders occupying new land beyond the

line of forts and demanding protection, and sometimes to the arbitrary

action of a Government which was eager to extend its territory, though

it was still without the means of exploiting it. Roca has well shown

the defects of this system of premature military occupation. "To go

far away from the populated districts in acquiring new territory is,

in my opinion, only an aggravation of the inconveniences of defensive

war, and it places a desert between the new lines and the settled

regions.... Invasions occur at once."[10] We should therefore be

likely to make serious mistakes if we were to identify the history of

colonization with that of military occupation. Moreover, the garrisons

of the forts did not take a very active part in the exploitation of

the soil. The plan which D'Azara proposed, of making _blandengues_

(lancers) colonists and rooting them to the soil by distributing it

amongst them, seems to have been purely Utopian. His description of

the frontier shows clearly how slight a hold the early colonization

had on the Pampa, where the only relatively industrious element was

represented by the groups of civilians (_paisanos_) who gathered about

the works and moats of the forts. It was different on the Santiago del

Estero frontier, where there was agriculture as well as breeding. Here

the fort was identical with the village, and each soldier had his plot

of wheat, maize, or water-melons.[11]

[10] Letter to the Minister of War, October 19, 1875.

[11] See the curious picture, which Hutchinson gives us, of

military life on the Rio Salado de Santiago about the middle

of the nineteenth century.

The provinces which were to combine in forming the Argentine Republic

had no economic unity. They were really two countries, two separate

worlds, the coast regions and the mountain regions (_de arriba_),

joined together, but not blended, by the main road from Buenos Aires

to Peru, by way of Cordoba, Tucuman, and Salta. They represented two

different branches of Spanish colonization. "Two human streams," says

Mitre, "contributed to the peopling of the vice-royalty.... The first

came directly from Spain, the mother country. It occupied and peopled

the banks in the basin of the Rio de la Plata, in the name of the

right of discovery and conquest, and fertilized them by its labour.

The other stream came from the ancient empire of the Incas, already

subdued by the Spanish armies. This spread toward the interior of the

country as it passed from the Pacific to the Atlantic, occupied the

land in virtue of the same rights, and exploited it by means of a

feudal system.... The same year, 1535, saw the foundation of the two

towns, Buenos Aires and Lima, and was the centre of these two cycles

of discoveries and conquests. Thirty-eight years later, in the same

year, 1573, the Conquistadores who came from Peru founded the town of

Cordoba, two hundred miles away from the Parana, while those who came

from the Rio de la Plata founded the town of Santa Fe on the banks of

that river."[12]

[12] Mitre, _Historia de Belgrano_, I, ch. i. pp. 4 and 5.

[Illustration: MAP I.--ARGENTINA. THE NATURAL REGIONS.

_The map shows the distribution of the natural regions--the dry Andes

in the north-west, with irrigated cultivation; the monte, or brush,

which is still used for extensive breeding; and the Pampa, with its

great areas of cereals and lucerne. The line marking the frontier of

1875 shows the speed at which colonization has developed in the western

half of the plain of the Pampas. The only regions not given on the map

are the plateau of Misiones, with its tropical forests, and the wet

Andes of Patagonia._

To face p. 28.]

Tucuman and Salta were established by conquerors from Peru, while San

Juan and Mendoza were built by the Chilean Spaniards. The line of

demarcation between the two zones of colonization crosses the immense

desert plains of the interior, not the elevated tablelands of the Andes.

The two types of Argentinians differed in every respect, in blood as

well as in environment. The indigenous race, which was eliminated on

the coast, mingled intimately with the conquering race in the interior.

The establishments on the Rio de la Plata had originally been merely

stages on the road to Peru, and had no value of themselves. The

elevated tablelands of the Andes long remained the economic centre of

Spanish America, and the provinces of the interior, which sold them

cattle and mules, depended very closely upon them. The end of the

eighteenth century was marked by more rapid progress in the region of

the Pampas. The vice-royalty of La Plata was created.

Freedom of trade was secured between Buenos Aires and the Spanish

ports. The export of hides increased. The influence of Buenos Aires

spread over the interior and, in spite of the Cordoba tariff, reached

the regions of the north-west. "The creation of the vice-royalty," says

Dean Funes, "and the new direction taken by commerce had the effect

that Buenos Aires became the centre of considerable and important

business."[13]

[13] D. Gregorio Funes, _Ensayo de la historia civil del

Paraguay, Buenos Aires, y Tucuman_ (Buenos Aires, 3 vols.,

1816).

This commercial development, which seemed destined to bring closer

together the two halves of Argentinian territory, was interrupted

in the first half of the nineteenth century. This did not, however,

break the connections between the provinces to the north-west of the

tableland and those on the Pacific slope, and indeed, they became

more varied and more binding. Packs of mules, carrying the ore of San

Juan and La Rioja to the foundries of the Chilean side, added life to

the Cordillera. When Chile, transformed into an agricultural country,

could not meet its own demand for cattle, the oases of the Argentine

side were sown with lucerne for fattening the cattle which were to

cross the mountains. The provinces of Mendoza, San Juan, La Rioja,

Catamarca, Tucuman, and Salta were held within the orbit of the Andes

districts.[14] There are historical reasons for this set-back to the

influence of Buenos Aires. The wars of the revolutionary period and

the conflicts between the Buenos Aires Government and the maritime

powers checked the commercial enterprise on the banks of the Plata.

This political isolation of the province of Buenos Aires, under the

Rosas Government, lasted until 1853. Poncel gives us statistics of the

imports of Catamarca which show the great importance of this date in

the history of Argentine commerce:

[14] The Woodbine Parish map (1839) puts Tinogasta eighty

miles out of its proper position, at the very foot of the Come

Caballos range, thus reducing by one half its distance from

Copiapo, on the Chilean slope.

Imports into the Province of 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854

Catamarca:

From the Pacific across the

Cordillera (in millions of 72 50 71 40 12

piastres)

From the Atlantic (Buenos Aires

or Rosario) 11 7 20 64 116[15]

[15] B. Poncel, _Mes itineraires dans les Provinces du Rio de

la Plata, Province de Catamarca_ (Paris, 1864).

In 1854-5 the Cordillera route definitely ceased to be of commercial

importance to Catamarca, and it was afterwards used merely for the

export of cattle.

But the attraction of Buenos Aires after 1853 was not merely due to its

commercial life and its intermediate position between the provinces

of the interior and Europe. It was chiefly based upon the economic

development of the region of the Pampas, which began about this date,

and altered the balance between the two halves of Argentina. The

exploitation of the Pampa, the improvement in breeding methods, and the

introduction and expansion of agriculture on the plain of the Pampa,

which fill all publications on modern Argentina, are in themselves one

of the great events in the economic history of the nineteenth century.

They had also an indirect but profound influence upon the life of other

parts of Argentina. The consuming capacity of the Pampa increased

simultaneously with its wealth and population. It absorbed the products

of the neighbouring provinces and in turn made customers of them,

distributing amongst them, according to the services they rendered,

part of the gold it obtained from beyond the Atlantic. One after the

other the provinces lost the relations which had hitherto connected

them with foreign lands. There was the same development all over the

zone of cereals and lucerne--the direction of the stream of commerce

was reversed. In some places, as at Tucuman and Mendoza the change

was accomplished a generation ago. In other places, as at Salta and

San Juan, it is still going on. In yet other places, the more remote

valleys, like Jachal and Santa Maria, it will occur in the near future.

By a singular anomaly the Far West of North America, which sprang up

half a century ago, tends to withdraw more and more from the influence

of the eastern States, which provided it with capital and immigrants,

while the Far West of Argentina, which is just as old as the east and

by no means a creation of the east, since it developed in isolation and

freedom, and was already adult and rich when they came into contact,

has nevertheless fallen into complete dependence upon the east in the

course of a few years.

The life of the whole country depended upon the great colonization

movement which transformed the plain of the Pampas. This brought about

an economic unity which was at once reflected in the political world.

The railway from Buenos Aires reached Tucuman before 1880; Mendoza, San

Juan, Salta, and Catamarca before 1890; and La Rioja before 1900. The

establishment of closer economic relations between the coast and the

provinces of the interior has nearly always inaugurated a period of

great prosperity for the latter. In every case the influence of Buenos

Aires vitalized them, put an end to their slumbers, and made them rich.

Not only did the coast take for itself the products of the western

provinces, which had hitherto found their way to other markets, but new

centres of production had to be created to meet its needs. The forests

of the Chaco received a great influx of wood-cutters, to provide the

sleepers for the railways. The valley of the Rio Negro was planted with

vines, to provide the wines of the colonies in the district of Bahia

Blanca. The attraction of the Pampa was felt as far as the frontiers.

Paraguay competed with Corrientes in the supply of tobacco and oranges;

with Misiones in the supply of _yerba mate_. Each district chose the

particular crop which was best suited to its climate, in order to

secure the highest possible advantage from its relations with Buenos

Aires.

The two most brilliant satellites of the Pampa, the most important

productive centres of the interior, are Tucuman and Mendoza. All the

other important towns of Argentina belong themselves to the region of

the Pampas. Tucuman and Mendoza, which live by supplying the Pampa with

sugar and wine, have become in turn secondary centres of attraction.

They are a sort of regional capitals, and they have their own spheres

of economic influence. A network of commercial streams has developed

about them, and this has led to the formation of new roads. These lines

of local interest are easily recognized on a map of the railways,

where one sees them superimposed upon the regular fan of lines which

converges toward Buenos Aires. La Rioja provides the props for the

vines of San Juan and Mendoza. From the north of Cordoba to Salta,

a distance of about 250 miles, the wood is cut for the fuel of the

sugar-works of Tucuman. Santiago dries the fodder for its troops of

mules. The prairies of Catamarca, which once fattened the cattle that

were intended for Chile, and often came even from Tucuman, now sell

their beasts to the butchers of Tucuman. The wines of San Juan find

their best customers at Tucuman. Even the nearest portions of the plain

of the Pampas, to the north-east of Santa Fe and the south of San Luis,

supply maize and wheat to Tucuman and Mendoza, instead of sending them

to the ports for export.

While Argentina lives on the Pampa, the Pampa lives on export. It has

been developed through the inflow of European immigrants, and Europe

pays by sending its manufactured products and capital. Except as

regards emigration, the United States had, before the war, much the

same relation to Argentina as the countries of Western Europe. Thus

the economic prosperity of the Republic binds it more and more closely

to the life of the whole world. Its position in the temperate zone of

South America had retarded its entrance into world-commerce, and this

explains the slowness with which its colonization proceeded at first.

Its climate and products were too similar to those of Spain. Not only

the mining and metallurgical centres of the Andes and of Mantiqueria,

but even the sugar and cotton regions of Brazil, the Antilles, and the

Guianas, were developed before the plains of the Pampas.

The turn of the Argentine Republic did not come until the growth of

population in the industrial countries of Europe made them dependent

upon foreign lands for their food, and until the application of steam

to ships made it possible to export wool, meat, and cereals on a large

scale.

When we compare the economic organization of Argentina with that of the

United States, we see that it is both less complex and less capable of

being self-contained. The difference is due to the architecture of the

country. I said at the beginning of this chapter that Argentina has no

equivalent for the zone of the Atlantic tablelands, which is now the

great industrial region of North America. The industrial prosperity of

eastern North America provides a safe home market for the farmers of

the west, and relieves them of the need of exporting their produce.

Moreover, the Atlantic tablelands, the original centres of population,

where the first generations of colonists lived on land that was often

poor, have seen the gradual formation of reserves of labour and capital

which were afterwards used in colonizing the west. The east sifted, in

a sense controlled, the influence of modern Europe in the colonization

of the United States. It classified and assimilated the new emigrants

who set out for the west, mingled with the troops of native pioneers

on their way to the prairies. In the same way, when European capital

flowed into the United States, it found in the eastern cities a large

treasury and a body of financiers in whose hands it had to remain.

In Argentina, on the contrary, everything speaks of the close and

direct dependence of the country upon oversea markets. The soil itself

bears the marks of this solidarity. It is seen in the network of the

railways, the concentration of the urban population in the ports, and

the distribution of the cultivated districts in concentric circles

which are often limited, not by a physical obstacle, but by the cost of

freightage between the productive centre and the port. Thus we get a

geographical expression of facts which seem at first sight to belong to

the purely economic or sociological order.