Landed but not Powerful: The Colonial Estancieros of Buenos Aires (1750-1810)

Abstract

I N most of the regions studied in colonial Spanish America, the hacendados have been portrayed as wealthy and powerful members of the elite. In New Spain the nobility invested heavily in land, and in Leon, in the Bajio, hacendados staffed the local cabildo and were at the apex of the rural social structure. Venezuela by the late eighteenth century also had developed a powerful hacendado class: the cacao planters were, in fact, the most important members of the local oligarchy. Already in the late sixteenth century in Peru, heredados dedicated to viticulture built substantial houses in Arequipa, bought public offices, and presided over the social hierarchy. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Chile had a full-blown landed aristocracy of encomenderos and nonencomenderos, while a century and a half later the intendencia of La Paz had a thriving and internally stratified hacendado sector with the most prosperous members-the owners of multiple haciendas-enjoying full elite status. A recent study of the Lambayeque region in Peru identifies the hacendados there as the true source of power. Summarizing the existing literature on colonial large landowners, Susan Ramirez has characterized the hacendados as members of a wealthy, urbanbased elite who played multiple social roles, lived lavishly, and exerted considerable influence.'

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