Review

Author(s): Peter Winn

Review by: Peter Winn
Source: The Americas, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Oct., 1978), pp. 279-280
Published by: Academy of American Franciscan History
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/980919
Accessed: 25-07-2015 11:09 UTC

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BOOK REVIEWS

279

La prosperidadfrdgil(1905-1914). By Jose Pedro Barran and Benjamin Nahum.

HistoriaRural del UruguayModerno,Toma V. (Montevedio: Ediciones de la
Banda Oriental, 1976. Pp. ii, 183. Notes. Tables. No price.)
The four previous volumes of Barranand Nahum's Historiarural covered the
years 1830-1904 and marked it as a major reinterpretationof Uruguayan history
and one of the most significant works of economic history to emerge from Latin
America in recent years. With the publication ofLaprosperidadfrdgil,the authors
bring their account of the transformationof Uruguay up to the First World War
and offer a paradoxical new interpretation of Batlle's two presidencies and the
economic change they facilitated.
Barran and Nahum's fifth volume is more purely economic in focus than its
predecessors, but the social and political context are always in view and international factors are given even greater attention. The book begins with a concise
discussion of the political and financial preconditions for the prosperity of the
pre-war decade. The authors stress Batlle's role in assuring political and financial
stability as well as honest and efficient government, while underscoring the
importance of the Uruguayan accumulation of capital during the previous era of
political and economic uncertainty and the favorable market conditions for
Uruguayan produce and European financing. They then describe the considerable economic growth that followed.
Most of the book, however, is devoted to a more critical exploration of the
characterof this prosperity and the consequence of this pattern of growth. Their
thesis is a sweeping, but simple one: the transformation of Uruguayan cattle
ranching during the pre-war years generated both the prosperity and progress of
that era, turning Uruguay into a major beef exporter and the home of a modern
meat-packingindustry. The price of this "progress,"however, was the increased
dependence of the Uruguayan economy upon a complex of factors-international
prices and political rivalries, European produce and capital markets, British
sanitary regulations and trade policies, Uruguayan rural entrepreneurship and
governmental capacity-any one of which could transform commerce into crisis
and prosperity into penury. The authors conclude:
Erandemasiadascondicionantesparaque el progresofueraperdurable,y las mis
graves y decisivasno dependiandel Uruguay...En esas condiciones,el golpe
sobrevendria,tardeo temprano.Mientrastanto,viviamosnuestra"belleepoque"(p.

110).

The volume culminates in an incisive analysis of the central change in the rural
economy during this era-the emergence of large-scalecattle ranchingoriented to
the British meat market-and an exploration of its social and political implications for Uruguay. The advent of the less hardy refined breeds, Barran and
Nahum argue, "convirti6 a la ganaderiaen un cristal. Este se cotiza mejor que el
vidrio,
per es mis
frAgil"
(p. 109). This economic change, moreover, undermined
the influence of the sheep-farming rural middle class and consolidated the power
of the great cattle barons. The irony of Batlle's presidencies, the authors
conclude, is that the economic changes which they made possible would ultimately limit and frustrate Batlle's far-reaching plans for the transformation of

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BOOK REVIEWS

280

Uruguay, strengthening the social forces opposed to radical reform and reinforcing their strategic position within the Uruguayan economy.
This challenging thesis is only asserted here, but it will be a central theme of
Barran and Nahum's next volume. La prosperidadfrdgil,however, stands on its
own as an important new view of a crucial decade in Uruguayan history, based
upon careful original research in diverse contemporary sources and informed by
the analytic perspectives of dependency theory. At times, this reliance upon
dependencia-which shapes the structure of the book as well as its
excessive. The authors, however, provide solid
interpretations-seems
documentation for their revisions of Uruguayan history and their arguments are
generally persuasive. This book merits the attention not only of specialists in
Uruguay, but of all scholars and teachers interested in the history of Latin
America's integration into the world economy and the profound domestic
consequences of this process.
PETER WINN

ColumbiaUniversity

Friars, Soldiers,and Reformers:HispanicArizona and the SonoraMissionFrontier

1767-1856. By John L. Kessell. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976.
Pp. xvi, 347. Illustrations. Index. Bibliography. $8.35 paper; $14.50 cloth.)
This book is a very good example of what a well documented local history
should be. Using public and private archives, both civil and ecclesiastical,John L.
Kessell has written a vivid and detailed reconstruction of the post-Jesuit period of
the Pimeria Alta missions (Sonora and Hispanic-Arizona), 1767 to 1856.
Forced by Carlos III's decree of expulsion, the Jesuits of the Pimeria Alta left
Sonora during the latter months of 1767. The Franciscans, who were to be in
charge of these missions during the remainder of the Colonial period, arrived
during the early months of 1768 to find that the condition of the missions did not
at all correspond to the optimistic description they had been given. Moreover,
they were now confronted with the new regulationsof the Crown concerning the
missions which specificed that the administration of the temporal goods of the
missions was no longer to be in charge of the missionary; that the Indians were to
elect their own officials, and that the community goods of the mission were to be
administered by the civil authority. The missionaries' paternalistic attitude
toward the Indian was to disappear and the Indian was to be given liberty,
education, and civil rights. In this way, the enlightenment was making its entry
into mission territory.
As a rule the missionary looked upon the introduction of these ideas into the
mission field with a great deal of distrust; he felt that they would bring about the
ruin of the missions. As a matterof fact this was, at least in part, the purpose of the
new legislation. The Crown intended to put an end to the mission period on the
Hispanic frontier in order to establish bishoprics and parishes. However, these
royal decrees were not the only factor which would prove unfavorable toward the
continued success of the mission.

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