Hands for the coffee: migrants and western Venezuela's coffee production, 1870-1930

Abstract

The spread of coffee production through the Venezuelan Andes in the late nineteenth century triggered complex patterns of human migration. While Venezuelan politicians sought unsuccessfully to entice European farmers to the coffee frontier, Andean peasants and others from Colombia spontaneously colonized extensive areas of the mid-slopes suitable for coffee production. These movements are analyzed through a systematic study of regional marriage records. This research challenges some of the basic historiographic assumptions about migration in the region, underscoring the ineffectiveness of government migration policies. Contrary to the dreams of Venezuela's liberal elite, the hands that built the Andean coffee economy were not European but from the highland municipios of Venezuela and neighboring Colombia.