La paz del trigo: Cultura legal y sociedad local en el desarrollo agropecuario pampeano, 1890 – 1945

Abstract

The Pampean region has been one of the most popular subjects of Argentine historiography. Juan Manuel Palacio’s La paz del trigo, a systematic analysis of Coronel Dorrego between the years 1890 and 1945, contributes to this vast literature. The result is a well-written, thoroughly researched, and enjoyable account not only of wheat agriculture in the region but also of the conflictive and negotiated nature of Coronel Dorrego’s legal system and its role in shaping larger social and economic processes. Created in 1887, Coronel Dorrego soon became a major wheat-producing area in southern Buenos Aires. Palacio first focuses on the uncertain conditions under which tenant farmers (the largest group of producers) became involved in wheat agriculture. The author persuasively argues that farmers’ lives balanced shakily on the unsteady pillars of informal credit and precarious juridical relations with the land, both direct results of the legal vacuum that characterized frontier areas. In the absence of an official credit policy, farmers resorted to the expensive and abusive informal credit provided by rural merchants and insurance companies. Lack of appropriate tenancy legislation presented a similar problem to agriculturalists in Dorrego. Argentina did not pass any tenancy law until 1921, leaving farmers in a vulnerable position when making land tenure arrangements. According to Palacio, the authorities’ attempts to redress this situation through legislation did little to correct farmers’ problems.The book’s most interesting propositions lie in its second part. Palacio asserts that the region was spared from major social conflicts, leading to what he calls “the peace of wheat.” Nevertheless, the author does not deny the existence of social conflict. The region was plagued by minor disputes that were settled in court. In his analysis, the court became an arena of contestation and negotiation, where those involved in disputes not only made their claims but also shaped a local legal culture that filled the politico-legal vacuum of the frontier. Two figures were instrumental in the construction of this order: the justice of the peace and the rural lawyer. Judges became the guarantors of the system by validating the precarious arrangements and resolving disputes that emerged among those involved in wheat production. Rural lawyers provided legal assistance and disseminated legal information, thus contributing to the consolidation of a judicial culture in rural areas. This unstable but resilient “peace of wheat” ruled agrarian life and made possible the development of wheat agriculture in the Pampean region until the 1940s, when, as Palacio concludes, Peronism inaugurated an era of state intervention that disrupted the peace and introduced discord in the area.This study is solidly grounded in previously unexplored archival sources, such as civil and commercial court cases, newspapers, contemporary accounts, commercial guides, and statistical records, just to name a few. Although archives provided most of his material, Palacio relied on interviews he conducted among community members from Coronel Dorrego as well. Throughout, the narrative is enhanced with colorful and fascinating cases that cleverly illustrate general assertions. The result is a fine and cogent history of Coronel Dorrego that has the strength of knowledge based on a thorough examination of the sources. The analysis, however, lacks adequate interconnections with the larger Pampean region. The study would have been strengthened by relating local analysis and patterns to the regional and national scene. Another important omission relates to alternative manifestations of social conflict. Palacio does not explore other evidence, such as police records or criminal cases, thus failing to detect social conflict outside the civil court system. As studies in other parts of Latin America and the world have clearly shown, the court was not the only ambit where social conflict manifested. The “weak” usually chose alternative “weapons” to contest abuses. On a final note, since the study concludes in 1945, the author does not provide enough evidence to support his contention that the Peronist regime disrupted the delicate equilibrium of the region and changed the nature of social negotiation in the area, putting an end to the “peace of wheat.”Although the Pampean region has been a hardy perennial in the historiography of Argentina, Juan Manuel Palacio’s study of Coronel Dorrego deepens our understanding by providing a long-overdue analysis of Pampean economy and society at the local level. La paz del trigo expands the present scholarship on the region and contributes to a more thorough understanding of the puzzle that represents agrarian development in modern Argentina.