Rural Criminality and Social Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires Province

Abstract

C ONFLICT and violence characterized rural society in nineteenth-century Buenos Aires province. The interests of a rancher class of large landowners desiring servile, sedentary, low-wage laborers to tend their vast herds and a gaucho class of itinerant, seasonal ranch workers, whose traditional lifestyle and economic well-being depended upon geographical mobility clashed headon. So-called criminality on the pampa often reflected the socioeconomic conflict between gauchos and terratenientes whose political power permitted them to enforce their class interests through such local officials as jueces de paz and alcaldes. National and provincial leaders, faced with chronic civil and foreign wars and Indian raids, sought to conscript the skilled gaucho horsemen into army and militia cavalry units. Officials and ranchers adeptly utilized the law and broad definitions of criminality to exert and labor control over the rural population. An examination of rural criminality illuminates the broader spectrum of pampean relations and the continuities of political power in nineteenth-century Argentina. Criminality is not always the simple manifestation of anti-social behavior by pathological or inadequately socialized individuals unwilling or unable to act in an acceptable manner. In some instances, crime reflects not biological, psychological, or even behavioral phenomena, but rather a social status defined by the way in which an individual is perceived, evaluated, and treated by legal authorities. Those groups in society capable of controlling the political and legal machinery frequently determine what is legal and what is criminal. In short, political power may define legality.'