The Entrepreneurial Reorganization of an Artisan Trade: The Bakers of Buenos Aires, 1770-1820

Abstract

Although there have been numerous important contributions to the social history of colonial Spanish America published in recent years, these studies have generally ignored the artisan and semi-skilled working classes that were, numerically, the largest urban components of these societies. This article will examine one colonial artisan group, the bakers of Buenos Aires, during a period when the city and its hinterland experienced significant economic and political change, 1770-1820. At the beginning of the period, Buenos Aires was little more than a large village with a population of approximately 20,000 and an economy dominated by contraband trade. As part of a major reform of Spanish strategic and economic policy, Buenos Aires was selected in 1776 as the political capital of a new viceroyalty that included the vast region bordered by the Andes, the Atlantic and Brazil. The city's new political importance with a viceregal court, enlarged military garrisons and augmented bureaucracy stimulated both urban and regional economies and attracted large numbers of immigrants from the interior and from Europe. It is increasingly clear that these alterations in the city's economic life and social structure contributed to the political crisis that culminated in the independence period. Although this study will concentrate on a single occupational group, it is hoped that this effort to measure the responses of the bakers to the altered opportunities and challenges of the late colonial and early independence periods will also provide some new insights into the economic and political history of the region during this crucial period.