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Wool Trade and Commercial Networks in Buenos Aires, 1840s to 1880s1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Hilda Sabato
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Extract

Between the 1850s and 1880s, Argentina became one of the chief suppliers of wool to the expanding world markets. Most of this wool was grown in the fertile sheep-runs of the richest province in the country, and was sent to Europe through its capital city and port, Buenos Aires.

After the colonial experience of being mainly an entrepôt in the legal and contraband trade between the Viceroyalty of the River Plate and the rest of the world, Buenos Aires had seen its commercial opportunities flourish after Independence, and had found in its rural hinterland the staples to export, hides and salted beef. A mercantile class, at the rise of the century more interested in commercial pursuits than in productive activities related to the rural areas, had, nevertheless, sought in the late colonial era the benefits of cattle-raising, which provided the new staples, first to complement and later to replace the chief export of colonial Buenos Aires, bullion from Potosí.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , May 1983 , pp. 49 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

2 See Hilda Sabato, op. cit.

3 General references to the pastoral era are to be found in most books devoted to the economic history of Argentina. More detailed analysis on particular aspects of the history of that period are found in Chiaramonte, J. C., Nacionalismo y liberalismo económicos en Argentina, 1860–1880 (Buenos Aires, 1971);Google ScholarGiberti, H., Historia económica de la ganadería argentina (Buenos Aires, 1966);Google Scholar and Brown, J., A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776–1860 (Cambridge, 1979).Google Scholar

4 Jacques, Tôulemonde, Naissance d 'une métropole. Historie éonomique et sociale de Roubaix et Tourcoing au XIXe siècle (Tourcoing, 1966), p. 14.Google Scholar

5 See Alan, Barnard, The Australian Wool Market 1840–1900 (Melbourne, 1958), p. 24,Google Scholar and Claude, Fohlen, L'industrie textile au temps du Second Empire (Paris, 1956), p. 331.Google Scholar

6 While, by 1840, foreign wools accounted for only 22% of the raw material consumed by French manufacture, by 1885 they covered almost 80% of that consumption, Paul, Bairoch, Revolución industrial y subdesarrollo, (México, 1967), p. 337.Google Scholar

7 Archives Nationales, Paris, Douanes, Produits et dépouilles d'animaux (laines), 1890, F/12/6843.

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11 Blockhuys, , op. cit., p. 182.Google Scholar

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22 The Economist, Supplement, Commercial History and Review of 1883, vol. 42, 23 02 1884, p. 25.Google Scholar

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28 Archives of the Bank of London and South America (BOLSA), University College, London. Letter Book D 35–4, Buenos Aires Branch to Head Office. Confidential, 13 November 1879. Extensive reference to these wool buyers and the houses which sent them is found in the correspondence of BOLSA.

29 The history of these houses and their agents in Argentina has yet to be written. Their business in Buenos Aires soon exceeded that of exporting produce of sheep for their own manufacturing concerns or on behalf of others. In the late 1880s, when speculation became the most profitable activity in the River Plate, we find several of them investing in land, mortgage cédulas, government bonds, and shares of private and public companies. Emilio, Delpech, Una vida en la Gran Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1944), p. 133; Ets. Cormouls-Houlés, père et fils, Private archives: Correspondence, Livre Particular, 1884–7 and 1887–91.Google Scholar

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33 The South American Journal vol. 22, 24 01 1885 p. 39.Google Scholar

34 In the 1880s we have detected almost 200 names of brokers and consignment agents working in Buenos Aires. Lists of existing consignment houses are available in the different guías published throughout the period.

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36 Information on the number of existing warehouses is to be found in the different volumes of the Registro Estadístico de Buenos Aires. Lists of barracas are published in the Guías.

37 The Brazil and River Plate Mail, 7 07 1866, p. 296.Google Scholar

38 Data on the amount of wool sent to Buenos Aires from the different stations by the Western Railway is to be found in Ferrocarril del Oeste, Memorias del Directorio (Buenos Aires, 1880–1884).Google Scholar

39 Tribunales de Comercio de Buenos Aires, AGN, Legajo G/109, ‘Don Cruz Giles contra Don Pedro Arana’ and ‘José González Molina contra Gil Cabrera’, 1852–4.Google Scholar

40 Delpech, op. cit.

41 Anales de la Sociedad Rural Argentina, vol. XI (1877), p. 132 (my translation);Google Scholar see also Martin, de Moussy, op. cit., p. 18.Google Scholar

42 Zeballos, , op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 236–7.Google Scholar

43 Between the 1850s and the 1880s, those costs dropped over 30%. See Hilda, Sabato, op. cit., pp. 242–50.Google Scholar