Erick D. Langer

Bolivia : land of struggle

Diversity of land, people and culture early history the pre-Columbian, colonial and republican eras contemporary history the Chaco War to the Revolution (1930-1952) the Bolivian National Revolution and the political system post-revolutionary society post-revolutionary economy Bolivias external relations.

The Eastern Andean Frontier (Bolivia and Argentina) and Latin American Frontiers: Comparative Contexts (19th and 20th Centuries)

The epic struggles between Mexicans and the Apaches and Comanches in the far northern reaches of the Spanish empire and the conflict between gauchos and Araucanians in the pampas in the far south are the images the mind conjures up when thinking of Latin American frontiers. We must now add for the twentieth century the dense Amazon jungle as one of the last frontiers in popular (and scholarly) minds. However, these images ignore the eastern Andean and Chaco frontier area, one of the most vital and important frontier regions in Latin America since colonial times, today divided up into three different countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay) in the heart of the South American continent. This frontier region has not received sufficient attention from scholars despite its importance in at least three different aspects: First, the indigenous peoples were able to remain independent of the Creole states much longer than elsewhere other than the Amazon. Secondly, indigenous labor proved to be vitally important to the economic development along the fringes, and thirdly, a disastrous war was fought over the region in the 1930s by Bolivia and Paraguay. This essay provides an overview based on primary and secondary sources of the history of the eastern Andean frontier and compares it to other frontiers in Latin America. It thus endeavors to contribute to frontier studies by creating categories of analysis that make possible the comparisons between different frontiers in Latin America and placing within the scholarly discussion the eastern Andean region during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Mission Land Tenure on the Southeastern Bolivian Frontier, 1845-1949 *

The land tenure arrangements of missions in Latin America have received insufficient attention. Given the vast extent of land the missions controlled on the Latin American frontier and the effect that land tenure arrangements had on the functioning of the missions, this is a serious oversight. Rather than focus on land tenure, most studies of the missions have examined primarily issues such as evangelization, the labor regime, and demographic patterns. While these topics are also important, indeed vital, to an understanding of missions, an analysis of land tenure arrangements is a useful way for understanding the economic and even the political dimensions of mission systems. For example, the control that the missionaries imposed on their charges should have been reflected in a majority of the land controlled directly by the missionaries rather than holdings controlled by individual Indian families. In this sense, the land tenure system reflected the missionary regime in important ways and helps test hypotheses about economic resources as well as power within this controversial institution. In addition, the changes in ownership and use of land became a key ingredient in determining the survival of indigenous groups once the government secularized the missions.

The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, vol. 3, pts. 1 and 2: South America (review)

tial contribution. Her study lays the foundational groundwork for deeper historical analysis on a region of Latin America that has received little attention by scholars of the African Diaspora. But despite the distinctiveness of the Costa Rican case, what ultimately appears most intriguing about Cáceres’s study is how familiar her story of the region’s blacks seems to students of the diaspora. Even Cáceres herself astutely recognizes that her work primarily uncovers the common patterns of black life, be they in manumission practices, marronage, labor trends, or tribute collection efforts. In sum, perhaps one of Cáceres’s greatest contributions is being able to signal the commonalities from a case that wemight initially consider a divergent example.

Por la Concordia, la Fusion y el Unitarismo: Estado y caudillismo en Bolivia, 1825-1880 (review)

For the nineteenth century, Bolivia is often used as a prime example of caudillo rule in Latin America. The early-twentieth century Bolivian writer, Alcides Arguedas, defined this type of leader, decrying many of them as uncultured barbarians who brought the country to ruin. There are many histories of individual caudillos, but surprisingly little systematic analysis of the caudillo as a phenomenon throughout the nineteenth century for Bolivia. The authors try to remedy this situation with this book. They succeed to a large extent.