Attempts to Modernize Livestock Haciendas and the New Stalemate

So far I have stressed how during the two phases of expansion between the late 1850s and 1920 altiplano estates continued to be marked by low productivity and reliance on highly autonomous labor tenants. But after 1900 politicians, intellectuals, agronomists, veterinarians, and even a few practical ranchers wrote and spoke about the need to modernize technical, economic, and social aspects of livestock ranching in Peru. Until the 1920s those not too familiar with the day-to-day problems and the brutal conflicts in the altiplano showed great optimism about the possibility of achieving such modernization in a relatively short time, and they were encouraged by a brief spate of government interest in improving stock raising between 1917 and 1923. The height of the modernizers' enthusiasm was reached during the early 1920s, just when the altiplano haciendas had entered a severe crisis.

In December 1920 Colonel Robert Stordy, a retired colonial officer, delivered a lecture before the Royal Society of Arts in London. He had been tapped by the Peruvian Corporation and President Augusto Leguía to direct an experimental sheep ranch to be established in the department of Puno and had just returned to England after a six-month inspection tour of Peru's livestock raising zones. Stordy fired the imagination of his illustrious audience about the future potential of wool production in this distant land that conjured up "visions of unbound wealth, mystery and fable." "I venture to assert that the breeding and rearing of livestock should prove more valuable to the Republic than its mines," Stordy told the listeners. "In the great Peruvian Cordillera there lies a future pregnant with possibilities; . . . in the practice of sheep husbandry and the conservation and scientific development of the alpaca and vicuña hair industry there are commercial prospects of considerable extent and value." Stordy envisioned the investment of foreign (especially British) capital in altiplano ranches and land, with a core labor force of "a large number of ex-officers and men of the British Army who might be glad to avail themselves of the amenities of an outdoor life, . . . whose habits of discipline and appreciation of work would make them desirable members of the community, and who could . . . do much to raise Peru to that position among the wool and hair producing countries of the world which her natural advantages dictate." All that was needed to set this vast transformation in motion was for the

Peruvian government "to advance her best interests by throwing open large tracts of land for colonization on an extensive scale."^[98] In advancing this ingenious plan to solve Britain's problems with unemployed veterans and develop Peru's economy in one stroke, Stordy failed to appraise his audience of the fact that, at the very moment when he spoke, a bitter conflict over increasingly scarce land was raging between hacendados and Indian community peasants in the region that he wanted opened for colonization. Based on racist stereotypes, his insistence on British (especially Scottish) colonists as shepherds because of their "habits of discipline and work" implied the need to remove the Indian peasants from their land to achieve his bountiful vision.

Others, although not sharing Stordy's racist calls for European colonization, foresaw a no less grandiose transformation of Peru's sheep and alpaca industry. Professor L. Maccagno, a zootechnician at Lima's National School for Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, reported in 1924 on what he believed to be a growing disparity between world wool production and consumption and concluded that "Peru is the country best equipped to resolve the crisis. . . . No region in the world presents greater advantages than Peru [for increased wool production]." Maccagno believed that massive investments in ranching, both by national and foreign capitalists, was favored by the "existence of many estates of enormous extension" with "excellent conditions . . . for systematizing and improving pastures and stock."^[99]

Confidence in a rapid and profound transformation of Peru's livestock estates into highly productive capitalist enterprises was fueled by the collapse of the wool market in 1920–21. This crisis both demonstrated the vulnerability of the seigneurial estate and the exhaustion of its growth potential and encouraged radical indigenistas to put forth the opposite vision of a rejuvenated Andean peasant community recovering its dominance (see chapter 9). During the first two decades of this century, however, calls for change had a less visionary ring to them, advocating instead gradual improvements toward the desired transformation. To be sure, fundamental critiques of the "semifeudal" hacienda had been voiced even before World War I, and highly productive agrarian enterprises employing proletarianized shepherds were already seen as the solution by many upper-class commentators on rural affairs. But during the heyday of the altiplano estate, politicians and professionals fully expected the hacendados themselves to undertake the required transformation.^[100]

Against such expectations, change in the altiplano came painstakingly slow, and by the late 1920s it was evident that it would not soon touch the great majority of livestock estates. The following discussion of investments

in improved livestock operations and attempts to change the labor regime thus concerns only a handful of haciendas in Azángaro and, out of more than a thousand estates, a few dozen in the whole Peruvian altiplano. A tiny minority of "improving landlords" sought to limit colono autonomy and to increase their reliance on wages, strengthen the administrative-supervisory structure of their estates, and invest in more productive stock, pastures, and tools.^[101]

Encouraged by the intensifying national debate about feudal exploitation on serrano estates, colonos demanded payment for extraordinary services such as pongueaje and alquilas. When such payments were legislated in 1916, hacendados responded by charging yerbaje , a pasturage fee for the colonos' huaccho flocks, designed to cancel out the need for additional cash payments. Although such fictitious wages and countervailing fees lent a more contractual aspect to labor tenancy, they did not change the estates' day-to-day labor process.^[102]

The "improving landlord" needed to be willing and have sufficient capital to increase the shepherds' wages in order to tackle the crucial issue in the transition to modern, productive livestock operations: a significant reduction in the colonos' use of hacienda resources and a complete separation of estate and huacchos flocks. A 1926 report about Hacienda Huacahuta in Melgar province, owned by the Bedoya and Revie Company, clearly indicated this nexus. The present difficulties could be overcome "through the system of enclosed paddocks. . . . Under this new system the Indian will be obliged to pasture his own flock on his own land, leaving the patrón free to improve and develop his hacienda for the benefit of the country and himself. The rancher will be able to pay much higher wages to the Indian, freeing him from the state of semislavery in which he finds himself today."^[103]

After 1906, when Manuel Guillermo de Castresana acquired Hacienda Picotani, he began a slow and cautious campaign to limit the usufruct of estate pastures by colonos. In 1908 a differential wage scale was introduced according to which the poorest colonos earned nearly two-thirds higher wages than the richest colonos, a bonus for running only small huaccho flocks on hacienda pastures. The colonos with the largest flocks of huacchos were obliged to sell some of their slaughter animals to the estate at low prices "in order to compensate a bit for the pastures that they use."^[104] In September 1911 administrator Carlos Esteves proposed to give the estate's critical lambing flocks to the poorest shepherds, rewarding them "according to their needs, with a bit more avíos. . . . They are more careful in shepherding the flocks and have less need for extensive pastures [for huacchos]." Castresana and his administrator systematically favored

poorer shepherds over the entrenched colonos with large huaccho flocks by shifting the composition of their remuneration toward wages and avíos. Esteves suggested to Castresana that they follow this approach "to subdue the rich colonos a bit, or rather to punish them. It would not matter to you if two or three [rich] shepherds get annoyed; it will be much worse if the advance of your interests continues to suffer. The stock of the hacienda will never increase if they [the rich shepherds] keep on utilizing estate pastures and oppressing [sic ] the estate's animals as they do until today."^[105]

Despite Esteves's bravado, Castresana had to walk a tightrope in his endeavor to recover hacienda resources from the colonos and instill greater attention to the estate's livestock in them. As Picotani was expanding rapidly between 1906 and the war years, it needed more shepherds. The richest colonos formed the most stable part of the work force, and alienating them could undermine the stability of Picotani's livestock operation. Although Castresana taxed the shepherds' use of hacienda pastures, he never ordered an actual reduction of huaccho flocks.

The rhythm of change on Picotani picked up only after Castresana's death in 1924, when the hacienda passed into the possession of his nephews and nieces, the children of Eduardo López de Romaña, Peru's president between 1899 and 1903. On the recommendation of the Gildemeister family, owners of Peru's largest sugar estate, they hired a German agronomist as Picotani's new administrator. Having previously worked on a large corporate ranch in the central highlands, this man was in a hurry to make Picotani more productive. Eager to expand the estate's stock, he doubled the average number of sheep in each colono's flock by 1927. He required additional labor from the colonos, increased falla charges against them, and tried to abolish the food supplements. Shepherds unwilling to comply were routinely flogged. The colonos repeatedly protested against this erosion of their customary rights and working conditions to the owners, who warned the foreign administrator about the danger of an "Indian uprising," especially in Picotani where "the colonos formerly enjoyed consideration and good treatment." They ordered him "to change those radical extreme measures of punishment for prudent measures that defend the interests of the hacienda and at the same time are not abusive of the Indians."^[106] But by 1928 the situation had come to a head. More than a third of the shepherds abandoned the estate, animal mortality increased, and the quality of wool and meat declined because of overgrazing. The remaining colonos plotted to blow up the caserío. The owners now agreed that the German administrator had to go, bitterly complaining to the Gildemeisters for recommending a man so inappropriate for the delicate task of directing an altiplano livestock estate.^[107]

By the early 1930s Picotani had managed to recover its work force, achieve more stable flocks averaging about seven hundred animals, and improve productivity per shepherd and per sheep.^[108] But the crucial matter of reducing huaccho flocks and strictly separating them from those of the hacienda had still not been achieved. In fact, huaccho flocks continued to grow, from 11,648 sheep and 7,741 llamas and alpacas in 1929 to 9,971 sheep and 14,722 llamas and alpacas in 1943. In that year the owners, after delaying for over a decade for fear of the colonos' reaction, finally approved a plan to castrate huaccho rams and designate a special flock of hacienda rams to breed huacchos. The goal was to improve the blood of huacchos so that accidental crossbreeding would be less damaging to improved hacienda flocks. During the years until the agrarian reform in the early 1970s, huacchos were reduced to about one-eighth of their number in 1943. Although the number of colonos declined by nearly 50 percent, from 66 in 1935 to 35 in 1969, the estate's stock was reduced by no more than 20 percent, and productivity per animal probably continued to rise.^[109]

As early as the 1920s some colonos acquired specialized skills, for example, sheep shearing or supervising of lambings.^[110] Basic medical service had been provided to the colonos since before 1920, but Picotani established a primary school for colono children only in 1946, more than three decades after the first schools opened in peasant communities.^[111] As the owners sought to push back the colonos' peasant economy and create a more skilled work force, they increased wages, first between 1908 and 1911, then during the late 1920s, and again after World War II. Between 1906 and 1948 nominal wages went up elevenfold, perhaps double the increase for retail food prices.^[112] As cash wages became more important, Picotani's owners had to relinquish their attempts to block direct commercial ties between the estate's work force and outside traders.

Efforts to change the traditional colonato regime, with its high degree of autonomy of shepherd families and their lack of modern sheep-ranching skills, began in earnest only during the years of the World War I bonanza. Colonos resisted these efforts almost immediately, seeking to block any erosion of their autonomy. In 1917, with the bloody attack on Pio León Cabrera's Hacienda Hanccoyo in the mountainous border region between Azángaro and Sandia provinces and a little-known uprising in Hacienda Huasacona, Muñani district, colonos rose up against their patrones for the first time.^[113] During the 1920s they organized militant protests on numerous haciendas in Azángaro and adjacent provinces in Puno and southern Cuzco. Often in contact with the broad movement of community peasants sweeping the southern highlands, the colonos nevertheless pursued their own agenda. They protested against limits on huaccho flocks,

steep fees for hacienda pastures, forced breeding programs designed to change the quality and color of their huacchos, and restrictions on the sale of their livestock products. "Unionist" demands, typical for rural workers, were not absent but secondary. They included limits on the size of flocks, no reduction of food subsidies, and compensation for special services such as alquila and pongueaje.^[114]

Riots, protests, and participation in rebellions by colonos began to block and channel changes in the labor regime. By 1930 the grand designs for transforming the region's sheep and alpaca industry into a high-productivity business based on wage labor had failed. The direction and speed of change on modernizing estates became steadier, slower, and more predictable. The colonato would not be abolished, but use rights of the shepherds would gradually be limited and huaccho flocks reduced and separated from hacienda flocks. The weight of wages in shepherds' total remuneration increased, and colonos acquired special skills. By the 1950s the labor system on modernizing estates had become contractual. On a few estates, such as Posoconi in Asillo, labor unions submitted lists of demands to management in the name of all colonos. There the old paternalism, if it survived at all, degenerated to mere folklore.

This gradually evolving contractual colonato retained some basic features of the old while removing obstacles for highly productive, capital-intensive ranching.^[115] Not unlike other labor-tenancy regimes on modernizing estates, such as its namesake on Brazil's coffee fazendas , it continued to keep the cost of labor down and reduced the hacendado's risks during cyclical crises caused by declining commodity prices, livestock epidemics, or harsh weather. These landlord gains were achieved after decades of gradual, piecemeal changes and then only by a small group of modernizers. Before 1920 they had hardly made a dent in reforming the altiplano estates' labor regime.^[116]

Isolated technical changes preceded reforms of the labor regime on modernizing estates, but their effectiveness necessarily remained limited. Attempts to improve the breed of sheep through the importation of rams from Europe and Argentina began as early as the 1840s, and after the 1890s they became more regular.^[117] But before 1920 they showed minimal results. The few imported purebred animals quickly died from diseases, and no infrastructure existed to keep their improved-breed offspring separated from the great majority of degenerate animals.^[118] Prodded by the experimental sheep ranch that began operating in Chuquibambilla, Melgar province, in 1921, some modernizing estates, among them San José, Sollocota, and Picotani, began to import large numbers of purebred rams from Argentina. By the early 1930s Picotani maintained a few flocks of purebred

Corriedale and Rambouillet sheep and larger numbers of three-fourths and half-blooded sheep; even these animals produced 70 to 150 percent more wool than did the unimproved criollos.^[119] During the 1920s some estates finally altered reproductive cycles to one annual lambing season, devoting special care to the survival of the newborn lambs.^[120]

Beginning in the early years of this century, a few improving hacendados invested in technical facilities, such as sheepfolds, shearing knives or scissors or, on one estate, even a hydraulic machine for the wool clip, sheep dips to combat parasites, and wool-washing installations and presses.^[121] Use of trucks to transport hacienda products to railroad stations, eliminating conflicts with colonos over alquila services, began only in the 1920s. During the mid-twentieth century truck transport revolutionized the altiplano's marketing system, benefiting haciendas and peasant communities alike.^[122]

Some hacendados undertook to increase the efficiency of their estate's administration, indispensable if they hoped to tighten control over colonos and introduce more regulated, "scientific" methods of livestock raising. Instead of the rudimentary ledgers registering avíos and the livestock added to or subtracted from the shepherds' flocks, modernizing haciendas now kept numerous accounts, meticulously recording the disposition and productivity of the different types of stock, the results of the annual wool clip and slaughter, the dispatch of hacienda products to market, remaining products and supplies on hand in the warehouse, the disposition of the flocks, and payments to and debts of the colonos.^[123] Improving landlords hired more quipus and rodeantes from among their colonos. A handful of administrators now had some training in agronomy; others at least possessed basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, a far cry from the semiliterate mayordomos still the norm on altiplano estates as late as the 1870s. It remained rare for an owner's son to study agronomy before taking over the parental estate.^[124] Increasingly, sons of large landholders from the altiplano sought an education preparing them for urban careers, as they were loath to be directly associated with the management of their parental estates, deemed feudal and antiprogressive by public opinion even before the onset of the crisis in 1920.

Technical change came slowest where it most directly interfered with the labor regime. This was true especially of the introduction of artificial pastures and of fencing, measures of strategic importance for increasing productivity yet also inimical to the colonos' autonomy. Around the turn of the century Alberto Gadea, the director of Puno's Colegio San Carlos, experimented with new, more nutritive strains of pasture, and more hacendados planted barley as additional livestock feed.^[125] But these examples did not catch on. Any serious effort to tackle the increasing problem of in-

sufficient feed required fencing in order to protect the young shoots of improved grasses or barley until they matured. Indeed, during the war boom several altiplano hacendados began to fence in pastures, preparing to plant high-nutrition grasses.^[126] They encountered immediate and adamant resistance by the colonos, who understood full well that fences would lead to exclusion of their huaccho flocks from the estates.

As late as the 1960s fences remained exceptional in the altiplano. The great majority of hacendados, of course, had never even attempted to invest in seeds for high-nutrition grasses or in fencing, in part because they lacked funds or credit to do so. The obstacles to augmenting fodder by these means presented the most immediate motivation for hacendados to acquire additional land during the years of rising demand for wool, allowing them to keep larger flocks. Lack of fencing also forced hacendados to keep the size of flocks within conventional limits to avoid loss or predation. With increasing livestock capital, estate owners inevitably had to employ more shepherds.