Cultivating Coffee : The Farmers of Carazo, Nicaragua, 1880-1930 [1 ed.] 9780896804296, 9780896802278

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Cultivating Coffee

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Cultivating Coffee The Farmers of Carazo, Nicaragua, ‒

Julie A. Charlip

Ohio University Research in International Studies Latin America Series No. 39 Ohio University Press Athens

©  by the Center for International Studies Ohio University Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved The books in the Ohio University Research in International Studies series are printed on acid-free paper  ∞       

    

Material in chapters  and  was originally published as “‘So That Land Takes on Value’: Coffee and Land in Nicaragua,” Latin American Perspectives ,  (January ): ‒, and appears with the permission of Latin American Perspectives and Sage Publications. Material in chapter  was originally published as “At Their Own Risk: Coffee Farmers and Debt in Nicaragua ‒,” in Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean, ed. Aviva Chomsky and Aldo Lauria-Santiago (Duke University Press, ), and appears with the permission of Duke University Press. The maps were created by Guirong Zhou.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Charlip, Julie A., ‒ Cultivating coffee : the farmers of Carazo, Nicaragua, ‒ / Julie A. Charlip. p. cm. — (Research in international studies. Latin America series ; no. ) Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN --- (pbk.) . Coffee—Nicaragua—Carazo—History. . Coffee—Economic aspects— Nicaragua—Carazo—History. I. Title. II. Series. SB.N C  .''—dc



For Charly You know all the reasons why.

For the father of a family, for the prudent man trying to devote the spring of his life to the noble task of preparing himself for the rest of his old age and to assure the future well-being of his family, there is no business better than cultivating coffee.

—Pablo Edelman, Apuntamientos sobre el beneficio del café y las máquinas en que se ejecuta

Contents

List of Tables Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . .

ix xi          

Introduction Setting the Stage Public Land for Private Use The Land Market Cultivating Coffee Capital Concerns Lamenting about Labor Social Structures Politics and Public Works Conclusions

  

Notes Bibliography Index

vii

Tables

Table .. Coffee Production in Nicaragua, ‒  Table .. Destination of Coffee Exports From Nicaragua, ‒  Table .. World Production of Coffee, ‒  Table .. Land Distributed in the Ejidos of Carazo, ‒  Table .. Ethnicity in Carazo,   Table .. Legislated Prices for Terreno Baldío, ‒  Table .. Carazo Farms by Size, Rural Survey,   Table .. Rural Production,   Table .. Coffee Farms by Size, Carazo  Table .. Carazo’s Largest Landowners,   Table .. Correlation between Farm Sales and Other Factors  Table .. Dismemberment and Merger of Carazo Coffee Farms by Size  Table .. Number of Coffee Trees by Land Category  Table .. Budget to Establish a Twenty-Manzana Coffee Farm, ca.   Table .. Budget to Establish a One-Manzana Coffee Farm,   Table .. Annual Costs to Maintain a Twenty-Manzana Coffee Farm, ca.   Table .. Costs for , Coffee Trees Yielding , Pounds, ‒  Table .. Costs and Profit for a Sierra-Pueblo-Area Planter, /‒/  Table .. Budget to Establish a Maize Farm in Nicaragua, ca.   ix

Table .. Coffee-Processing Equipment, Carazo, Nineteenth Century Table .. Coffee-Processing Equipment, Carazo, Twentieth Century Table .. Power Sources of Fincas,  Table .. Prices of Edelman Coffee-Processing Equipment,  Table .. Cost of Establishing a Coffee-Processing Plant in Guatemala Table .. Coffee-Processing Equipment Owned by José Robleto,  Table .. Hipotecas, Pactos de Retroventa, and Coffee Farms by Size Table .. Time Overdue by Size Category Table .. Interest Rates by Size Category Table .. Debts Owed by Carlos Alberto Gutiérrez on Las Marías Table .. Major Lenders in Carazo, ‒ Table .. German Commercial Houses Operating in Carazo Table .. Major Borrowers in Carazo, ‒ Table .. Population by Department, Nicaragua,  Table .. Relative Wealth in Property by Department,  Table .. Principal Nicaraguan Cities by Property Value, 

x

               

Acknowledgments

In many ways, this book has been nearly twenty years in the making. It is the culmination of a journey that began when I first went to Nicaragua in . It was an exciting time, when most Nicaraguans felt that all things were possible under the Sandinista Revolution and that the contra war would soon be won. The enthusiasm, commitment, contradictions, and difficulties of the revolution so impressed me that I left a career in journalism for graduate school, hoping that my studies would help me understand how and why a people and a country come to make a revolution, and why particular revolutions take the forms they do. As an historian, I remembered one of the key lessons learned as a journalist—follow the money—and so I have searched back into Nicaragua’s economic history in search of its revolutionary roots. As is so often the case, what I found was not what I expected. This study began as my dissertation, which would not have been possible without the generous support of the UCLA Department of History, which provided me with a Full Support Grant for my studies; the UCLA Graduate Division, for providing travel funds; UCLA Latin America Center, which provided grants both for fieldwork and for writing the dissertation, along with a UCLA Chancellor’s Dissertation Grant. Beyond financial support, at UCLA I was nurtured and challenged by the late great E. Bradford Burns, and by Jeffry Frieden, James Lockhart, Mary Yeager, and Maurice Zeitlin. In addition, dissertation research was facilitated by two Beveridge Grants from the American Historical Association, and assistance for the formation of computer databases was provided by an All-UC Economic History Workshop grant and the Cole Grant from the Committee on Research in Economic History. xi

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In Nicaragua, I am particularly indebted to don Octavio Lucas Guevara Cruz and his staff at Jinotepe’s Registro Público, who carved out a space for me in the midst of a functioning business office and gave me free rein, allowing me to stay late into the night and opening the office for me on Saturdays. The staff of the now-defunct Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales in Managua allowed me to use their offices as a home base in —a role largely taken over in the late s by the Instituto Histórico Centroamericano at the Universidad Centroamericana, where I have always been greeted warmly by Margarita Vannini. Assistance was also graciously provided by the staffs at the Registro Público in Granada, the Hemeroteca, Biblioteca del Banco Central, and Centro de Investigación y Estudios de la Reforma Agraria in Managua. Margio and Silvio Acevedo of Jinotepe and their families shared their homes with me, as well as their expertise about coffee. Nubia Venerio de Aguilar and Santiago Aguilar of Jinotepe treated me not as a long-term lodger but as a member of the family; Santiago graciously arranged for me to present my work at the Universidad Autónima de Nicaragua, Managua, where I received early input for my work. I am particularly grateful to Danilo Hamlet Garcia, who attended the presentation and generously shared with me his compilations of coffee export figures. Most of all, Ana Julia and Rachel Arvizu and their wonderful extended family have, since , become my family and home in Managua, and my work and travels would be impossible without their kindness and affection. On each visit, their home has been a different mix of their extended family, and without hesitation they have opened their doors to the varieties of extended family that I have in turn brought with me to Nicaragua. A key element that has enabled the dissertation to mature into this book was the availability of additional documentation through the Archivo de la Municipalidad y la Prefectura de Granada. The Archivo

xii

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did not exist in , when its material was warehoused in an unlit building behind Granada’s Palacio Municipal. Michel Gobat and Justin Wolfe were instrumental in rescuing the material and getting it moved to the lovely Casa de los Tres Mundos, overseen by Dieter Stadler. Archivo director Luis Eliezar Morales Marenco and his assistant Juana Blanco Mendoza were thoughtful and attentive in helping me use the archive during the summers of  and . My trips to the archive would not have been possible without the generous research support made available by Whitman College. Thanks to a Louis B. Perry Summer Research Award, I was able to travel to the archives in  with history major David Bunting, who helped me identify all of the relevant documents. We were able to copy only a few of those documents, but we were saved by the incredible Veronica Carolina Mora Lopez, who spent many months painstakingly hand copying the majority of the documents. Thanks to her work, I was able to branch out in , with a second Perry grant and the assistance of history major Andrei Rector, who helped me scour Jinotepe and Diriamba for the few remaining court records in Carazo. During those hot Nicaragua summers, Andrei and David also went far beyond the call of duty to good-naturedly serve as big brothers to my daughter, Delaney. Andrei and David also took on the daunting task of helping me build tables of data, which had to be moved from one computer program to another for analysis. Their employment on that task was made possible by two Sally Ann Abshire Research Scholar Awards from Whitman College. I am further indebted to Dean of Faculty Patrick Keef for finding the extra Perry funds at the last minute in  to hire Spanish major Heather Koertje, who searched through microfilm of the Gaceta de Nicaragua, and to the Department of History for purchasing the microfilm for me. My colleagues in the Whitman College history department have supported me throughout much of the journey on this project, from the filing of the dissertation in  through the revision into the book.

xiii

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Not only did my colleagues listen to my coffee stories, they even read the manuscript and gave me their valuable feedback. I am grateful to Nina E. Lerman for bringing Stephanie McCurry’s Masters of Small Worlds to my attention. And I am especially indebted to David F. Schmitz, who as always went far beyond the call of duty by reading both the dissertation and the manuscript and advising me through the publishing process. That process was made much less painful by the wonderful people at Ohio University Press, starting with Thomas Walker, who studied Nicaragua long before it was fashionable and who continues to encourage the few Nicaragua scholars left. Editor Sharon Rose has been a model of patience and support, and copyeditor extraordinaire Bob Furnish brought a sharp eye to the manuscript and made it better. I am particularly grateful for the colleagues who throughout the years have helped me to think and rethink about coffee in Nicaragua: Elizabeth Dore, Michel Gobat, Lowell Gudmondson, Thomas H. Holloway, Aldo Lauria-Santiago, Mario Samper, Steven Topik, and Justin Wolfe. I have not always followed their advice, but I have always listened to it carefully and with the utmost respect. When I first sat down in the Registro Público in , my husband, Charly Bloomquist, sat by my side and helped me pore over documents. When we returned in , he made it possible for me to work and still have a family life, taking Delaney on seemingly endless walks to the market and rides in horse-drawn carriages while I worked in the archives. Because of him, I was not deprived of seeing Delaney run for the first time in the courtyard of the Casa de los Tres Mundos. Thank you both for making the journey possible, and for coming on the journey with me.

xiv

Chapter 1

Introduction

T   on the department of Carazo in Nicaragua and the ways in which it was transformed by the coffee boom from  to . It shows that small and medium-size growers remained a vital part of the economy, constituting the majority of the farmers and holding most of the land, despite eventual concentration of landholding in the hands of a few. These growers participated in the economy in the same ways as their larger compatriots—buying and selling land, borrowing and lending money. They were disadvantaged in some ways but were full and willing players in the new economy nonetheless. And they thrived not on a frontier, pushed out by competition from larger growers, but at the very center of Nicaragua’s most important coffee region. Alongside these small commercial farmers was a group of subsistence farmers, created by the state’s commitment to providing ejidos, municipal lands, to communities. These smaller growers became the workforce for their coffee-growing neighbors, providing harvest labor three months a year. Mostly illiterate, perhaps largely indigenous, they nonetheless learned the functioning of the new political and



 

Carazo, Nicaragua (s)

economic systems and used them to acquire land in individual landholdings. Some indigenous communities may even have maintained control over this system, acquiescing to the new municipal government organization imposed by the ladinos while the same indigenous leaders kept control, giving a ladino surface to an essentially indigenous institution. These farmers operated within a society and polity dominated by



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elites, but the elite structure was a flexible one, admitting entry to coffee parvenus, whose roots were often in the lower classes. Together the elites developed a system to manage their disputes, including land and labor laws, property registries, administrative and judicial institutions. The system worked imperfectly at best: even the coercive apparatus of the state did not work as intended, due in part to conflicts among officials, towns, and regions led by a far-from-unified elite, who struggled to exert control. Perhaps as an unintended consequence, those same institutions—particularly the property registry and the courts—were used by the nonelite majority to settle disputes among themselves and with the elites. While the majority did not enjoy the same rate of success as the elites, nonetheless the system provided recourse frequently enough for the majority to become invested in it. In short, the coffee economy provided opportunities for small and medium coffee farmers and money lenders, as well as a subsistence sector, and was moving to a relatively open and flexible polity and society. Even the smaller growers had a far greater degree of agency than has been assumed. This state of affairs, however, did not last. After  the system was dramatically changed by the rise of dictator Anastasio Somoza García, the impact of the Great Depression, and the emergence of cotton-and-cattle economies with different contours than the earlier coffee economy. The Somoza dynasty imposed a dictatorship and eventually acquired  percent of the arable land. The Depression facilitated the concentration of property, particularly among the elite. The cotton and cattle economies required large tracts of land and initial investments, causing usurpation of land and proletarianization far beyond the effects of the coffee economy.

Nicaragua Studies Interest in Nicaragua was sparked in  by the success of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) in toppling the forty-five-



 

year dynastic dictatorship of the Somoza family. After years of scholarly disinterest in the country, there was an explosion of books trying to explain the revolution and its roots. Most of these works came from political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists, who usually would include a brief historical sketch. And much of their analysis depended on the historical portrait painted by a Nicaraguan sociologist, Jaime Wheelock Román, and his seminal work Imperialismo y dictadura. According to Wheelock, the roots of Nicaragua’s poverty and oppression could be found in the introduction of coffee in the late nineteenth century. He contends that national and community land was usurped and a proletariat formed, with most of the land converted into latifundios. Wheelock’s work was popularized by Jaime Biderman, and then cited in most of the subsequent studies of Nicaragua.1 The problem was that Wheelock reached his conclusion by conflating the land inequality of the late twentieth century with the nineteenth-century rise of coffee exports. He took at face value the plethora of laws aimed at privatizing communal landholdings and forcing people to work on haciendas. His views had particular resonance, as they echoed the traditional historiography on landholding patterns in Latin America, beginning with François Chevalier’s classic work on Mexico,2 and fit neatly with the overall pattern of agricultural and political relations found in Guatemala and El Salvador in the s: landlessness and despair amid the poorly distributed wealth of an export economy, leading to revolutionary movements against dictatorships. Wheelock’s interpretation was of significance for more than the academics who cited Imperialismo y dictadura in their works. A leader of the Sandinista Proletarian Tendency (Tendencia Proletaria), Wheelock brought this view to his position as head of the new Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario y Reforma Agraria (MIDINRA— Ministry of agricultural development and agrarian reform). His historical and political views shaped agrarian reform policy, which

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was the subject of heated debate within MIDINRA. Those who studied the process and those who made policy were divided into two camps, which have been described by David Kaimowitz as the capitalist agro-export model and the peasant capitalism model. The capitalist agro-export model, which became predominant, was basically the Wheelock-Biderman approach, which maintains that with the introduction of coffee in the nineteenth century the peasants of Nicaragua lost their land and gradually became an agricultural proletariat, with the chief conflict in society between landowners, who made use of extraeconomic measures to obtain their land, and their workers. With that analysis, the logical conclusion for policy was that Nicaragua’s countryside was now peopled by proletarians who wanted steady work with good benefits and were not concerned with land ownership. Therefore, early policy emphasized state farms and cooperatives. The peasant capitalism model, presented by Eduardo Baumeister, rejected the capitalist-proletarian bifurcation set out by Wheelock and stressed the importance of rising middle sectors.3 Those who accepted Baumeister’s analysis argued for an agrarian reform that focused on family farms. This view finally prevailed, primarily because of protests by rural groups and an analysis of  election results showing the Sandinistas did best in areas where family farms were distributed. The people showed Wheelock that his policy was wrong; I argue that the history that informed it was wrong as well.

Farmers, Not Peasants This study is about farmers, not peasants, a distinction that is more than semantic. In Reconceptualizing the Peasantry Michael Kearney contends “that the category peasant, whatever validity it may once have had, has been outdistanced by contemporary history.”4 While Kearney sees the peasantry as an anachronism in the late twentieth



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century, I contend that it is not a useful category for analyzing rural relations in the nineteenth century either. In his classic work Peasants, Eric R. Wolf differentiates peasants from farmers: “The American farm is primarily a business enterprise, combining factors of production purchased in a market to obtain a profit by selling advantageously in a products market. The peasant, however, does not operate an enterprise in the economic sense; he runs a household, not a business concern.”5 However, Wolf minimizes the extent to which small family farms in the United States are household enterprises as well. As a  study of family farming in Kentucky notes, “The land has meaning to farm families. It is not just the place where they do their business. . . . The power of the land is captured in the following comment: ‘We realize that there is more to farming; there is a culture to the land. I think that is why we stay with it. There is almost a religious quality to working with the land. I’m sure that you’ve talked to other people who may not have thought consciously about it this way, but have had that feeling of taking care of the land as if it is family.’”6 This viewpoint differs little from the way that Wolf and other scholars, particularly those following James C. Scott’s “moral economy model,” romanticize the “peasant” relationship with the land as an almost mystical interaction above mere economic or market considerations. Wolf maintains, “It is . . . difficult for most peasants to see their possessions in an economic context divorced from the provisioning of the household. A piece of land, a house, are not merely factors of production; they are also loaded with 7 symbolic values.” Wolf ’s emphasis on the cultural meanings of land tends to mystify the economic realities of social organization and cultural expression and the ways in which they are linked. It is useful to consider studies as geographically far afield as Poland and Papua New Guinea for views that consider both economic and cultural elements. As Carole Nagengast found in Poland, “Land was thus and continues to be at once material and symbolic. Its economic value and cultural signifi-



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cance derives, first from its status as both concrete product and the sentimental embodiment of an order of meaning and social relations; second, from its capacity to reproduce a social system; and finally, from the manner in which it links production and distribution.”8 Or put even more simply by John Finch regarding coffee growing in Papua New Guinea, “Ontena people do not consume any of the coffee that they grow, nor do they make any ritual use of coffee. . . . The cultural meaning of coffee is its ability to make money.”9 The term peasant is also problematic because its use tends to evoke two images: one is the historically specific feudal serf of Europe; the other is the more generalized and contemporary poor, darkskinned subsistence farmer, generally found in Latin America, Africa, or parts of Asia. In contrast, no matter how poor or oriented toward meeting family needs, farmers in the United States or in modern Western Europe are rarely if ever conjured as peasants. To use the term peasant in its historical sense, referring to peasant relationships in Europe, positions the discussion within the long debate about the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the future of the peasantry, and the possibility of the peasantry playing a revolutionary role in the transition from capitalism to socialism, a debate that has its roots in Marx and was elaborated by V. I. Lenin and A. V. Chayanov. Lenin, in The Development of Capitalism in Russia, outlined two possible paths of agrarian transition, the Junker or the farmer. The Junker (or Prussian) path, drawn from Eastern Europe and Prussia, showed a capitalist sector of large farms developing from old feudal or semifeudal estates, with the accompanying proletarianization of the workforce. In the farmer development pattern, seen in much of Western Europe, bourgeois-democratic revolutions destroyed feudal institutions. In the American version of the farmer pattern, which has been adapted to the areas of new settlement in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, no transition was necessary because feudal institutions had never existed.

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 

By the s in Latin America, as scholars tried to explain continued poverty and the persistence of a poor “peasantry,” questions emerged about whether the region was feudal or capitalist to begin with. If Latin America were already capitalist, as argued by Andre Gunder Frank and others in the dependency school, then clearly a transition to capitalism would not bring forth any of the expected patterns of transition. In fact, it would be capitalism itself that required the creation, existence, and retention of a poor peasantry. Frank was countered by Ernesto Laclau and a host of others who debated whether Latin America was indeed feudal or semifeudal, a debate that focused largely on whether capitalism and feudalism were distinguished by commercial definitions, focusing on production for the market or for subsistence, versus production definitions, focusing on the organization of labor as free wage labor or unfree labor with extraeconomic ties.10 This debate in turn led to discussions of the mode of production and whether there could be a separate peasant mode of production, existing in some space between feudal and capitalist modes. The peasant mode school looked to Chayanov, who argued that peasants have their own economy characterized by a subsistence mentality in which work levels were linked to family demographics. Modern interpreters posited that this mode could then be linked, or articulated, to an overall economic organization, capitalist or feudal, to explain the persistent peasant.11 The articulation theorists were countered by other scholars, who saw peasants as proletarians in disguise, with their labor not directly appropriated by capitalist bosses, but indirectly appropriated by capital through the lending process, taking away peasant independence as well as surplus value.12 If peasants were really proletarians, they would argue, then clearly Latin America was capitalist, and peasants are just workers by another name. It is not clear why these workers are called peasants rather than farmers. Keep in mind that small farmers all over the world are at the mercy of lenders who limit their decision-making





power and indirectly appropriate their labor and surplus. In this view, small U.S. farmers are in the same boat—which sank during the s farm crisis—yet no one would call them peasants. Harriet Friedmann uses the term “specialized household producers” to describe family farmers in the nineteenth-century North American West.13 Indeed, if Carazo’s small farmers were located in the United States, they might well be called yeoman farmers. But this label has proven to be no less problematic than that of peasant south of the border. Stephanie McCurry notes that there have been a variety of definitions presented for the yeoman farmer of the U.S. South, “ranging from nonslaveholding farmers to small slaveholding ones.” She goes on to say, however, that “the best conceptual definition is the one lowcountry yeoman themselves offered to federal officials after the Civil War in explaining what, precisely, had distinguished them ‘from the higher class of planters’ in their neighborhoods. ‘We were self-working farmers,’ one after another proclaimed, by which they meant to differentiate themselves by the character of their labor; by the plain fact that they worked the land with their own hands.” In her definition, self-working farmers owned fewer than  acres of improved land and fewer than ten slaves.14 I would venture that most Carazo farmers with minifundios and small farms were self-working farmers, even if they hired extra labor. Significantly, Caraceños did not see themselves as peasants. In no Carazo document does the word campesino, or peasant, appear. The people who registered property in Carazo used the term agricultor, which means farmer. With the rare exception of an occasional “hacendado,” farmers chose the label agricultor whether the farm was five or five hundred manzanas15 in size. At the lower end of the scale, these were definitely self-working farmers—along with their families—who self-exploited to succeed not just at subsistence, but also at growing commercial crops for the market. To the extent that they were all farmers, they shared many of the same concerns and likely many of the same values, despite disparities in wealth.



 

Landholding Categories Central to this discussion, and potentially controversial, is the classification of landholdings by size. This study takes as its starting point the conventional landholding categories for use in Central America as outlined by Nicaragua’s Centro de Investigación y Estudios de la Reforma Agraria (CIERA): less than  manzanas, ‒, ‒, and  and above.16 These are the categories commonly used by social scientists in Latin America. However, I find the category of ‒ manzanas to be problematic, since the resources available to someone with  manzanas are far greater than to someone with . I have broken this sector into two: ‒ and ‒. The division at  is not entirely an arbitrary one: loan data from Carazo show that farmers with property in the ‒ category paid different interest rates than those of both smaller and larger farms, putting them in a distinct category. Jeffrey M. Paige also finds the optimal coffee farm size in Nicaragua to be  manzanas.17 There are some scholars who will take issue with property up to  manzanas as medium farms, but I contend that it is an improvement over the most common categories used.18 I have chosen to label these five categories minifundio, small, medium, large, and latifundio, focusing on them as categories of landholding, rather than the frequently employed categories based on the family: subfamily, family, and multifamily farms. While these may be useful labels for the late twentieth century, historically these are all family farms. Furthermore, what is now considered subfamily— defined by the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Latin America as “a farm that does not have sufficient acreage to satisfy the basic necessities of a family . . . throughout the year”19—differs over time, with the depletion of soil fertility in later years markedly changing this size category. The label multifamily frequently would refer to corporate farms today, quite different from the latifundios owned by a handful of farmers earlier in the century. Even within this framework,





however, CEPAL includes a category called medium, whose range is an overly broad ‒ manzanas. I have also steered away from definitions that are based on calculations of supposed labor needs, with definitions that put all farmers who hire labor in the same category. Attempts to calculate labor needs are problematic. Robert G. Williams uses data gathered by U.S. Consul Harold Playter in the s to calculate that a family of five could maintain a maximum of twenty thousand trees and could harvest up to five thousand trees without hiring additional labor. Therefore, he considers farms with up to five thousand trees to be “peasant farms,” up to twenty thousand to be “family-sized farms,” and anything larger, requiring outside labor for maintenance and harvest, to be “capitalist farms” because labor would be required for both maintenance and the harvest.20 The most significant problem with this model is that the labor needs are estimated based on data provided to Playter by a large grower, who was likely to use a higher standard for maintenance than smaller growers and therefore employ more workers year-round. Even his harvest needs would be greater, if they were based on the selective picking of berries rather than the quick stripping of branches. At a lower level of maintenance, a family could care for and harvest a larger number of trees. Williams also does not factor in the arrangements that he notes Lowell Gudmundson found in Costa Rica for cooperative work exchanges among neighbors and kin groups, which would also enable families to maintain and harvest more trees. Williams’s focus on trees instead of land also ignores the extent to which land is a resource. There is a great difference between having twenty manzanas planted fully in coffee and twenty thousand coffee trees planted on a hundred manzanas of land, which provides room to expand coffee production, to grow other crops, or to draw extra income through rentals or sales, in addition to providing extra collateral for loans. The categorization of everyone who hires labor as a capitalist



 

follows the capitalist agro-export model, or Wheelock-Biderman approach. As Kaimowitz puts it, “Class is defined solely on the basis of the balance of purchase or sale of labor. Any household which hires labor, but does not itself engage in wage labor is considered a capitalist household. For operational purposes, however, farm size is taken to be an adequate indicator of class status.”21 But what about households that both hire labor and engage in labor themselves—not for wages, but on their own farms? I envision these small farmers to be much like McMurry’s yeoman farmers of South Carolina, who even owned a few slaves or hired slaves, yet found that the work they did on their own farms, alongside slaves and employees, was what differentiated them from their larger neighbors, categorized as planters.

The Case of Carazo The Carazo region was selected for this study for three simple reasons: It was the first place where coffee was grown in Nicaragua, it was one of the most important coffee regions in the country, and its Registro de Propiedad records are virtually complete from  to the present. Between  and ,22 Dr. Manuel Matus Torres founded the finca La Ceiba in Jinotepe and introduced coffee growing to Nicaragua. In  a report on the Departamento Oriental rhapsodized that the town of Jinotepe “is named for the fertility of the terrain, for its climate and the abundance of landowners, being a numerous and rich people. The cultivation of coffee, which has produced such riches in Costa Rica, could be established in this town, where they have experimented with pleasing prospects.”23 Jinotepe and the neighboring communities of Diriamba and San Marcos became the most important coffee zones in this region of western Nicaragua, which began as part of the Departamento Oriental, then the Departamento de Granada, and eventually became the





Departamento de Carazo in . The department also included the towns of Dolores, La Paz de Oriente, El Rosario, and Santa Teresa. The town of La Conquista appeared at times to be under the jurisdiction of Carazo, and at times under the Department of Granada. Carazo is located in Nicaragua’s Pacific zone, bordering the Sierras of Managua. At just over  square miles, Carazo is one of the smallest and most densely populated departments in the country. It rests on a high plateau, bordered by the department of Masaya to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the south, and the departments of Managua to the west, Granada and Rivas to the east. Though small, Carazo encompasses varied climatic and geographic zones, including the fresh climate of the coffee and sugar lands in Jinotepe, Diriamba, San Marcos, and Dolores, and the drier cattle-grazing regions found in El Rosario and the coastal portions of Diriamba and Jinotepe.24 Typically, Nicaraguans speak broadly of two coffee-growing zones: the Pacific, including Carazo, Granada, and Managua, and the north-central or northern highlands, including Matagalpa and Jinotega. Carazo is a part of the region known as the Southern Upland, which includes the Cuchillos de Abajo and the Sierras de Managua, both in the Managua area, and the Carazo Plateau, which geographically includes Carazo, Granada, and Masaya.25 However, Consul Playter, in a  report, describes three zones: the Sierras of Managua, which at the time produced  percent of the country’s coffee; the Matagalpa district, producing  percent; and the Pueblo district, comprising Carazo, which produced  percent of the country’s coffee. “The [Pueblo] district . . . is geographically a continuation of the Managua district,” Playter wrote, “[one of the principal] differences being . . . that the steep hills of the Managua [d]istrict become table-lands in the Pueblo section, allowing of better cultivation and consequently better production both as to quality and quantity.”26 Although data on the number of trees planted in Nicaragua are of questionable accuracy, all the evidence shows Carazo as second only to Managua throughout the period Playter studied.27



 

Political Division of Nicaragua (s)

From the s to the s I begin this study by tracing the economic history of Nicaragua leading up to the development of coffee as the main export (chapter ). I then consider the most important aspects of the coffee economy: land, labor, and capital. Chapter  shows how public lands were distributed to subsistence growers rather than becoming the main land supply for the coffee sector, and chapter  shows how coffee production led to a volatile market in private land sales. Chapter  considers 



the requirements and costs of coffee production, and chapter  addresses the availability of credit. The biggest expense facing larger growers was the acquisition of a labor force, and chapter  shows the difficulties of keeping workers on the estates. Chapter  shows how the coffee economy affected social structures by simultaneously challenging and reenforcing the patriarchal system while creating a new group of social elites. These economic and social elites also came to dominate the political system as well; nonetheless, as chapter  shows, the system remained relatively open. In the final chapter I consider how this view of Nicaragua casts new light on the country’s history and on the period of Sandinista government. My contention that Nicaraguan landlessness was less extreme than has been thought, and that landlessness became widespread much later than previously believed, goes a long way toward explaining the rural situation under the Sandinistas. Most Nicaraguan farmers turned down interest rates of  and  percent, which required joining cooperatives, and instead chose to pay  percent interest on loans but have individual, private landholdings. Nicaraguan rural consciousness proved to be that of farmers rather than workers, for even the landless have a family history of grandparents or great-grandparents as farmers. This Nicaraguan rural scenario brings to mind Jean-Paul Sartre’s travels in Cuba, where, after visiting cooperatives and state farms, he asked his guide, “Don’t they sometimes want to divide up the land?” The answer was: “Why should they? The taste for private property isn’t inscribed in advance on the brain. To make private property tempting, it’s necessary to have experienced it. These men, from father to son, have never possessed anything except that black sickle at their belts. . . . [T]he possession of the soil—individual and even collective—for them is an abstraction.”28 In Nicaragua, that was not the case.



Chapter 2

Setting the Stage

L   was introduced to Nicaragua, pre-Columbian and colonial peoples in Nicaragua were involved in commercial production and trade. While these earlier societies frequently described property in its social or cultural role for the community, even in religious terms, such characterizations reflect the importance of economic organization essential to survival. For example, indigenous people did not worship corn gods arbitrarily, but because their economy centered on growing corn. These beliefs do not constitute evidence that indigenous people and colonial-era Spaniards focused solely on subsistence needs and were uninterested in economic opportunity. Their economies were a mixture of subsistence and market orientation, a pattern that would be accentuated with the introduction of coffee.1

Pre-Columbian and Colonial Roots When the Spanish arrived in Nicaragua, there were about eight hundred thousand indigenous people, mostly in the Pacific zone. They



  

were descendants of the Chorotega, who migrated south from today’s Chiapas, and the Nicarao, who followed later from Cholula. These sedentary groups grew crops for subsistence and sold surpluses at thriving local markets, where they also sold a variety of craft items. “The institution of the market was important in Pacific Nicaragua,” notes Silvia Salgado González. “Every major town had a market plaza.”2 In addition, the region became the crossroads for the Nahua coming south from central Mexico and the Chibcha, traveling north from Colombia. Such interregional trade did not dominate preColumbian society, but it was sufficiently developed so that the Spanish trade was far from an alien concept.3 By the time of the conquest, indigenous elites in Granada already controlled substantial trade networks, actively seeking to acquire goods and legitimize their power. Pre-Columbian society was agrarian, but the landholding patterns are open to debate. According to E. Bradford Burns, “Some authorities claim their agricultural system ‘corresponded to communal production.’ Others, it should be noted, have argued that those Indians practiced a restricted form of private ownership of land.”5 And, Linda Newson notes, landholding patterns are “far from clear.”6 According to Salgado, individuals could own but not sell land among the Chorotega, while among the Nicarao, the land was controlled by a cacique who assigned land to the heads of lineage groups; they in turn distributed land to their lineage members.7 It is clear, however, that individuals owned the products of the land, whether for subsistence or trade. They also differentiated between the most important subsistence products—maize, intercropped with beans, manioc, and sweet potatoes—and the trade products of cacao and cotton, which were grown in special plots. Because cacao beans were used as money, the cacao trees were privately owned and only indigenous leaders, or caciques, could afford to drink cacao, which they received as tribute from commoners. Similarly, colonial society combined subsistence and commercial production within a class-stratified society. As one would expect, all



 

groups—indigenous, Spanish, creole, and mestizo—sought to supply their subsistence needs, whether via small-scale agriculture or large haciendas. What is perhaps less expected is that all groups also focused on the market. The indigenous found their local market opportunities for food and crafts swelled by the growing population of Spaniards, creoles, and mestizos. But they also produced for foreign trade by making the red dye cochineal from the insects that feed on the nopal cactus. A  inventory of Pedro Pérez’s small farm near El Viejo shows that he cultivated maize, fruit, and bananas—all products useful for subsistence as well as for the local market—the bananas alone were worth  pesos, more than half the -peso value of his goods—in addition to raising cactus. Spanish subsistence was also intermixed with market production, especially on the large haciendas. For example, Captain Mateo Blandín’s hacienda El Angel, located between León and Somotillo, in  produced maize and cotton but was primarily devoted to cattle, with more than five hundred head. There were thriving local and regional markets, the latter controlled by Guatemalan merchants, trading in cattle on the hoof, meat, hides, and tallow. José Coronel Urtecho distinguishes two levels of markets: the tianguica economy (as in the indigenous open-air market, tiangue), consisting of local and regional commerce, and foreign trade conducted by “merchant hacendados,” who owned both warehouses and haciendas, serving as exporters of agricultural goods and importers of manufactured goods.13 Spaniards and Guatemalans dominated the merchant hacendado ranks until the eighteenth century, when Nicaraguan elites, such as Diego Chamorro, took over. The Spaniards and their descendants always sought lucrative products for foreign trade. They had high hopes for mining, which had been profitable in the s, but the placer gold quickly ran out in the s.14 The most important economic activity for foreign trade was the export of slaves to Panama and Peru. Some two hun-



  

dred to five hundred thousand indigenous people were gathered from throughout Central America and shipped via Nicaragua. The slave trade ended in , hobbled not so much by abolition as the drastic decline in indigenous population: by then, population in Nicaragua’s Pacific area had plunged  percent, from , to ,.15 The Spanish then focused more on agriculture, but this was no retreat from the market to the autarky of feudal-like estates. This was commercial production, preferably for the more lucrative foreign market in cacao and indigo, but also for the regional markets, with meat, hides and tallow.16 Writes Coronel, “The proprietors of the cacao plantations and indigo workshops and similar crops—precursors of today’s commercial agriculture or simply of the coffee and cotton producers and other promoters of monoculture—depended largely on the contingencies of exportation, as did commerce and merchants. . . . The hacendados linked with foreign trade found a variable fortune, in conditions more precarious than those of the other hacendados.”17 Cacao production suffered from labor scarcity; although it does not usually require much labor, in Nicaragua the trees were not hardy and needed constant care and attention. Businessmen determined in the mid-sixteenth century that they would need six thousand African slaves to revitalize cacao production, and the Spaniards lacked the necessary capital.18 Indigo, on the other hand, needed only a small initial investment and could be combined with cattle raising because cattle would not eat indigo as they would cacao. But indigo production also required a seasonal labor supply to process the dye in obrajes, or workshops. Production expanded at the end of the sixteenth century and early seventeenth century, then stagnated due to transportation difficulties limiting access to European markets. A second expansion in the eighteenth century declined due to competition with indigo-producing regions in El Salvador and Guatemala.19 With the decline of indigo and cacao, cattle ranching became the dominant



 

economic activity. Cattle ranches generally were diversified estates that included production of indigo and cacao, as well as subsistence crops, including maize, beans, bananas, rice, and sugar. The ranches were extensive, and in  Granadinos grazed some hundred thousand cattle in Chontales, across Lake Nicaragua from Granada.20 The government tried to encourage export crops by removing sales and export-import taxes from indigo and cacao. But producers faced a constant problem of capital shortages. In  producers depended on merchant loans repayable in indigo at unfavorable prices, sometimes as much as one real21 less than the market price per pound. In an attempt to combat the merchant stranglehold, Central American indigo producers formed the Sociedad de Cosecheros de Añil (Society of indigo growers), using a hundred thousand pesos from the Crown to provide loans to growers. However, few Nicaraguan producers borrowed from the fund.22 By the late colonial period, financing arrangements had become quite complicated and foreshadowed patterns that would become common in the nineteenth century. For example, militia captain Manuel José Gamero in  rented the cattle grazing on the hacienda Nuestra Señora de la Concepción for three years, paying , pesos and mortgaging his hacienda of , cacao trees.23 By the end of the eighteenth century indigenous community funds were being used by private individuals and by authorities for economic development of the entire province. In  the government received a loan of fifteen hundred pesos at  percent interest to encourage agricultural development by making small loans repayable in produce, particularly maize. This was extended in , with loans at  percent, and again three years later, with funds designated for promoting production of cochineal. “Thus the situation had been reached where community funds were no longer being used to support Indian communities but were being employed to promote the general economic development of the province; Indian communities were thus subsidizing the non-Indian sector, while Indians who



  

required loans were having to pay interest on them, even though they themselves had provided the capital,” notes Newson.24 It should be noted, however, that it was primarily Indians who produced cochineal, which was acquired by the Spaniards/ladinos25 via trade, so it is not entirely accurate that the funds went to non-Indian producers. Further, these arrangements essentially constitute finance capital, a rather sophisticated development for this stage; this seems little different from today’s U.S. workers putting their savings in the bank, then borrowing money and paying interest on it. This perhaps indicates the level of commercial orientation reached and the degree to which the indigenous community had become integrated into a larger, nonindigenous economy.26 Initially, Spanish demands on lands had little effect on the indigenous people because the drastic population decline made for low population density; in addition, the Spaniards occupied land that had been underutilized. As late as the eighteenth century most indigenous people maintained a precolonial lifestyle, characterized by family cornfields and small farms within community landholdings. The indigenous lived in their own towns, heading out to their fields or to work on Spanish property.27 Although some Spanish and creole haciendas were formed within indigenous community lands, most haciendas were formed via royal land grants.28 Throughout the colonial period, indigenous people tried to hold onto their land, with Crown encouragement. Royal officials wanted to discourage desertion from indigenous villages, keeping people nearby to raise crops, pay tribute, and provide labor. The Crown guaranteed access to ejidos, or common land, surrounding villages. In  each village was guaranteed one square league (about , acres) for the ejidos, a process that would continue in the nineteenth century for much the same reasons. Outside the ejidos Spaniards simply usurped or bought land, then requested formal title. They also claimed vacant land in a formal process requiring the marking of boundaries, land surveys, and public



 

hearings at which communities could object, a process that would accelerate in the nineteenth century. Of course, the supposedly unoccupied land might actually have been lying fallow as part of the indigenous crop rotation. But, Germán Romero Vargas stresses, “The lands occupied, and it is important to note this, were royal grants and not ejidos or communal lands of the Indians.”29 In  illegally obtained land was to be turned over to the Crown, which also ruled that land held without legal title could be legalized by paying a fee, an action called composición. From  to ,  land grants were made, and  percent of them were grants of ten caballerías or less;  percent were of five caballerías or less.30 Far fewer grants were made to indigenous people, but they were generally of the same size. While most indigenous people probably continued to live their lives in precolonial style—a description of El Realejo in  by don Felipe Gámez Mejía indicates that less than  percent owned their small properties—others adapted to the Spanish system, acquiring property by individual title. For example, don Pedro Hernandez, the indigenous governor of Nindirí, in  obtained title to three caballerías of land that he had occupied for many years in San Marcos, part of latter-day Carazo.31 By the eighteenth century the rise in population led to more pressure for land and more titling of land, with its attendant rise in price. Land in Nueva Segovia was worth six pesos per caballería, while in León it sold for ten to twelve pesos. Indigenous communities began to complain that the Spaniards and their creole descendants cultivated and grazed cattle on part of community land, and a royal cédula of  ordered local officials to assure indigenous land rights, including the provision of the standard ejido of one square league ( caballerías) and the provision of more land if the ejidos proved to be insufficient.32 Undoubtedly there were struggles over particularly choice pieces of land, but in general land shortages were not a problem. Far more troublesome, from the Spanish point of view, was the shortage of labor, which Nicaragua’s governor complained about as



  

early as .33 The Spaniards initially instituted the encomienda system, in which an indigenous village was assigned to a Spaniard as his labor force. The first historical references to the Carazo area were the colonial assignments of Jinotepe and Diriamba as encomiendas: In San Salvador on December , , the Real Audiencia assigned Jinotepe to Miguel, Juan, and Elvira López and to Alonso Ruiz; the town was required to pay tribute in corn, beans, cotton, honey, wax, salt, hens, and “indios de servicio,” that is, Indian workers. Juan Arias, encomendero (the recipient of an encomienda) of Diriamba, was also to get fish, straw mats, and cacao.34 By  tribute was paid in money rather than in goods.35 With the rise of wage labor from  to , and its dominance by the end of the eighteenth century, the encomienda and repartimiento declined: while in  private individuals held . percent of all villages, by  they controlled only . percent. Nonetheless, indigenous people continued to pay tribute throughout the eighteenth century.36 The persistence of the encomienda and repartimiento, alongside free wage labor, is indicative of the limitations of the Nicaraguan colonial economy. Labor shortage, due to the small indigenous population and easy access to land, was the dominant factor; a second was the limited profitability of Nicaragua’s economic ventures, providing little capital for investment in African slaves or for paying the higher wages that free labor could demand.

The New Nation The convulsions that erupted in the wars of independence from Spain further hampered economic development. The province separated from the Crown together with its Central American neighbors in , joining with the new country of Mexico. In  the United Provinces of Central America separated from Mexico, and until  the region was wracked with wars over the issue of Central American



 

federation. Then from  to  Nicaraguans fought over who would rule the independent country. Both struggles delayed Nicaragua’s economic development. Pablo Lévy writes, “When domestic peace was reestablished, it was found that most capital formation had disappeared with the Spanish houses that owned it, whose owners had fled before the revolutionary hurricane; the creole and indigenous houses that had stayed in the country were virtually ruined, and there was not much hope for investment of foreign capital.”37 Two events changed the situation, albeit briefly: the invention of the steamship, which by the s was replacing sailing ships in longdistance trade, and the discovery of gold in California in , which prompted the demand for a quick route from the east to the west coasts. When the United States Steamship Company’s steamer, Falcon, arrived in New Orleans in December , two hundred people who had heard about Sutter’s Mill boarded the ship. By the time the Pacific Mail steamer Oregon traveled to Panama in February , more than twelve hundred people were on the gold trail. By , , people had made the difficult trip via Panama, where the port town of Chagres was so unhealthy that insurance companies invalidated travelers’ policies if they spent so much as a night there.38 Nicaragua offered an alternative, and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt seized the opportunity. In December  his steamer, Prometheus, traveled via Nicaragua, charging half as much as the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s six-hundred-dollar passage through Panama.39 By late  a traveler could transit Nicaragua in just over twenty-four hours for about forty dollars, and two out of every fifteen people crossing Central America took that route. By  the transit line was earning a profit of $ million a year.40 But Vanderbilt’s real goal was a transisthmian canal, and when in  British investors indicated they would not fund a canal route, Vanderbilt sold his steamships and sailed for Europe. By  the route had reached its apex. The rest of its history would be a tortured one of competition between Vanderbilt and his rivals, interrupted by the



  

Filibuster War (‒). U.S. filibusters, led by William Walker, were invited to Nicaragua to aid the Liberals during one of the incessant battles nominally between the Liberal and Conservative Parties. However, Walker turned on his allies, had himself elected president, instituted slavery, and destroyed Granada before being defeated by a joint Central American army. The war ravaged Nicaragua’s economy and struck the death knell for the transit route, which was finished off by the opening of the intercontinental railroad in the United States in . The transit route did not boost state finances as Nicaragua’s leaders had hoped—the transit company never paid all the fees the Nicaraguan government was due. But the route was a boon to the Nicaraguan economy. Transit route travelers paid for food and lodging en route and stocked supplies to take with them to California, where Nicaraguan exports found a ready market. John Foster, the British vice-consul in Realejo, noted, “Almost every article of [Nicaragua’s] produce for exportation has advanced one hundred percent in value, by the increased demand to supply San Francisco and Panama markets in addition to the transit across the country.”41 Exports from Realejo to California in  included . million pounds of corn, . million pounds of rice, , pounds of sugar, , cigars,  dozen eggs, , lemons,  pigs,  hammocks,  straw mats,  saddlebags,  pairs of shoes, and , tiles. Noted Lévy, “It is probably the only epoch in which the small products of Nicaragua’s industry have been the object of such longdistance and important trade.”42 As late as , Nicaragua still exported more small indigenous products than any other country in Central America. In addition, the transit route had revitalized old industries and inspired new ones. Lévy noted, “Old products doubled in value, other nearly abandoned products, such as sugar, were the object of new enthusiasm; new crops, such as coffee, were introduced.”43 When the boom was over Nicaraguan producers followed the historical pattern of turning back to agriculture with renewed interest.



 

And those producers were not just the creoles and ladinos. Julius Froebel, reporting on his travels mid-century in Nicaragua, described sugar production in Jinotepe: “The inhabitants of the village, who are almost exclusively Indians, are a very industrious race. They are the principal sugar-growers in Nicaragua, and all around, during my visit, I heard the rattling noise of their trapiches, or primitive sugarmills, turned by mules.”44 For much of the early national period, colonial crops such as cacao and indigo retained their importance. Lévy reported in  that Nicaraguan cacao was inferior only to that of Soconusco (today’s Chiapas) and superior to the other varieties available in European markets, yet it was hardly known outside Central America because Nicaragua produced barely enough for its own consumption and that of its neighbors.45 Despite its limited importance on the foreign market, cacao production was extremely important to the domestic and regional economy. Writes Lévy, “The cultivation of cacao constitutes the most lucrative, agreeable, and aristocratic occupation of the American hacendado.” French traveler Félix Belly also called cacao “the aristocratic industry of the country.” Indeed, its producers included the Chamorro, Carazo, Lacayo, and Sacaza families, among whose ranks were the leadership and wealth of Nicaragua.46 Indigo attracted more producers than cacao because of its rapid turnaround on investment. In  Nicaragua’s indigo production was on the rise, and Lévy regarded its production as “the base of [Nicaragua’s] industrial agriculture.”47 This surge, however, coincided with the secular decline of world indigo prices, which began in the early s.48 As a result, cattle ranching continued to dominate the economy, as in the colonial era, and for the same key reason: shortage of labor. The limited economy provided little surplus to pay for improvements in transportation and infrastructure. In ‒, workers were required to give three days of work a year to building or repairing roads, but ten years later most roads were still mule paths, with at best a few cart roads near some of the larger towns. Although many laws



  

were passed aimed at improving roads, Lévy said they remained mere projects, never realized.49 Economic development was also hampered by a scarcity of money. Although León was authorized to mint copper coins in , not enough were produced for trade. There were various unsuccessful attempts to form banks, but by  there was still no local production of national money. The legal tender was the peso fuerte, equivalent to an ounce of gold or one U.S. dollar, while daily commerce used the peso sencillo, worth eighty cents and divided into eight reales, like the old Spanish money. But cacao was still used as money, and the most frequently circulated coins were U.S. nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars; French francs; English shillings (chelines), as well as coins from Guatemala, Spain, Costa Rica, and Peru.50 The scarcity of money forced Nicaraguan merchants to send representatives to Panama to get cash from banks there, backed by letters of credit from banks in London and Paris. The lack of mortgage banks forced agricultural producers to rely on the habilitación, an advance payment on the harvest. The lenders tended to charge high interest rates since there were few laws to protect them, and the value of the property used as collateral was low. But perhaps Nicaragua’s most significant barrier to economic development in the early nineteenth century was the lack of an export crop that required little capital, little year-round labor, and had a growing, worldwide market—a crop such as coffee, which by  was climbing up the ranks of Nicaraguan exports.

Coffee in Nicaragua The cultivation of coffee in Nicaragua began at a time when Nicaragua was in a state of turmoil, but that did not prevent economic and political leaders from looking for a route to prosperity. They were acutely aware of the encouragement provided coffee by the



 

government of neighboring Costa Rica, the source of Nicaragua’s first coffee trees. Costa Rica began assisting coffee production as early as the administration of President Juan Mora (‒), who relieved coffee from export duties and granted special privileges to cultivators.51 In the s Nicaraguan leaders noted that Costa Rica’s public revenues rose from a thousand pesos in  to half a million in , thanks to coffee.52 Adds Pablo Edelman in his  report on coffee to the Nicaraguan government, “And as if our own experience were not enough, one does not need to do more than glance at our prosperous neighbor and sister, Costa Rica, which as if by magic, thanks to coffee and the hard work of its sons, in the shortest time has converted its name from one of irony to one that is well earned.”53 Edelman’s report is a good indication of the attention that Nicaragua began to focus on coffee. His report declared, “Coffee is one of the most plentiful branches that the Nicaraguan soil produces, one that should be adopted with greater determination by farmers because it is not subject to as many adverse vicissitudes as most annual crops. For the father of a family, for the prudent man trying to devote the spring of his life to the noble task of preparing himself for the rest of his old age and to assure the future well-being of his family, there is no business better than cultivating coffee.”54 Coffee was just one of many products that the Nicaraguan government sought to promote in , when a law was adopted granting tenyear tax exemptions. Coffee was the third item on the list, after indigo and cochineal and before sheep.55 However, coffee was privileged in an  law that exempted farms of at least two thousand trees from direct and indirect taxes and exempting the owners, their families, and workers from military service.56 Cacao growers were included in this law, but their tax abatements were limited to fifteen years and military exemption to six years, while no limits were put on the coffee incentives.57 The Nicaraguan government’s main approaches to encouraging coffee cultivation were encompassed in an  law that exempted coffee growers and their employees from peacetime military service. Further, the farms were exempted from direct taxes and tithes, and 

  

the growers could import duty-free goods equivalent to the value of the coffee they exported. To qualify, the farms had to have at least five thousand coffee trees. The generous law clearly led to some abuses: a subsequent law clarified that the military-service exemption was limited to four day laborers per five thousand trees; the workers were to be registered with the local judge, and if they left employment they lost their exemption; further, the coffee growers would be fined for registering more workers than required for their farms.58 The provision for duty-free imports was renewed in  and . The value of coffee, which was set at eight dollars per hundred pounds for unprocessed coffee in , increased to ten dollars in .59 Bonuses for growing coffee and other export crops were originally paid in customs premiums. In  the premiums for coffee, cotton, and sugar totaled $,., rising to $,. in .60 In  the government switched to paying the premiums in money at the rate of $. per hundred pounds.61 Around  the government paid five cents per tree to those planting at least five thousand trees. As late as  laws were passed to award premiums, but they were not always enforced. A March  legislative degree called for five cents per tree to be paid to those planting at least one thousand trees in a nursery of at least one manzana. But the minister of agriculture and work decided against enforcing the law. “Despite what is prescribed in the law,” wrote J. A. Cabrera, “this ministry has abstained from proceeding with its application and regulation . . . for the following reasons: The economic state of the country does not permit the expense . . . and the premiums, if they really are to promote the development of agriculture and new industry, in this case are superfluous since coffee cultivation in Nicaragua already constitutes one of its richest patrimonies and now does not need stimulus for its intensification.” In fact, he continued, the crisis in the coffee market at the time showed the importance of diversifying and stimulating such crops as wheat, henequen, peanuts, and grapes.62 The government also provided indirect subsidies, such as the  law that exempted agricultural machinery from tariffs, provided 

 

plants and agricultural manuals at cost, and awarded prizes for improvements in agriculture and transportation.63 Transportation and communications improvements were made, with an eye toward the coffee market. The first telegraph lines were established in , and in  underwater telegraph lines connected Nicaragua to the world’s major cities; by  there were , kilometers of telegraph lines, and by  there were , kilometers.64 Construction of the railroad, Ferrocarril del Pacífico de Nicaragua, began in Corinto in , and by  it had reached the port of Momotombo on Lake Nicaragua. Of particular importance to Carazo was the Ferrocarril de los Pueblos, built in , to connect Masaya and Jinotepe.65 By  there were  kilometers of railroad in the Pacific region, and by ,  kilometers.66 Furthermore, coffee planters were not charged for shipping their produce on the government-owned railroads.67 Clearly, Nicaragua’s economic and political leaders were interested in developing the economy and, starting in the mid-nineteenth century, saw coffee as the way to do it. This interest was not more the property of Liberals than Conservatives, as has been suggested by such authors as Biderman and Wheelock, both of whom contend that the development of coffee in Nicaragua was retarded by the thirtyyear rule of the Conservatives (‒, known as the Thirty Years), who dominated in a backlash against the chaos wrought by the Liberal invitation to William Walker. Wheelock and Biderman contend that coffee growth did not receive serious governmental backing until the regime of José Santos Zelaya (‒), a Liberal. However, Conservative actions clearly promoted coffee, laying the groundwork for the expansion of government support by Zelaya.68 Arguments that Conservatives supported a traditional, oligarchic economy dominated by cattle grazing, while Liberals believed in the dynamic coffee sector, belie the uniformity of thought and action between the two groups. Zelaya was more successful than his Conservative predecessors, but they all sought the same results. In fact, the Zelaya regime at times even considered conservative approaches toward the coffee sector; in his memoirs, Zelaya’s finance minister, Luciano Gómez, tells 

  

how he agonized for three days in  before succeeding in convincing Zelaya not to impose a tax on coffee production.69 The supposed difference between Conservatives and Liberals is exaggerated. Both parties carried out similar policies, and indeed, politicians switched party allegiance whenever it was convenient, a fact well chronicled in Juan M. Mendoza’s Historia de Diriamba.70 Nor can these supposed political and economic differences be seen in the property transactions in Carazo, where absentee landlords tended to be Conservatives from Granada and not Liberals from León.71 Whether Conservatives or Liberals, Nicaraguan farmers responded to the incentives provided by the government and the market. By the s, Lévy could report that coffee cultivation was progressing and rivaled Costa Rica’s quality. Although the data for the period are incomplete and inconsistent, it is clear that a great deal of Nicaraguan farmland was converted to coffee production, with a conservative estimate of . million trees in production by , rising to . million by , and  million in .72 Production statistics, drawn from Ministerio de Hacienda reports, show that Nicaragua exported . million pounds of coffee in ,  million in , and . million in . By  Nicaragua exported . million pounds, and for the first thirty years of the twentieth century annual exports averaged  million pounds (see table .).73 As production rose, coffee played a growing role in exports. In  cacao constituted  percent of Nicaragua’s exports and indigo  percent. With the decline of cacao, indigo rose to  percent of exports in . In  coffee represented a mere  percent of the value of Nicaragua’s exports, fourth in importance after indigo, rubber, and gold. But by the s coffee had become the country’s most important export. In  coffee constituted at least  to  percent of exports.74 Although there was competition in the twentieth century from other products, as late at  coffee constituted  percent of Nicaragua’s export earnings.75 As Nicaragua entered the coffee market the popularity of coffee was on the rise throughout the world. Whereas consumption in 

Table . Coffee Production in Nicaragua, ‒ Year

Pounds of Coffee Exported

/a b  b b b b  b b b b  b b                   

,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,,



   TABLE . (continued)

Year

Pounds of Coffee Exported

           

,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,,

Sources: aNicaragua, Administration of Customs, Memoria de Hacienda, ; bdata from Gustavo Niederlein, The State of Nicaragua of the Greater Republic of Central America (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Commercial Museum, ), ‒. The remaining statistics from Memoria de Ministerio de Hacienda (unpublished document), compiled by Hamlet Danilo García.

England was only  tons from  through , British coffee drinkers consumed  tons in  alone, and by  they were consuming , tons a year. Consumption in the German Zollverein jumped from , tons in  to , tons in , and in France consumption rose from , tons in  to , tons in .76 Figures from the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange show that world consumption of coffee, calculated on the basis of trade deliveries, rose from , tons in ‒ to . million tons in ‒ (see table .).77 The early period of rising coffee consumption was accompanied by a rise in coffee prices. Taking the average of prices from  to  as a base of , coffee rose in value to  by . At the same time, sugar dropped to , providing even more encouragement for Jinotepe and Diriamba’s traditional sugar growers to plant coffee alongside the sugar.78 As Edelman noted, “year after year since the



  Table . Destination of Coffee Exports from Nicaragua, ‒ (percentage share) Year

Germany

France

U.S.

England

             

             

             

             

             

Source: Adapted from Harold Playter, The Coffee Industry in Nicaragua (Corinto, Nicaragua: American Consulate, ), ‒. Only the dominant importing countries are listed; totals do not equal  percent.

use of coffee became generalized, its production has increased enormously without ruining the price because consumption has increased on an even more considerable scale, extending to the most remote regions of the world and among all classes of society.”79 Latin American countries responded to the rise in demand and prices by increasing the supply. As Nicaragua entered the coffee market, it was a time of rising production that was shifting from the Old World to the New. Once the major producers had been Java and Ceylon; in the late nineteenth century these producers were outpaced by Latin American countries. In  the Bureau of American Republics reported, “While the total production of the world has been increasing, the ratio of this increase has been far greater in the 

  

countries that make up Latin America than in the coffee producing districts of the Old World, where the once famed plantations of Arabia have dwindled to an insignificant production, and the difficulties of cultivation in Java have increased. It is in the former, therefore, that the steadily growing demands shown by the constantly increasing price must stimulate the opening of new fields.”80 Nowhere were the fields more extensive and productive than in Brazil, which was already producing  percent of the world’s coffee by ‒, when Central America produced a mere  percent of the world supply.81 Through  Central America’s share never rose above  percent of world production. And within Central America, Nicaragua’s production lagged behind Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala (table .). However, while Nicaragua’s impact on the coffee market was minimal, the coffee market’s impact on Nicaragua was enormous. Table . World Production of Coffee, ‒ (percentage share) Year ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒

Brazil

Venezuela

           

           

Central Colombia America —           

           

Haiti & Dom. Rep.            

Mexico            

Sources: Data from Marco Palacios, El café en Colombia (‒) (Bogotá: Editorial Presencia, ), ; International Institute of Agriculture, Bureau of FAO, The World’s Coffee (Rome: Villa Borghese, ).



 

Conclusions The colonial and early national periods established lasting patterns for Nicaragua that would be reinforced with the introduction of coffee in the nineteenth century. These included market orientation, both for local and foreign markets, combined with subsistence agriculture; diversified production, including a variety of crops and livestock, with dominance going to the most profitable product at the time; private landholdings combined with communal lands, whether administered by indigenous or government leadership; financing provided through merchants to be paid in kind, frequently at unfavorable prices; government-provided incentives for production of particular goods, whether through preferential treatment, tax abatement, or paid premiums; complaints of labor scarcity; easy access to land; and government encouragement of small landholdings to keep a workforce nearby. However, there would be some key differences under the coffee economy. Coffee remained the dominant crop for a much longer period than any previous export product and produced greater profits, therefore it took on greater importance to the local economy. Coffee production became widespread among the rural population, involving more subsistence farmers in production for a foreign market than had previous products. The greater scope of production created greater seasonal demand for labor. The strength and duration of the export market had a more profound effect on the worth of property, creating a dynamic land market, and seasonal financing needs became greater, giving lenders more power over producers. Burns posits that on the eve of the birth of the coffee economy, “an ideological contradiction existed between traditional patriarchy and its economic vision. . . . The patriarchy rested on a type of patrimonialism of pre- or neo-capitalistic origins, while the materialization of the vision presumed and required modern capitalism. . . . As the patriarchs set out to turn their vision into a reality after , they



  

planted more than coffee trees. They also propagated the seeds of their own destruction. The patriarchate they historically experienced and the capitalism they pursued clashed.”82 But, as this study shows, the patriarchy and the new coffee economy were perfectly compatible; the same class, and even many of the same individuals, Conservatives and Liberals alike, led the old economy and the new. The difference was that many more would join them in the new economy that coffee brought.



Chapter 3

Public Land for Private Use

O A , , eighteen-year-old Victor Mena went before the mayor of the town of Rosario, don Martín Ruiz, to request a parcel of land in the ejidos of the community. He made his claim, he said, “como vago, para cultivarlo”—as a vagrant, to cultivate it. He was given a three-manzana lot “from the commons of said town.”1 Mena was not alone in seeking and receiving donations of land from the municipalities of Carazo as the coffee economy developed. Throughout the years of Nicaragua’s coffee boom, the landless turned to local officials to provide them with land, free of charge or at nominal prices. They, like Mena, gained land through the state’s extraeconomic guarantees. Mena’s fate contrasts sharply with the traditional scenario that equates the rise of the coffee economy in Latin America in general and Nicaragua in particular with the systematic expropriation of land from the masses. As Burns frames the issue, “Along that newly charted course, the patriarchal elites dispossessed the folk of much of their land and impoverished them culturally and economically.”2 Indeed, the laws passed in the nineteenth century by both Conser-



    

vative and Liberal administrations in Nicaragua were aimed at bringing farm land into the coffee economy and providing a workforce to harvest the coffee crop. However, it does not automatically follow that proletarian landlessness was the logical manner to achieve these ends. In fact, the Nicaraguan state discovered that one of the best ways to achieve both ends was to provide land for subsistence agriculture, which would keep a stable workforce near the growing number of coffee farms. The property donated for subsistence farming came largely from the traditional ejidos. A related and more complicated issue is the transformation of formerly indigenous common land into ladino-controlled municipal ejidos. During the colonial era indigenous communities were given titles to their lands. The Crown recognized indigenous political structure via the comunidad de indígenas and the church encouraged formation of cofradías, lay religious brotherhoods, which also held land. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, attempts were made to subordinate and eventually eliminate these organizations and put the population under the control of ladino municipal entities. Apparently some of these communities were transformed into municipal governing bodies with the veneer of ladino organization but with the same indigenous leaders in charge. The result was the same in both ejidos and indigenous community land—most of the land did not go into coffee production.

Landholding Traditions In the colonial period the majority of the population “enjoyed virtually unrestricted access to land,” a pattern that was unaltered by Nicaragua’s incorporation into the Mexican empire and the federation of the United Provinces of Central America.3 In the early nineteenth century, Burns notes, “Only a small fraction of that land fell under cultivation. Even claims to land covered only a minor part of



 

the total.”4 Mendoza described the same pattern for Carazo: “Land was acquired by simple occupation, without title. . . . To the west, land was virgin to the Pacific.”5 As late as , he added, “land was abundant, and . . . easy to acquire.”6 Rather than declining, the number of small proprietors was actually increasing. Visitors to Nicaragua made similar observations: Ephraim George Squier, U.S. chargé d’affaires to Central America, in  described how Indian communities in Nicaragua held land in corporate capacity, with lots leased to individuals at nominal rates. Pablo Lévy attested to the availability of land circa : “There is still seemingly an infinite amount of virgin soil, so that, in general, when one wants to form a plantation, he begins by looking for a vacant plot of land, whether virgin or abandoned, and when he finds one he likes, he claims it.”7 The tradition of the commons was recognized in Nicaragua’s earliest laws. The constitutions of the United Provinces of Central America in  and the state of Nicaragua in  both recognized ejidal land.8 This commitment was spelled out in the legislative decree of July , , which provided ejidos to the towns of Nicaragua and was reiterated in Nicaragua’s  constitution. The reasons were clearly delineated: “The Assembly of the State of Nicaragua desires to promote public happiness, to promote rural industry; so that proprietors are created who increase the agricultural riches of the country; so that habits improve; so that land takes on the value that until now it has lacked; and so that the state attains the great advantages that land offers.”9 The decree provided that all towns would have ejidos, with land for both growing crops and grazing cattle, separating the two by a league and a half. The law specified that the lands be marked around the edge of the town or, if that land were inappropriate for farming or already in private ownership, then in a nearby area. If the community lacked sufficient land, the state would provide it via the terrenos baldíos, or state lands. Land was allocated to communities based on population size, di-



    

viding towns into those of less than three thousand, three to seven thousand, seven to twelve thousand, and those above twelve thousand people. The municipality was to shoulder the responsibility of measuring the land, paying a surveyor forty cents a day, while municipal officials were to provide their services free of charge. The alcalde constitucional was to “divide the land among the residents of the town so they may cultivate it,” allocating four manzanas to each. If within two years nothing had been planted, the alcalde could give the land to someone else. If part had been planted, the farmer would be given a one-year extension to plant the rest. The law also provided that residents could acquire more than four manzanas, but they were required to pay an annual fee of two reales for each additional manzana. The fees would be used to benefit the town’s “public lands” fund. The common grazing area was open to all, but those with more than twenty head of cattle were required to pay four reales a year for each additional head.10 But there were widespread problems in applying the  law, as an executive decree on October , , made clear. The prefect of Granada said there were “inconveniences”—primarily problems finding and paying for surveyors—that had prevented him from granting some of the requests for land. The decree reiterated the  concerns—“considering that it is in the great public interest that all people have sufficient land for communal pastures and for farming, which are the branches that constitute the principal riches of the state”—and required the municipalities to provide free examinations and licensing of surveyors and pay for surveys from municipal funds designated for roads and streets. If the municipality lacked sufficient funds, it could solicit aid from the district road commissions or could assess loans from local property owners, repaying with any fees collected on the ejidos. Apparently there were few trained surveyors, and they had been loathe to carry out this public service: the decree provided that surveyors could not be excused without just cause and could be fined from ten to fifty pesos for shirking their responsibility.



 

Specific guarantees for the ejidos were omitted from the drafted (but never adopted) constitutions of  and . The bipartisan constitution of  did not mention communal land at all, while article  addressed the “inviolability of property,” a measure clearly aimed at protecting individual property rights. But the omission of the ejidos from the constitution does not mean that the national government had turned its back on the concept. Instead the government continued to provide ejidos for communities that lacked them, even buying privately held land to turn over to the municipalities. For example, on March , , the public treasury was authorized to buy eight caballerías of land from private proprietors on the periphery of the village of Belén and give it to the municipality.11 Two days later the legislature issued a decree giving the town of Camoapán the ejidos to which it was entitled.12 On March , , the city of Chinandega was given four caballerías of land to add to its ejidos.13 The national government continued on this course even after May , , when a decree was issued that seemed to sound the death knell for the ejidos.14 The  decree authorized the sale of land in ejidos and indigenous communities. Those who already had such land, by possession or rental, would be required to pay for it, at prices ranging from two to five pesos a manzana (the price was to be set by the municipality). Unclaimed land would be sold at auction in plots of no more than ten manzanas in farming areas, with a base bid of one peso per manzana, and one hundred manzanas in cattle areas, starting at sixty cents per manzana. The auction was to be held among the residents of the ejidos or members of the indigenous communities; if there were no bidders among them, then nonresidents would be allowed to buy. Bidders were limited to one lot and they were required to swear that the lot was for their own use before being awarded the land. Those who already held land for more than one year were given the right to preempt newcomers in the bidding. The revenue from these sales was to be invested in public works.15



    

Indeed, the law appears ominous—everyone was suddenly going to have to pay for the land they held. The plots were still going to be small—only ten manzanas—but presumably others could come in and buy up those plots of land to put together larger holdings. However, the data from Carazo show that the law was not enforced. Instead, Carazo officials continued to enforce the  law, distributing plots of land free of charge. Furthermore, the  decree was not aimed at eliminating the ejidos per se: just days after the decree was issued the state gave Jinotepe ten caballerías of farmland and twentyfive caballerías of cattle-grazing land for additional ejidos.16 The  law was superceded by a new decree in : people with fenced or cultivated land in the ejidos had the right to buy the land, paying at least fifty cents per manzana, with the buyer and municipality agreeing on the price. If no agreement on sale price could be reached, farmers could rent the land at a rate set by the municipality. Ejidos that were not cultivated or fenced were to be sold at auction. In indigenous communities, this time differentiated from the ejidos of the ladino world, the land was to be proportionally distributed among individuals and families, with a part of unspecified size reserved to sell for the benefit of primary education in the community. Apparently the indigenous were to get the land free of charge; there was no mention of the sale of indigenous land that had been authorized, but not necessarily carried out, in .17 Meanwhile, the communities of the Carazo area continued to receive land from the state for the creation of ejidos: in  the community of La Paz was given six caballerías of farmland and two caballerías of pasture land for cattle grazing.18 In  the residents of the area called Dulce Nombre in San Marcos filed documentation of a state survey of their ejidal land, which indicated the community had forty caballerías.19 In  the state gave . caballerías to Diriamba and . caballerías to Santa Teresa.20 Ejidal lands were also granted to Jinotepe by the state in  and  and to Diriamba in .21 Further, ejidal land continued to receive state protection even under



 

the Zelaya regime’s Ley Agraria of , which regulated the sale of terreno baldío. This law stipulated that no claims for baldío land could be made within six kilometers of towns that lacked ejidos and that baldío land could be given for free to communities that lacked ejidos. Municipalities did use the  and  laws to sell land, occasionally in substantial parcels. But while these laws set prices for the sale of land, they did not require that land be sold. Instead, as in the case of Victor Mena, land was most frequently donated to residents rather than sold, until , when rental arrangements began to dominate distribution of ejidal lands. The switch from donation to rental of ejidos follows the  presidential decree declaring that ejidal land could be rented but not sold.22 But whether donated, rented, or sold, most of that land was not used for the production of coffee.

Land Distribution in Carazo Ejidos The Registro de Propiedad (Property registry) in Granada and Jinotepe provide the size of  plots of ejidal land distributed by Carazo towns between  and .23 Barely  percent of the number of farms and the area distributed ended up planted in coffee. Clearly the ejidos were not targeted by nascent coffee growers. Instead, the ejidos were used primarily in two ways—for small subsistence farms and extensive cattle ranches. The allocation of ejidal land from the national baldíos provided separate allocations for farming and for cattle raising. Unfortunately, the records rarely indicate whether the land in question was in the agricultural or grazing area. It is rare, however, for medium or large coffee farms to operate without receiving any kind of financing, which typically was recorded in the registro. It can be assumed, then, that large ejidal properties that do not reappear in the records were most likely cattle ranches (see table .). 

     Table . Land Distributed in the Ejidos of Carazo, ‒ All Ejido Property Size Category Number of Properties Percentage Area (manzanas) Percentage Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio

    

. . . . .

, , , , ,

. . . . .

Total





,



Ejido Property Planted in Coffee Size Category Number of Properties Percentage Area (manzanas) Percentage Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio

   — —

.   — —

   — —

. . . — —

Total





,



The town fathers of Carazo created or legalized  minifundios from  to , a sizable sector of subsistence farmers. The largest single category () was the four-manzana farm, as stipulated in the various laws regulating the ejidos. The significant number of farms of other sizes, however, shows the gap between legislation and practice. Furthermore, although the  and  laws said the ejidal property should be sold or rented,  percent of the minifundios were donated to residents free of charge. Several donations clearly stated that the grants were based on the law of , simply ignoring the subsequent land laws that would seem to supercede it. Two patterns emerge from the geographical distribution of the minifundios. The largest number of farms was distributed in Rosario (), where the majority of the residents were indigenous. The



 

pattern most likely shows that formerly community land was now being divided among the residents. It was likely that the land was already divided informally by community directive for the use of its members, and the new titling was the process of conforming to the new governmental decrees. The Rosario area remained mostly a food-producing region planted in maize and beans. The community with the second-largest number of minifundios distributed was Diriamba (), the heart of the coffee-growing district. Land distribution in this region indicates a somewhat different pattern: land distribution would help keep a reserve workforce nearby for the seasonal demands of the coffee harvest. Rather than usurp subsistence farmers, it made more sense to create and guarantee smallholders. Before the turn of the century most of the land was distributed in the coffee areas of Diriamba, San Marcos, and Jinotepe. After  most of the land was distributed in Rosario, La Conquista (where no land had been distributed earlier), and in La Paz. La Paz grew some sugar but was primarily a maize-and-bean area, like Rosario. La Conquista was a cattle region. The increased prosperity brought to the region by coffee production may well have been a boon to other areas of the economy such as beef and leather products. Sometimes the municipalities were clearly giving people land that they already occupied. For example, in  La Paz officials gave Gregorio Jiménez two donations: the sixteen manzanas “in which the petitioner has established his agricultural works” and “a lot that he has fenced and cultivated in guinea grass.”24 Others were given land specifically because they did not have any, like Antonio Bejarano, a day laborer who received eight manzanas in San Marcos in  because “the applicant lacks hillside [monte] on which to work.”25 Some  percent of the ejidal distribution went to women as individuals, while other women received titles in partnership with spouses or siblings, as in the case of Apolonia and Pedro Umaña, who were given twenty-four manzanas of land “to use and cultivate in common as brother and sister.”26



    

Most of the people who received ejidal land described themselves as farmers ( percent), though most of them did not own any other land that appeared in the data gathered for this study. A handful of day laborers also received land, as well as individuals who described their occupations as barber, secretary, carpenter, merchant, butcher, sculptor, mechanic, musician, businessman, tailor, bookkeeper, and shoemaker. All the women described themselves as homemakers (de oficios domésticos). Some of the grants specified that the petitioners could not sign their names. In fact, most of the land recipients probably were illiterate, though perhaps many had at least learned to sign their names. Given the limited availability of education, illiteracy may have been assumed and not considered particularly noteworthy in most cases. As late as ,  percent of Carazo’s population was illiterate.27 Nevertheless, they did know how the system worked and how to access it.28 After the  decree outlawing sales of land in the ejidos, the municipalities largely abandoned their practice of donating ejidal land and turned instead to rentals. While rental rates varied depending on the time and place, the annual cost was usually nominal. In  in Jinotepe land rented for three pesos per manzana. In  in Rosario, one property rented for fifty cents per manzana and another for twenty-five cents. In  in La Conquista land rented for four cents per manzana, and in  in La Paz it rented for three cents.29 Apparently most ejidal land was rented out by the early twentieth century. Those who held rental agreements, typically five-year renewable contracts, were able to charge sizable fees to sublet the land, with permission of the local authorities. For example, in  Felíx Ruiz rented eight manzanas of pasture from the town of Rosario, and in  he sold his rental rights to Genaro Cano of La Paz for  pesos fuertes. In  Cano dismembered two manzanas and sold those rental rights to Pedro Pablo Nicoya of La Paz for  córdobas. He sublet another four manzanas to Mercedes Garay for an unspecified



 

amount, and the remaining four manzanas were sublet to Ignacio González Herrera of Jinotepe for  córdobas in . González Herrera in turn sublet one manzana to Pedro Nicoya for  córdobas in .30 Renters also sold the improvements they made to the property and used their rights to the property, improvements, and products produced there as collateral for loans. For example, Juana Paula Cortés used the three manzanas of pasture that she rented from the town of Rosario in  as collateral for a loan of  pesos in . She also sublet the property to Medando Espinosa in  for  pesos, and in  was taken to court by Nicomedes Ramírez of Jinotepe to force her to comply with a promise to sell him her rights to the finca.31 The ability to sell rental rights and the improvements made on rental property challenges the economic dictum that only ownership provides secure enough land tenure to encourage investment in more than mere subsistence activities. Even larger commercial operations were established on rental property—seven lots of a hundred to a hundred fifty manzanas, and one four-hundred-manzana parcel. Nonetheless, most ejidal land ( percent) was rented in lots of less than ten manzanas.

Conflicts in the Ejidos The continued access of municipalities and individuals to ejidal land did not guarantee peaceful coexistence, however. Boundaries were often called into question, and private ownership claims sometimes conflicted with municipal claims to land. The situation could often be tense: When Miguel Gregorio Araña arrived in  in Dolores, where he had been assigned to remeasure the land, he was met with such hostility that he telegrammed authorities in Granada seeking “armed force from Jinotepe to make myself respected.”32



    

The community of Santa Teresa fought for many years over eight caballerías of land called Los Acebedos. The tortuous trail through the documents indicates that the municipality claimed the land as ejidal, while the Acebedo heirs claimed private ownership. The heirs filed deeds showing that their ancestors had bought the land from royal officials in Guatemala for  tostones (a colonial coin worth  cents or four reales), and that in  Francisco Acebedo paid the state government of Nicaragua ,. pesos for it. The municipality lost its first suit in  and an appeal in , but it continued to try to expropriate the land and in the s turned to buying parts of it. Along the way, the Acebedos sold the land to Francisco Ortega y Soria, a Spaniard who in turn sold the land in  to León merchant Narciso Lacayo hijo (junior). Lacayo apparently became deeply indebted on another property and was sued by Francisco Pellas, an Italian immigrant who became a prosperous San Juan del Norte merchant. Municipal officials apparently used the lawsuit as leverage to make another attempt to claim the land. In  Lacayo donated most of the eight-caballería parcel to the municipality in return for the officials’ pledge not to get involved in the lawsuit. Lacayo kept the finca that he had carved out of the property—a -manzana coffee and sugar farm called Las Marias, which changed hands several times over the years as the owners were unable to pay their debts.33 Similarly, in  Nicolás Araña complained to the Juzgado Civil (civil court) of the district that the municipality of Jinotepe was trying to get him to pay the local rent of  pesos, claiming that Acuispal, a ninety-one-manzana coffee farm, was in ejidal land. Araña’s complaint was based on his land titles, which antedated the time when Jinotepe was given its ejidos. He characterized the municipality’s contentions as absurd because the municipal title was issued on October , , and filed May , , while Araña’s titles were from March , , “without loss of dominion and with possession immemorial of his late parents, from whom he inherited the land.” As proof, Araña provided a título supletario (a supplementary title



 

recognizing legal possession of the land) from , his petition for receipt of his inheritance, and a testimonial to the continuous possession of Acuispal for thirty years. The property in question was a substantial one: assessor Carmen Espinoza Leiva estimated its value at , pesos. Jinotepe officials presented ejidal titles, some papers with Araña’s signature, and a decision in a land dispute in the Corte Suprema de Justicia between Araña and Concepción Sánchez. In  the district court ruled against Araña, who lost again on appeal. But in  the Supreme Court overturned the lower court decision and ruled for Araña.34 In the s and s the disputes between residents of Rosario and La Paz over access to ejidos turned violent. In  Rosario mayor Eulogio Gutiérrez complained to the prefect that people from La Paz were using Rosario land without permission and without paying the rent of fifty cents per manzana. The dispute began in , when Rosario officials divided a twelve- to fourteen-manzana area called Naranjo among several residents. The next month, Gutiérrez said, the mayor of La Paz “accompanied by . . . many from his town, without any [property] right in those hills or lands, provoked the authority and neighborhood of Rosario with fights and disorders leaving various people injured from one town or the other. Since that date, the frightened possessors abandoned their efforts, leaving the land completely uncultivated.” The mayor wanted several contradictory measures: that the outsiders request official permission to use the land and pay rental fees, but also that the police based at Jinotepe help Rosario return the usurped land to its rightful possessors “to avoid the bad results that will be produced again if the authorities of La Paz resume their tenacity.”35 For their part, La Paz officials complained in  that Rosario officials refused to sell land to La Paz residents who had already fenced and cultivated land in Rosario’s ejidos. They had apparently complained to state authorities in Managua, who in turn told the prefect in Granada that Rosario’s refusal to sell the land to the La Paz



    

citizens violated article  of the  law, which gave possessors or renters of land in the ejidos the right to buy it.36 The same law gave municipalities the right to set and charge rent if a sales price could not be agreed upon. The alcalde constitucional of La Paz, Bartolo Jimenes, complained of Rosario, “That municipality has refused to sell because it is more important to demand the rate of fifty cents a year per manzana.”37 But the dispute remained unresolved. On October , , the alcalde constitucional de Rosario, Claudio Pavón, again complained to the prefect that outsiders were refusing to pay rent. He noted that Rosario residents were charged twenty cents per manzana, and outsiders were charged fifty cents. Pavón complained that the rent was one of the principal incomes of the town and he sent a list of those who had refused to pay. The next month La Paz alcalde Juan M. Salazar explained that the residents had not paid because they were still waiting for the courts to decide the case, “in the certainty that justice would order the expropriation of the lands that these citizens occupy from the title of El Rosario.”38

Ejidos or Comunidades? The Rosario-La Paz dispute may have been rooted in longtime rivalries between neighboring populations. But the dispute may also have reflected the problem of defining ejidos and differentiating them from other communal landholdings, especially those belonging to comunidades de indígenas or to cofradías.39 None of the many land laws provided definitions of the terminology they used, but the lack of clarity had no impact as long as the two land categories were treated the same way. But a difference did emerge. The  law spoke of “ejidos comunes” and “comunidades de indígenas,” and both were to be divided and sold. In the  law, however, there were separate sections for each category, with



 

fundamental differences: people with land in the ejidos were entitled to buy or rent it, but in the comunidades de indígenas, land would be distributed free of charge. Presumably, concerns over the  law were brewing for several years, culminating in the changes in the  law. Around this project two surveys were conducted: an  census of indigenous landholdings and an  census of the population. It appears that the government intended to first find out how much indigenous land was claimed, then find out how many people there were who might pursue claims. The response from the municipal governments to the prefect in Granada regarding indigenous community land was unanimous—there was none.40 But the  population censuses showed Indian majorities or substantial percentages. La Paz and Rosario were clearly indigenous communities, if not comunidades de indígenas in a legal, corporate sense: El Rosario was  percent indigenous, and La Paz  percent. In San Marcos  percent were indigenous, and in Diriamba  percent (see table .).41 Government officials were so concerned about accurately representing race that the Dirección General de Estadísticas issued a circular with astonishing detail on this point:

Table . Ethnicity in Carazo, 

Diriamba La Paz El Rosario San Marcos Santa Teresa

Indian

Mestizo

Mulatto

Black

Zambo

White

,    

    

    

    

    

    

Source: Justin Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes: Community, Ethnicity, and Nation-State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Nicaragua” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, ), .



    

The races that populate Nicaragua have six classes of types that are more or less obvious and that can be easily recognized. These types are: pure white, pure Indian, pure black, mestizo, mulatto, and zambo. The first three are well defined and are not difficult to determine, and regarding the mestizo, this is the result of the mixture of Indian and white; as the mulatto is of white and black, and the zambo that of black and Indian, which types are known in an individual by the mix of both elements that are offered in his features, skin, and hair. Permit me to insist on this matter of race. I believe it indispensable that you expand on these explications to the local agents, paying attention to the lesser capacity for understanding that they have because of their lack of culture. For that purpose, give various examples, for instance, of this type: an individual with light black skin, very curly hair, with a thick, short body, is evidently a zambo, the skin revealing the pure Negro, and the color and size the Indian.42

Clearly there were indigenous people. But what happened to their lands? Archival records after the National War (‒) indicate that among the comunidades de indígenas still functioning as entities in the Granada area were Diriamba, Jinotepe, El Rosario, and San Marcos; however, they had all disappeared as legally designated comunidades de indígenas by the end of the nineteenth century. And, according to Romero Vargas, none of them had possessed communal lands since the late eighteenth century.43 The most likely scenario is that the ladino municipalities subsumed the indigenous commons into the ejidos. In nearby Diriomo in , Elizabeth Dore found, leaders of the indigenous community met with the municipality to determine “where the tierras comunes of the Comunidad ended and the tierras ejidales of the municipality began. According to the minutes of that meeting, as recorded by the Junta’s secretary, the ladino and indigenous leaders agreed that the latter enveloped much of the former.”44 No similar moment can be found for the communities of the Carazo area, but Justin Wolfe documents an  case in San Marcos



 

in which representatives of the indigenous community sought the support of the municipal government to stop the auction of lands in the area called Pochotón, which they said were ejidal, while other claimants tried to buy the land as baldío. They warned that privatization of the land “would deprive the town of all the use rights that help it in the cultivation of those lands.” The leaders said that if the municipal government failed to stop the sale, the community hoped to buy the land themselves. The prefect ruled, however, that the appeal was not filed in a timely manner, and Pochotón was auctioned off to Manuela Aragón and Guadalupe Morales.44 Significant coffee fincas were created on these lands, but the twelve caballerías were splintered into many smaller holdings. Although San Marcos lost its bid to keep control of Pochotón, the indigenous and ladino communities were successful in Jinotepe in  in keeping their ejidos from being declared baldío and then privatized. What is significant in both cases, as Wolfe notes, is the way in which the indigenous and municipal officials found common ground. It was in both their interests to preserve the ejidos, with state guarantees. The indigenous wanted to guarantee their access to land, and the ladino officials wanted to establish their political control over it.46 Undoubtedly those interests would lead to more conflict where there was competition between subsistence farmers and coffee farmers. However, even in important coffee zones such as Diriamba and Jinotepe, the municipalities continued to petition the state for ejidos, to receive them, and to allot subsistence parcels. Many of those who bought land for coffee use might have been of indigenous origins as well. Several of the indigenous leaders who headed the Pochotón struggle later bought and sold coffee farms themselves.47

Cofradías as Comunidades In all the registro records for Carazo from  to , only once is there a mention of a comunidad. The lone entry, under the title Co

    

munidad del Rosario, traced the land as a ranch named Cofradía del Rosario, measured in  at the request of “Diego Lopez, indio de Nandasmo.” A remeasure was requested in  by the alcalde indígena of Santa Catalina, who complained that every year the community seemed to lose another strip of the land. Apparently another remeasure was conducted in  at the request of “los indios del pueblo de Santa Catalina,” with the results filed in , signed by a representative of the “municipalidad del pueblo del Rosario.”48 It seems likely that the officials of the indigenous community of Santa Catalina controlled the cofradía of Rosario and became the municipal officials of the town of Rosario, which was given the status of pueblo in .49 These documents were recopied into the registro in December . In February  the legislature issued a decree to eliminate indigenous communities, calling for half the land to be distributed in individual plots to members of the community and for the selling of the remainder to raise money for indigenous education. The same law regulated the sale and rental of ejidal land belonging to municipalities, although it did not provide a definition of such land.50 Starting in April , a series of rental agreements in Rosario was recorded, but no sales of land. The implication is that Rosario had become a municipality with ejidos, not an indigenous community with communal lands. Furthermore, even in the older documents the land was not described as commons belonging to the comunidad indígena, but as cofradía land. Cofradías have their origins in Spain, and originally the majority of cofradías in the colonies were Spanish or creole organizations. The church fostered indigenous cofradías as a way of drawing Indians more into Catholic culture and as a way of providing labor and financial support for the priests. By the seventeenth century, traveler Thomas Gage commented that “every town, even those of only twenty houses, was dedicated to the Virgin or to some saint.”51 Adriann C. van Oss found both ladino and indigenous cofradías in colonial Guatemala, though the majority were indigenous: “Indians 

 

accounted for fifty-five per cent of the town’s population, sixty-three per cent of its confraternities, and seventy percent of confraternity cult activities.”52 Oss found a distinct difference between ladino and indigenous cofradías: “the ladino confraternities . . . resisted the heavy hand of clerical financial administration more successfully. In the first place, they participated less intensively than their Indian counterparts in parish liturgical life, and therefore saddled themselves with fewer expensive obligations to the clergy. In the second place, they administered their principals with greater independence. . . . But the difference between ladino and Indian confraternities went deeper than just a difference in the type of investment each preferred. It also reflected a more aggressive and commercial orientation on the part of the ladino organizations.”53 To further complicate the issue, David McCreery found that in late colonial Guatemala, indigenous cofradías dwindled because they were seen as an imposition and communities refused to serve in them; but the communities revived the cofradía on their own terms during the nineteenth century. “The cofradía became an Indian institution when the state and the church no longer would or could assert control over it, allowing the indigenous population to convert cofradías to its own purposes.”54 McCreery found that ladinized Indians commercialized their land, then, “Depending on their choices, they plowed these profits back into other money-making schemes and perhaps ladinization or used it to take over the cofradía-civil hierarchy system and perpetuate the form if not the content of the ‘closed corporate community’ to their advantage.”55 But in Rosario it seems that just the opposite may have occurred— indigenous leaders may have taken over the form of the ladino municipal corporation but retained the content of the indigenous community by allocating land to its members; even the charging of rental fees is consonant with indigenous practice, as observed by Squier. The other possibility is that the leadership of the new mu-



    

nicipality came from the small percentage of El Rosario’s population that was white or ladino. But the end result was the same—the community continued to have land, at nominal rental cost, now with secure titles. As McCreery noted of similar conditions in Guatemala, these changes did not necessarily signal a material loss for the indigenous community: “When, for example, ladinos or local Indian elites titled land and then rented it back to the villagers, was this a loss or merely a change in the conditions of access?”56 It was not the case in Nicaragua that the state and church abandoned their interest in the cofradía. The Nicaraguan state adopted several laws aimed at selling or renting cofradía land to its members. Most of those laws appear to have their origins less in concern about privatizing land for the export economy and more in trying to limit the power of the church and to add to the pool of ejidal-type land available. For example, in  the state abolished the monasteries of San Francisco, Merced, and Recolección, calling for the lands they owned to be rented or sold.57 The government asked that a list be compiled of all cofradías and specifically ruled that the Cofradía de Rosario rent out its land.58 At this time the cofradías were not seen as a distinctly indigenous organization, but it was also clear that they had a tendency to overlap. In reply to a query by the alcalde segundo of León, the legislature issued a decree in  clarifying that cofradías did not enjoy the same exemption from tithes as comunidades de indígenas.59 In  the government required cofradía property to be titled, prompting municipal authorities from the town of Diriamba and the local priest, Ramón Ignacio Matus, to appear before the local judge. The priest and the municipal authorities agreed that the church of Diriamba and the Imagen de Natividad had possessed its land—four hundred caballerías—for more than thirty years and should receive clear title.60 The mayordomo of the Cofradía de San Juan de Jinotepe filed an  title to property that was only described as belonging to the cofradía for more than thirty years. No further transactions were recorded for either one of these properties.



 

The cofradía of the Imagen de Dolores, however, ended up parceling out its landholdings. The mayordomo (administrator) presented in  the title to the cofradía, . caballerías dating from  and issued by “Felipe de Castilla, Rey de España, de otros lugares y de las Indias Occidentales.”61 Mayordomo Clemente Acevedo immediately began selling rights to small plots of cofradía land, citing authorization under the decree of March , , which specifically singled out Dolores.62 In subsequent years, including a burst of activity around  to , the mayordomos of Dolores sold some  pieces of property, with  percent ending up planted in coffee. Most were small plots with a few trees, although two large properties were composed at least partially via cofradía land. Vicente and Buenaventura Rappaccioli acquired  manzanas, which became the hacienda La Moca. Juan Pío Medal acquired  manzanas in Imagen de Dolores land directly from the mayordomo, in lots ranging from five to  manzanas. He then added on eighty manzanas that he bought in four separate sales from people who originally got the land from the cofradía. Additional purchases of noncofradía land added up to more than four hundred manzanas in the hacienda Santa Ana. On the other hand, the  manzanas that the cofradía sold to Román Castillo ended up splintered into four properties, measuring , , , and  manzanas.63

Terrenos Baldíos When towns were given additional land for ejidos, the property came from terreno baldío, land that belonged to the state because it was not already part of ejidos, other communal landholdings, or privately claimed. Alberto Lanuza, drawing on statistics from Auguste Myonnet Dupuy, a French engineer who lived in Nicaragua from  to , estimates that  percent of the land in Nicaragua in the midnineteenth century constituted terreno baldío.64 But no one knows



    

how much baldío land there was because it was not measured and marked until someone wanted to buy it. It remained vague because it was a catchall—everything that did not specifically belong to someone else belonged to the state. The state began regulating the baldíos with a law adopted May , , and reinforced by a decree of January , . These two laws ordered the alienation of baldíos to benefit agriculture and indicated no limits on the nature of these acquisitions. Under the laws, every Nicaraguan had the right to acquire baldíos, with a total maximum area of ten caballerías. There was no mention of price.65 An executive decree of January , , was more specific: it declared the sale of public lands to be “in benefit of the public treasury, of credit and the progress of the state.” The law set base prices for baldíos at one peso per manzana for first-class land, fifty cents for second-class, and twenty-five cents for third-class land, although the three classes were not defined. Within three years of acquisition, the proprietor was required to farm the land or graze cattle on it, or to form an agricultural, industrial, or manufacturing establishment.66 Subsequent laws addressed three concerns: prices, size limits, and procedures for the acquisition of baldíos by individuals and municipalities. Prescribed prices fluctuated over the years, from one peso per manzana in  to four pesos for basic agricultural land in . By  prices had dropped back to the prices of the s. Since baldío land was auctioned, actual prices were subject to what bidders were willing to pay, which did not always reflect the legislated prices at the time. Sale prices in Carazo were typically about eighty cents per manzana for cattle land and a little over two pesos for agricultural land.67 (See table ..) Size limits were set at a generous five hundred manzanas of farm land and two thousand of cattle land in . In , the limit on farmland remained the same, though recast as  hectares. Cattle area, however, was halved to  hectares, or , manzanas. In  the upper limit for baldío land was set at fifty hectares, the equivalent of seventy-one manzanas.



  Table . Legislated Prices for Terreno Baldío, ‒ (pesos per manzana) Land Type















 

Cattle Agriculture Irrigated

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . . . . .

Additional charge for wood suitable for construction, production of dye, or inlay: — . . . . . — — .

A detailed procedure for acquiring baldíos was first spelled out in the March , , decree: buyers were to file claims with the subdelegado of the public treasury of each department, who would seek testimony from two witnesses to attest that the land was unoccupied and to assess its quality. To make sure everyone knew a claim had been filed—particularly those who might want to challenge it—signs would be posted for thirty days, followed by a public proclamation by town crier every nine days for thirty days.68 The property would then go to auction, where the claimant had preference over an equal offer but could lose to a higher bidder. Piecemeal changes were made in  and  before a new, comprehensive law was adopted in . The main changes included: the requirement that claimants deposit cash or bonds equal to the value of the land; a penalty of five cents per manzana for withdrawing the claim; a requirement that the land be surveyed and registered within five years; and the stipulation that without registration, the land could not be alienated or mortgaged. National land could also be rented for a period of three years.69 These laws remained in force until the  agricultural law adopted by the Zelaya government. Those who already had property without title in the baldíos had to obtain legal title, and they had preferential claim to the property. Those who possessed land were required to have cultivated it with cereal crops, sugar, coffee, rubber, or



    

other similar crops. The land had to have boundaries marked in some way or be cultivated in part to claim prior possession. Those who did not claim the land under the law would be considered tenants required to pay the legal rent. The procedure called for an auction, to be publicized by posted signs and newspaper advertisements for at least fifteen days. This time there was no mention of publicizing the auction by public proclamation. On the day of the auction bids would be opened, and any received in the last two hours would be read aloud; the property would then be auctioned to the highest bidder. Anyone who withdrew a claim had to pay fifty cents per hectare, which was to replace the manzana as the official unit of measurement, though in practice manzanas and caballerías were still used. The  law and  amendments70 remained in force until , when a new agrarian law was adopted, requiring that  percent of the purchase price be paid in cash and  percent in bonds, with the cash and rental fees to be used for public instruction. The deposit on claimed land was lowered from fifty cents to ten cents per hectare. The land had to be kept for five years, with at least one quarter of it cultivated and a house built on it; the claimant would forfeit the land if nothing were done toward cultivation or construction in one year. The fees to register the property were set at ten cents per page. The prices for baldío land were not prohibitive, though they were steep compared to land available through the ejidos. The deterrent to the smaller holder was not so much the cost of the land itself as the costly and lengthy procedures to petition, place deposits, and pay for survey of the land and registration of the lengthy documentation. The procedure typically took several years from initial claim to receiving title to the land. The case of José Ambrosio Traña, a Jinotepe farmer, is perhaps an extreme example. On January , , Traña appeared before the subdelegado de hacienda to claim two caballerías of baldío land. On February , two witnesses testified for him: Agustín Madrigal declared the land was vacant, of inferior quality, having no water or wood, and appropriate for grazing cattle;



 

Domingo Martínez agreed. On May  the order was issued to place signs and to advertise in the Gaceta oficial, which was carried out May . On July  Traña asked that the price per manzana be set so that he could pay the deposit; the appraisal was made July  and notice given to the treasurer the next day. On August  Traña deposited . pesos with the treasury. On October  an auction was held and the property was awarded to Traña for eighty cents per manzana. On November  proof was presented that Traña had deposited the amount of the value of the land. On November  a surveyor was appointed, who actually accepted the appointment December  and began work the next day. It was not until May , , that the surveyor completed the survey. Instead of two caballerías ( manzanas) suitable only for cattle, he found  manzanas and an abundant water supply. It took until September  for the survey to be approved by a reviewing judge. In the interim, Traña sold the property to Camilo Zúniga, another Jinotepe farmer. The treasury administrator certified that Zúniga paid the state the . additional pesos for the larger and higher-quality property. He finally received the title in  and inscribed the entire proceeding in the Registro de Propiedad on January , .71 The four-year delay from claim to title may well have been caused by the added complication that Traña, the original claimant, had sold the property rights to Zúniga. Nonetheless, had title been issued immediately after the survey, there would still have been a two-year waiting period, in addition to survey costs, deposit, and final sales price, all putting the typical baldío acquisition well out of reach of the small farmer, who could more easily go to the municipality and get a small plot of land for free or buy additional land on the local land market, creating moderate-size landholdings. So privatization in the baldíos did become the realm of the wealthy, and that included coffee growers. But in Carazo most of that land went to the formation not of coffee fincas but of cattle haciendas. In Carazo from  to  there were seventy recorded sales of 

    

baldíos by the state. Size data for sixty-seven of those sales show the enormity of landholdings sold in the baldíos:  percent of the sales were of two hundred manzanas or more;  percent of the sales were over five hundred manzanas, for a total of , manzanas of land. The vast majority of these properties were cattle ranches. Only  percent of these properties ended up with coffee planted on them by . Furthermore, most of the privatized baldíos subsequently were subdivided repeatedly, fragmenting into smaller properties. Of fifteen baldío properties sold by the state, all but four were divided and subdivided over the years. Many of those subdivisions still resulted in substantial properties, and many were owned by prominent hacendados with other extensive holdings that included coffee plantations. The original claimant, however, did not necessarily end up as a major landowner.

Conclusions The laws of the early nineteenth century show a commitment to providing everyone with land and a tendency to want to formalize what had been the traditional and somewhat informal arrangement of individual and familial access to the community’s land base. By the s the laws encouraged the sale of land, probably aimed less at the appropriation of land than at the raising of local revenues to take the burden off the financially strapped state. The sale of ejidos, or the charging of registration fees for property that was already occupied, would bring in revenue and at the same time might force people to seek employment to earn wages to pay the fees, thereby helping provide a labor force. But dispossession of the land was an unlikely goal, since the coffee economy does not provide year-round employment. Instead there would be more interest in giving subsistence farmers enough land to keep them nearby, guaranteeing a local workforce. As Alain De Janvry suggests in his model of “functional dualism,” it



 

serves the needs of larger growers to maintain their workers as smallholders who produce basic grains, producing enough to subsist and perhaps to serve the needs of the hacienda, but not becoming rich enough to ignore the call for workers during the harvest. The dual interests in keeping workers nearby through assuring them access to land and encouraging coffee production were served by guaranteeing access to the ejidos.72 Clearly, a change was taking place; but the destruction of subsistence property through the breakup of the ejidos was not the result. In some ways the much-lauded indigenous tradition of community control over land did not change, even under the nineteenth-century ejido laws. Ejido land remained under community control, particularly in the towns not dominated by coffee, such as Rosario, where the individual was granted usufruct, which he or she could sell. The original comunidad indígena did come under attack, and in Carazo it seems that community members decided to join the ladino system after the s. The coffee economy may have eroded the indigenous community’s landholdings not so much by ladinos taking over indigenous land, but by indigenous people choosing to try their luck as coffee growers themselves. This was not necessarily much of a stretch for such communities as the Indians of Jinotepe, who were already producing sugar. Burns gives the example of land transactions found in the Indice de los documentos que comprende la sección de tierras y que existen en depósito en el Archivo Nacional (Index to the documents in the land section of the national archives), published in  and : “The unmistakable trend of assault on communal lands accelerated throughout the rest of the nineteenth century. . . . While most of the cases concern rather standard acquisitions of land or legalization of title, the researcher will also encounter more ominous entries. For example, on May , , Señora Jerónima Morales made claim to a plot of land in the terreno ejidal of Laguna de Apoya. Similarly, on Sept. , , the municipality of Posoltega sold a part of its community lands to Dr. Bernabé Portocarrero. In short, the brief entries



    

record erosion of the community landholdings after .”73 But it was usually the very members of those communities who were obtaining those lands. In some ways the new access to the ejidos was not that different from traditional arrangements, in which indigenous leaders had allocated community land to individuals and families, sometimes charging fees, as Squier observed. The nature of landholding in Nicaragua was changing. During the period examined, the state sold , manzanas in baldío land. But at the same time, the state donated , manzanas to the municipalities for ejidos, and only , manzanas were distributed. It seems likely that municipal officials distributed less than half the ejidal land acquired because of a lack of requests, indicating that most residents already had land. If most coffee land did not come from the ejidos, comunidades, cofradías, or baldíos, then where did it come from? The answer would seem to be private landholdings that were converted to coffee or sold and then planted with coffee. Ejido and comunidad land was clearly designated, or redesignated, according to the various laws adopted. Baldío land was defined as any unclaimed land that was not in the ejidos or comunidades. The implication is that most of the land was privately claimed. As early as  laws regulating the ejidos noted that they were to be marked around the edge of the town unless that land was inappropriate for farming or already in private ownership. The national government also bought land from private owners to add to the ejidos. Private landholdings in Carazo were substantial outside of the primarily indigenous areas. Land surveys show that in ,  percent of the land of the primarily indigenous community of La Paz was private, compared to  percent municipal and  percent national. But in nearby Diriamba, an important coffee-growing area, only  percent of the land was national, and  percent of it was privately claimed.74 Many of these claimants planted coffee on that land or sold the property to someone who did.



Chapter 4

The Land Market

T   providing for ejidos clearly delineated the goals of Nicaragua’s leaders: “The Assembly of the State of Nicaragua desires to promote public happiness, to promote rural industry; so that proprietors are created who increase the agricultural riches of the country; so that habits improve; so that land takes on the value that until now it has lacked, and so that the state attains the great advantages that land offers.”1 By the s land had indeed taken on value, though the guarantee of ejidos played but a small role in that process. In fact, free access to the ejidos kept a sector of land outside the realm where value was assigned—the market. One of the ways in which the rise of the coffee economy transformed Carazo was by accentuating trends that already existed, among them the commercialization of goods and services— and one of those goods was land. Nicaragua’s participation in the international coffee market had among its local repercussions the creation of a land market in which coffee farms changed hands repeatedly during the fifty years of the coffee boom. The market was most certainly not a level playing field. Those with



  

the most resources were able to accumulate more until a handful of people owned nearly half the land in Carazo. Nonetheless, the market also offered opportunities, and most of the participants were the owners of minifundios, small, and medium farms, who sought to do exactly the same things as their larger associates in the coffee business. These were market-oriented producers, playing the same game but on a smaller scale. They all bought and sold farms and tried to consolidate larger holdings from smaller purchases, with an accompanying fragmentation of farms as portions were sold off. Over time, the market also broadened to include other land-related commodities: inheritance rights, litigation rights, farm improvements, and usufruct. The importance of the land market is reflected in the creation of the Registro Conservatorio de Bienes Raíces in .2 The Nicaraguan property registry laws have their antecedents in Spanish law and procedure established during the colonial period; as early as  books were established in each town to record encumbrances. But the actual transfer of property was still largely secretive, even with the passage of subsequent laws and establishment of mortgage registries. The  property registry was based on two principles: the elimination of secrecy in property transactions by having records open to the public, and the clear delineation of property rights. Unlike the old mortgage registries, which were located only in León and Granada, the new property registries were established in every department.3 The new registries were designed to record all types of property transactions, including títulos supletarios; awards of ejidal and baldío land; sale, trade, and rental of land; wills; division and registration of inherited property; sentences in land disputes; formation and dissolution of property management corporations; and the sale of usufruct, property improvements, litigation, and inheritance rights. For this study, the property registry was used to trace every transaction involving a coffee farm registered from  through . A second important tool to understand these processes is the Censo Cafetalero conducted by the government in . The census



 

shows the distribution of coffee farms at the end of the regime of José Santos Zelaya, who is credited or blamed with facilitating land concentration during the coffee boom. The census also provides information on coffee production, farm value, and mechanization. The properties listed in the census were also traced in the registry through  to see whether land distribution changed.4

Land Changes Hands The sheer volume of land transactions recorded in the registro increased markedly over time. From  to , only  rural land transactions were recorded in the prefecture of Granada.5 In  alone, the first full year of operation of the new registro,  land transactions were recorded in the prefecture. By the next year, the number of transactions had jumped to , and throughout the s an average of  property transactions were transcribed each year. Carazo became a department in  and the incomplete records from that year show a peak of  land transactions recorded. Thereafter, transactions averaged a still considerable  a year until about , when the department stopped providing totals. Certainly not everyone recorded property transactions in the registro. Both Salvador Mendieta and Juan M. Mendoza give ample testimony to the well-founded tendency of Nicaraguans to distrust their government and its procedures. As Mendieta notes, “The great enemy of our campesinos is the government, and that is the reason for the intense revulsion it inspires in him.”6 In , when the federal government asked departments to conduct a survey of rural property, Alcalde Constitucional Alejo Mendieta of Diriamba lamented, “the majority of the proprietors, according to what one is able to observe, have hidden more than half of their capital.”7 The  coffee census found  coffee farms, but there were probably many farms that were not included in the survey, judging by the amount of property



  

shown in the registro. Furthermore,  of the farms surveyed in the census are not among the properties in the registry described as coffee farms. The registro also reflects changing attitudes toward the formalization of land titles. It was common to find two transactions filed the same day—one a previously unrecorded title to property from many years earlier, and the other the documentation for a transaction taking place that day. Although many Nicaraguans initially may have avoided the registro in hopes of keeping their business to themselves, others would insist on filing. Since property was not taxed and coffee farmers were given bonuses, there was little material basis for hiding property. On the contrary, proof of ownership would be essential when challenging competing claims to land made by individuals and local governments. Lenders also frequently preferred to have a public record of debt agreements. In addition, property disputes crowded the docket of Carazo’s increasingly litigious society, and it would be difficult to press claims to property that was never formally titled. For example, in  a judge ruled against a claimant in a property dispute who presented a “private document”—a title that may well have been notarized or drawn up (or both) by an attorney but not filed in the registro. The judge ruled that the document “was not considered valid because the civil code provides that the sale of real estate will not be recognized if it is not executed by duly inscribed public contract.”8

Land Distribution One of the most significant patterns revealed by both the registro and the census is the distribution of land by size category. As expected, there were far more properties and owners on the smaller end of the scale, and more area and property value among the larger landholders. This pattern, though perhaps accentuated by coffee, was not a



 

new one and could be attributed to the earlier economic options: cattle and sugar. The  rural property survey found that in Diriamba the minifundistas held  percent of all farms, but only  percent of the area, while one latifundio alone measured  manzanas, constituting  percent of the town’s rural area. In contrast, El Rosario was primarily a smallholder community: minifundistas held  percent of the farms and small farms made up the remaining  percent. But even in this primarily indigenous community, the holdings were not evenly distributed, as the smallholders had  percent of the farms but  percent of the area (see table .). Jinotepe’s minifundistas appear to be crowded on an unusually small area, with  percent of the farms and only  percent of the area. But the large and latifundio sectors include land held by cofradías: five hundred manzanas belonging to the Cofradía de Victoria and three hundred manzanas to the Cofradía de San Juan. Another latifundio in Jinotepe comprised six hundred manzanas belonging to the estate of Father Mátus, which may have been cofradía land as well. The cofradía territory most likely was shared by smaller holders. Table . Carazo Farms by Size, Rural Survey,  Diriamba Jinotepe Santa Teresa Rosario Percentage Area Percentage Area Percentage Area Percentage Area

Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio

   ‒ 

   ‒ 

   . .

    

    

    

  ‒ ‒ ‒

  ‒ ‒ ‒

Notes: La Paz is not included because most of the people surveyed did not provide size data. Area is expressed in manzanas. Due to rounding, columns of percentages in tables may not total . Source: Archivo Municipal de Granada, Estadística Rural de Diriamba, ; Estadística Rural de Jinotepe, ; Estadística Rural de Rosario, ; Estadística Rural de Santa Teresa, .



  

In most of these towns, smaller holders followed the same patterns as large ones, albeit on a smaller scale. For example, in cattle-raising areas, such as Santa Teresa, smaller holders typically owned a few head of cattle. The same process would occur with coffee: if there was a way for smaller farmers and ranchers to participate in the commercial economy, they did, amassing as much as resources and luck allowed within the limits of a competitive system dominated by those at the top (see table .). Table . Rural Production,  Town Diriamba Jinotepe La Paz Rosario Santa Teresa Town Diriamba Jinotepe La Paz Rosario Santa Teresa

Commercial Crops Coffee Sugar % Farms Quintals % Farms Arrobas   .  

, ,   

  ‒  

, , ‒ , ,

Subsistence Crops Corn Beans % Farms Fanegas % Farms Medios     

, , ,  ,

 ‒   

 ‒   

Cattle % Farms Head     

 ,  , ,

Rice % Farms Arrobas  ‒   .

 ‒ ,  

Note: The arroba ( pounds) and quintal ( pounds) were standard measures. The medio was a measure of volume and weight. Equivalents varied depending on the product (beans,  pounds; rice ; corn ; sorghum ). Similarly, a fanega was equivalent to  medios, or  liters of capacity; a fanega of corn equaled  pounds. See Cristina María van der Gulden, Vocabulario nicaragüense (Managua: Editorial UCA, ), , . Source: Archivo Municipal de Granada, Estadística Rural de Diriamba, ; Estadística Rural de Jinotepe, ; Estadística Rural de La Paz, ; Estadística Rural Rosario, ; Estadística Rural de Santa Teresa, .



 

The  surveys shows  coffee farms in the Carazo area as compared to the  in the  survey.9 The amount of coffee produced rose from a mere , pounds in  to . million pounds in , increasing from  percent of national exports to  percent.10 The distribution of property was clearly uneven: in  minifundios and small farms composed  percent of all farms, but only  percent of the area. Large farms and latifundios made up only  percent of all farms while holding  percent of the area. Sales of property from  through  indicate that the smaller farm categories had grown to encompass a larger area. The  percent of the farms sold that were minifundios or small farms comprised  percent of the area. No latifundio was sold, and large farms amounted to  percent in number,  percent in area (see table .). Table . Coffee Farms by Size, Carazo Number of Farms Registro de Propiedad, ‒ Coffee Census,  Number Percent Number Percent Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio

Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio

    

    

    

    

Area of Farms Registro Area Percent

Area

Percent

, , , , ,

 , , , ,

    

    

Note: All areas are expressed in manzanas.



Census

  

The number of people who owned large farms and latifundios was extremely small. The  census shows that ten families owned  percent of the land in Carazo and  percent of the coffee trees (see table .). Those holdings comprised  percent of the value of coffee farms, and they produced  percent of the volume of coffee. Furthermore, the registros show that coffee land was ending up in fewer hands as time went by. There were , coffee-farm sales between  and  for which both size and price data were recorded. These figures include multiple sales for the same property over time. Originally, there were  people selling property to  buyers, a decrease of  percent. When those properties were traced out to , there were only  owners, a decrease of  percent.

Table . Carazo’s Largest Landowners, 

Name Vicente and Buenaventura Rappaccioli José Esteban and José Ignacio González Vicente Rodríguez Fernando and Rosendo Chamorro Teodoro Teffel Arturo Vaughan Anastasio Somoza Ignacio, Román, and Moisés Baltodano José María Siero Adolfo Benard

Trees

Volume of Coffee (quintales)

Value (pesos billetes nacionales)

,

,

,

,,



,

,

,,

 

, ,

, ,

,, ,,

   

, , , ,

, ,  ,

,, ,, , ,

 

, ,

, ,

, ,

Land (manzanas)



 

These figures clearly show land concentration and domination by a handful of coffee growers. But an exclusive focus on the top ten landholders ignores the other  listed in the coffee census. True, the top ten had  percent of the land—but the rest of the growers had the other  percent of the land and  percent of the trees. They were the majority, in numbers of farms and farmers, manzanas of land and numbers of trees, if not in wealth and power. They both competed and cooperated with the larger growers in the coffee market and thus played a significant role in the creation of the new economy.

Mergers and Dismemberments Cafetaleros, coffee farmers, frequently would sell off or buy bits of property over time. The sale of a few manzanas of land could bring in some cash to help with expenses and might avert the need to borrow money. Conversely, through small purchases farmers could slowly build a larger farm, adding on as resources became available. Scattered landholdings were common in Carazo, since there is no economy of scale in coffee cultivation. Nonetheless, farmers often sought to buy contiguous strips of land. Smaller farmers may have wanted contiguous parcels to save on transportation costs to scattered groves. If the holding was maintained by mostly family and kin group labor, the purchase of property within a defined area might be a priority. It is difficult to determine exactly why farms were sold at any given time. High coffee prices might be expected to attract farm buyers, but only one of the years with a high volume of farm sales is also a year of unusually high coffee prices. Conversely, farmers might be more eager to sell their farms or a part of a farm when coffee prices were low, perhaps not bringing in enough money to cover costs. A third of the years with high farm sales were also years of low coffee prices—a correlation, but not a strong one. Another third of the high sale years correlated with the years with the highest number of loans recorded in Carazo. Taking the last two categories together, then, two-thirds of the sales in

  

dicate that economic difficulty was the most likely motivating factor to sell. Problems in the economy would presumably lead to sales of farms, but even in  the number of sales () didn’t rise much above the average (). And there were always buyers who were willing to gamble on the eventual return of higher prices (see table .). Table . Correlation between Farm Sales and Other Factors Highest Number of Farm Sales Year Number         

Year

        

        

Highest Coffee Prices Price/Quintal . . . . . . . . .

Lowest Coffee Prices Year Price/Quintal

Highest Number of Loans Year Number of Loans

        

        

. .a . . . . . . .

        

Note: Years with a high number of farm sales appear in bold. a While the coffee prices of ‒ are among the lowest during the fifty years studied, they were higher than the three preceding years, even though there was a recession in the United States in . The high number of sales of property those years may be related more to unrest leading up to the overthrow of Zelaya in .



 

Minifundistas and small farmers constituted the majority of coffee growers in the  census and in the land transactions in the registro. They were also the majority among those who dismembered their property and those who cobbled pieces together to create larger farms. A profile of  farms that were dismembered shows the general pattern: Originally,  percent were minifundios and  percent small farms (see table .). In the dismemberment process, larger farms tended to split apart, increasing the small-farm sector; the  farms became . Yet, despite the fragmentation that took place, the minifundio section did not increase appreciably, rising only  percent to  percent of the new farms formed. The small sector rose substantially, to  percent, apparently growing at the expense of the large farms (which dropped to  percent) and latifundios, which disappeared. Table . Dismemberment and Mergers of Carazo Coffee Farms by Size

Category Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio Category Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio

Dismemberment Percentage before Dismemberment ( farms)

Percentage after Dismemberment ( farms)

    

    —

Mergers (245 farms) Percentage of New Farms     



  

As expected, mergers of properties resulted in the creation of larger farms. An analysis of  farms that were merged shows that  percent were large and  percent were latifundios. But it is significant that even minifundios— percent—were the results of mergers. This shows that both the larger and smaller growers were trying to increase their holdings, whether adding fractions of manzanas or hundreds of manzanas. For example, in  Claro Urtecho used as collateral for a three-hundred-córdoba loan “a rural property with a house made up of various lots that conglomerated measure  by  varas,” or less than half a manzana.11 In  Tomás Arévalo formally conglomerated his properties into one twenty-five-manzana farm, described as two farms that formed one property, which in turn had been composed of six different purchases.12 At the larger end of the scale, the heirs of José Esteban González put together five farms to form one—though still known by two names, Monte Cristo and El Recuerdo—a -manzana farm with coffee, plantains, pasture, a house, barracks for workers, a processing plant, water troughs, and drying patios, valued at $, in .13 Most of the larger coffee fincas were the result of multiple purchases of land over the years, rather than immediately established on large tracts of land. The image of the coffee baron who bought up baldío land for a huge coffee plantation does not emerge in Carazo. In fact, most of the initial large land purchases, especially from the baldíos, were dismembered over the years, though sometimes the dismemberment only meant that several large landholdings were created. In addition, it was usually not cafetaleros who laid claim to huge tracts of public land. Instead, the original purchaser may have been speculating in land sales. Take the case of Dámaso Martínez, who originally owned enormous landholdings but ended up with rather modest possessions. This story has its roots in the claim for ejidal land that had been challenged by both the municipality and indigenous community in San Marcos in , when Manuela Aragón and Guadalupe Mora



 

filed a claim with the state for a large area of land in the Pochotón area.14 Aragón later sold her rights in the land to Esteban Martínez, Dámaso’s father.15 In  Esteban, along with Castilo and Juana de la Cruz Martínez, had a document drawn up declaring that they owned twenty-five caballerías of land at Pochotón and that ten of these caballerías belonged to Dámaso, “since with his own money and work he contributed to buy said area.”16 Esteban’s will, written in , declares that his children, Dámaso and Juana de la Cruz, would share  caballerías of land.17 And in  Dámaso was given effective possession of  caballerías of land from his father’s estate. At this point, Dámaso appeared to own  caballerías,  caballerías from his own investment and labor and  caballerías from his inheritance. In  Dámaso sold  caballerías to Desiderio Román.18 In  he sold . caballerías to José Esteban González and nine caballerías to Benicio Guerrero.19 And in  he sold  caballerías to Vicente and Buenaventura Rappaccioli, a sale that was not filed in the public registry until , the year that a lawsuit was filed to clarify who owned what out in the Pochotón area.20 The lawsuit was filed by Alberto Chamorro, who demanded that the area be remeasured; the boundaries had been set and the area measured in , but obviously that had not ended the confusion and resulting dispute. The suit requested a remeasure and redivision of land among the common landholders of the area, Dámaso, Juana de la Cruz, and Buenaventura and Vicente Rappaccioli. The lawsuit began at the district court level and continued to the Court of Appeals and finally reached the Supreme Court of Justice in .21 The court determined that the area in question measured . caballerías, originally with Dámaso owning . caballerías and Juana  caballerías, and  caballería owned by Teófilo Martínez, whose relationship to the others is unclear. However, Juana was really only entitled to . caballerías, and while Dámaso originally had possession of . caballerías, he already had sold . of them—not including the -caballería sale to the Rappacciolis! The court determined that 

  

Dámaso’s remaining . caballerías belonged to the Rappacciolis, and that Alberto Chamorro was entitled to . caballerías contiguous to his hacienda El Brasil. Sometime between the court’s decision and the transfer of the property to Chamorro, Juana de la Cruz apparently sold the rest of her land to Chamorro as well. Vicente Rappaccioli promptly went to court, claiming that Juana’s sale to Chamorro was null and void because she had ceded her rights to Dámaso, who had sold the land to him. Both the local and district judges found for Chamorro, and Rappaccioli apparently abandoned the case.22 When the actual transfer of the land took place, two lots were measured, one that was . and the other . caballerías, corresponding to the size of the lots that originally were Juana’s. Further, it was noted at the time of the transfer that the lots contained coffee that had been cultivated by the Rappacciolis and by José María Siero Gutiérrez, Vicente and Buenaventura’s half-brother.23 In , Siero sued Chamorro, claiming that the original court decisions were only about the land itself and not the coffee planted there. He demanded that he be reimbursed for the value, and the appeals court concurred with him in , as did the Supreme Court in . In  Siero agreed to accept seven thousand córdobas from Chamorro to end the dispute.24 The twists and turns described above, complex as they are, tell only a part of the story. What happened to the land that Dámaso sold off? Was it further dismembered into smaller holdings, or was it added to other property to form large ones? Examining each sale in chronological order: • . Sale to Desiderio Román,  caballerías. Román paid Dámaso Martínez . pesos for the land in . Román died in , leaving the hacienda, then worth , pesos, to his sons, José León and Segundo Albino Román y Reyes. By then improvements to the land included a thirty-manzana pasture, , coffee trees, a tile-roofed house, two cisterns, two drying patios, and a quarter manzana of sugar, all valued at , pesos. In  José León sold his half to his brother for , pesos. The land



 

remained in the family at least until  and half the land was left unimproved.25 • . Sale to Benicio Guerrero, nine caballerías and nine manzanas. In  Benicio sold  manzanas to his brother, Zacarias, for  pesos sencillos ( pesos fuertes). In  Zacarias sold the land to José Esteban González for , pesos fuertes. González merged the -manzana parcel with another -manzana property, which he bought from Benicio Guerrero in  for , deutsche marks (DM). The two properties were formally merged in  by José Esteban’s heirs.26

In  Benicio sold another seventy-seven manzanas from the original property for , pesos to Ricardo Gordillo, a Jinotepe farmer, who in turn sold the farm to José María and Juan Manuel Siero Gutiérrez for , German imperial marks. Juan Manuel’s half of the property was inherited by his wife, Soledad Pérez Alonso de Sierra, who sold her portion to José María in , along with two other properties, for , córdobas. José María transferred the property in  to Buenaventura Rappaccioli and company, and the resulting property measured  manzanas.27 Benicio also sold another hundred manzanas to Fernando Argüello, then in  sold the remaining  manzanas to Francisco Artola, a farmer from San Rafael del Sur, for , pesos fuertes. Artola annexed the land to a -manzana hacienda named Santa Enriqueta, with fifty thousand coffee trees, processing equipment, six suertes of sugarcane, and a sugar mill.28 • . Sale of two and a half caballerías to José Esteban González. González had already bought one caballería in the same area in  from Teófilo Martínez. He sold off part of it to Vicente Rappaccioli in  and by  had joined the two Martínez parcels into one property, with two hundred thousand coffee trees, processing equipment, and housing for workers, all valued at DM ,. By  this property had been merged with yet another



  

to become La Providencia, and when passed to his heirs it measured  manzanas.29 • . Sale of eighteen caballerías to Vicente and Buenaventura Rappaccioli. The Rappacciolis planted , coffee trees and installed processing equipment, improvements valued at , pesos in . In  Vicente sold his share to José María Siero Gutiérrez for , pesos, and Buenaventura’s widow, Rosaura Moya de Rappaccioli, sold her share for , pesos. After the lawsuits with the Chamorros over the boundaries and sales of the property, Siero “resold” the remaining  manzanas to Moya de Rappaccioli for , córdobas, saying the property had never really been his and that the Rappacciolis retained usufruct while he “only had lent the use of his name to serve as intermediary . . . for legal reasons that are irrelevant to note . . . for their better judicial defense,” presumably in the dispute with the Chamorros. In  Haydée Rappaccioli de González paid her mother , córdobas for the property.30

The Chamorros formed the hacienda El Pochotón from their plus caballerías—at  manzanas, the property could well be considered a latifundio. Despite their vast holdings, they did not take kindly to encroachments by smaller farmers. In  Alberto Chamorro filed suit in district court against Dionicio Parrales and José and Francisco Callejas, San Marcos farmers who occupied twenty manzanas at Pochotón. In  the court ruled for the Chamorros, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeals in ; in  the decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court, but only for nine of the contested twenty manzanas. After all these twists and turns, where did Dámaso Martínez end up? With the court decisions, he lost all the property he had claimed to still hold—and for which he had been paid—at Pochotón. During the years he bought and sold other coffee farms, and his heirs registered and traded properties that they inherited from him, including a fifteen-manzana coffee finca and an eight-manzana finca with coffee



 

and bananas.31 Dámaso Martínez did not lose all, nor did he become the owner of a latifundio.

Ownership versus Usufruct Caraceños made a clear distinction between ownership and usufruct of property. When ejidal or cofradía land was sold, the sale usually represented only usufruct rights to the property. For example, in , when Petrona Marenco sold her “derecho posesorio”—right to possess—seven manzanas of land, along with its coffee, plantains, and sugarcane, the land was still owned by the municipality of Rosario. But that did not stop the buyer, Antonio Mora, from selling the rights to Isaac López in .32 But even with private landholdings, ownership and usufruct were clearly two different things. The ownership of property could be sold, bringing in needed income, while the seller retained the usufruct and the crops grown on the land. Meanwhile, the purchaser could use the farm as collateral on loans or could in turn sell the ownership to another. On the other hand, an owner could sell the usufruct of the land while retaining legal ownership of the property. Therefore, someone who was not a farmer might sell the usufruct of a plot of land but keep or resell dominion. The purchaser of usufruct rights could also use them for collateral on loans. The sale of usufruct often amounted to rental and sublet rights over property. This was certainly the case in ejidal or cofradía land: When Valeriana Ruiz viuda de Marenco sold her “derecho posesorio” in a fifteen-manzana coffee farm to Petrona Marenco in , it was specified that Marenco would pay the established rent to the municipality of El Rosario.33 But private lands were rented as well. In  José Concepción Sánchez rented a thirty-manzana coffee, plantain, and sugar farm called Las Garcías from José Eligio Sánchez.



  

Rental payment was to consist of thirty quintales of processed coffee delivered every March or April to the plaza in Jinotepe. The renter had the obligation to keep the farm in good shape.34 Sometimes the renter also had the obligation to make improvements to the property. In  Aurelio Torres Díaz and Rafael Villavicencio, Diriamba farmers, signed a five-year rental agreement with Mercedes Avilés viuda de Estrada for a thirty-manzana coffee farm. They would pay , pesos: , each for the first two years and , each for the next three, to be paid in March or right after the coffee harvest was sold. In addition, they would pay three cartloads of firewood and one fanega ( liters) of dried, unprocessed coffee. In addition to promising “painstaking” care of the finca, they committed to completing the house under construction on the property. The work included installing a door, building interior walls, finishing the corridors, and building a patio and water trough. It is a testament to the value of the coffee on the property that it would be worth the investment required of the renters. It is a testament to the combined value of the property and improvements that Avilés sold it all in  to María de Jesús González for , pesos. The next day, María de Jesús sold the property to her father, José Esteban González, for , pesos, in what was probably a paper transaction.35 The sale of usufruct rights was also related to the separation of the land from the improvements made on it. Land and cultivation were so clearly separable that when farmers referred to a plantación, they meant the crops planted on the land and not the land itself. The crops constituted significant improvements. For example, in July  José María Silva paid  pesos to Carlos Albert and Trinidad Silva for sixty-four manzanas of land. In August, José María recorded the improvements that he had made and their worth: twelve thousand coffee trees sown, worth , pesos; a seven-manzana meadow of guinea grass, , pesos; a hundred fifty surcos of sugarcane and one thousand plantain trees, , pesos.36



 

Conclusions That  percent of dismembered properties reformed into minifundios and small farms reveals the complexity of the property structure in the Nicaraguan countryside. Patterns of land ownership were not static. As economic fortunes shifted with the vagaries of the international market, landholdings went through a complex process of amalgamation and fragmentation, a process that occurred in all size categories. Both larger and smaller growers at times dismembered their landholdings, sometimes due to economic hardships, sometimes taking advantage of the lucrative land market by buying public lands at bargain basement prices and reselling at the higher market price. The fragmentation sometimes produced myriad small and medium holdings that remained in families for generations; at other times, the smaller holdings were bought and reassembled into larger holdings. This process was not only carried out by large growers building estates but also by smaller growers who bought in increments of a manzana or less to create a five-manzana finca. It was a fluid and dynamic process, affecting growers across the broad range of landholdings, with the greatest share of amalgamations taking place in the late s. The process remained an open one. From  to , while  people apparently sold the only property with coffee that they owned, another  people with no record of owning coffee property were buying such land for the first time.37 An example of these changes can be seen through one individual, Tomás Arévalo. In  Arévalo consolidated most of his property into one farm of twenty-five manzanas, worth , córdobas, cultivated in coffee and pasture, with a house and a stone-masonry cistern. He built the farm over a period of fifteen years in five separate purchases: in  he bought a small finca with coffee and fruit trees and pasture for , pesos from Frutos Vados. In  he bought two properties from Luís Bernabé Castillo: a -by--vara lot



  

(about . manzana) for  córdobas, which Castillo had purchased in  for  córdobas and which had been ejidal, and a plot of land planted in coffee for  córdobas. In  he bought a .-manzana lot from Ana Vijil de Sanches for  córdobas, two-thirds of its value, at a public auction held to pay Vijil’s debts; and in  he bought four manzanas planted in coffee for  córdobas from Fernando Brenes. He also owned three properties separate from the twenty-fivemanzana finca: a small finca planted in coffee and bananas, which he bought for  córdobas in  and which had once belonged to the Cofradía de la Imagen de Dolores; an eighteen-manzana pasture that he bought for , pesos in national bills in ; and a .-by-vara lot (about . manzana), with forty flowering coffee trees and jícaro trees, which he bought for  pesos in .38 Along the way, Arévalo bought and sold other properties: he bought fifty manzanas of land for , pesos in  and sold it in . In  he bought one manzana of land, originally part of the Cofradía de la Imagen de Dolores, for  córdobas. In  he bought a two-manzana finca, contiguous to the one manzana, with seventeen hundred coffee trees and a tile-roofed house, for  córdobas, then sold the two contiguous properties at the same time for , córdobas. In  he bought half of a five-manzana coffee finca for  córdobas, then sold it for the same amount five years later.39 This one individual demonstrates several patterns—the consolidation of a small holding through the purchase of tiny plots; the buying and selling of noncoffee land, as well as investing in coffee production; the acquisition of land that at one time belonged to the ejidos or the church; the cut-rate price of land auctioned to pay debts. The suggestion that Arévalo is typical does not imply that Carazo did not have large estates and landless workers. The significance of these findings is to recognize the importance of the small and medium holders. Their relationship with the large coffee growers was not that of proletarian and capitalist; instead, they were all farmers,



 

sharing many of the same problems and likely many of the same attitudes. But they were certainly not equal, partly because of the insurance that wealth provided for larger farmers and partly because of the many other roles that the larger farmers played. Their conflicts would be played out on other stages: in coffee processing and exporting, in hiring labor, in finance, in the courts, and in the political arena.



Chapter 5

Cultivating Coffee

W  , ejido, or private land, farmers in Carazo had access to some of the nation’s richest agricultural soils—and, as coffee planter Arthur R. W. Lascelles advised in , “too much care and trouble can scarcely be taken in the selection of suitable land.”1 Carazo proved to be an ideal location for coffee production. Furthermore, coffee offered one of the highest profit levels of any crop, with an average  percent net return on investment reported both in  and throughout the s. With such tantalizingly high profits, even the smallest farmers turned a few manzanas of land to coffee production. To understand how small farmers could join the larger producers in the production of coffee, it is helpful to understand the methods and costs, and resulting capital and labor needs, involved in cultivating coffee.

The Production of Coffee Most of the coffee grown in Nicaragua, and Latin America in general, was arabica coffee, which thrives in a tropical climate, tempered by 

 

altitude, with contrasting seasons. Ideally, it would be planted where temperatures range from  to  degrees Fahrenheit. An evergreen, coffee needs subsoil water at all times and annual rainfall of at least forty inches, or else it will require irrigation. The rainfall must be followed with a drier period for two to three months. The soil must be porous, to allow drainage, but also contain sufficient organic material for water retention; the ideal is a moderate percentage of loam with a depth that will allow the roots to penetrate vertically at least three feet. The soil in the Pueblo district, comprising Managua and Carazo, is a combination of volcanic ash and loam with a high humus content. The soil on the celebrated slopes of the Sierras de Managua was described around  as five to eight feet deep. But in Carazo, on the Pueblo plateau, where less slope meant less washing away of soils, volcanic ash and alluvial deposits were estimated to be three hundred feet deep.2 The preparation of this rich land is the first step in the cultivation of coffee. To prepare the land, it must be cleared so that fields can be laid out. Helen Louise Hearst, in her  study of coffee in Central America, contended that most of the land in the coffee regions had been cleared for subsistence agriculture well before coffee production began.3 But Pablo Lévy found farmers busily clearing new land for agricultural production as late as . According to Lévy, the farmers only cleared the surface of the land: “In effect, not a single root is pulled out, nor is the surface turned; the trees are cut as close to the ground as possible, and later, when the summer sun has dried all the debris, it is burned.”4 Nurseries would be established to start the coffee plants before transplanting them to their permanent location. The nursery could be started from seed, but then the young plants must be transplanted to a second nursery before moving them to their final location. One pound of seed is enough for four hundred coffee trees.5 The nursery could also be started with young plants, either purchased or taken from existing coffee fields, where fallen berries have initiated new



 

growth. The young plants would then be transplanted to the fields in ten to twelve months.6 The nurseries require shade and irrigation. The most common shade trees were bananas or plantains, which were particularly advantageous during the first years of forming a coffee finca. Plantains grow rapidly, provide dense shade, and provide a crop for subsistence as well as for the local market, which is especially useful while waiting for the coffee trees to bear fruit. As the coffee trees mature, plantains and bananas are less desirable because they absorb nutrients from the soil and use large quantities of water.7 Throughout much of Central America coffee growers located their nurseries along streams for ditch irrigation. But in the Carazo area the few streams were not particularly useful for irrigation because they were insufficient during the dry season and flooded in the wet season. Instead, coffee plants were sometimes watered by hand, which depended on wells or the collection of rainwater.8 Water supply was a constant problem in Carazo, where periodic droughts prompted calls for water pumping facilities and reforestation, along with complaints about water shortages and disputes over public water tanks.9 In Nicaragua nurseries were generally planted in April or May, at the beginning of the rainy season, and were ready for transplanting in one year. During that year the rest of the land could be cleared and plantain trees planted for shade. Holes would be dug for the transplant, which is done by digging the plants out when the soil is damp and soft, so that soil clings to the roots. Between  and  trees were planted per acre in Nicaragua (averaging a thousand trees per manzana). This is a relatively low density compared to Venezuela, with  trees an acre,10 Mexico with as many as a thousand trees per acre, and Sumatra and Java, with  trees to an acre.11 The density of planting appears to be related to the size of the landholding. The  census shows average densities declining with increase in size, so that minifundistas planted an average of  trees per manzana, 

 

while latifundistas planted only . Most likely, the smallest farmers did indeed pack in as many trees as they could, eager to make the most of their holdings. While larger farmers probably did allow a bit more room in the coffee groves, the lower density most likely indicates that large farmers owned a great deal of land that was not planted in coffee, so that simply calculating the number of trees per manzana of total land does not show how much land they planted in coffee and at what density (table .). Tilling the soil where the trees were to be planted involved little more, according to Hearst, than “stirring the top soil with a spade or a machete and in cutting out the weeds.”12 She noted that cultivation was by hand, rather than mechanized, on most Central American farms. “[M]ost of these are owned and operated by native farmers who conduct their operations with as little capital as possible, and who, of necessity use simple implements.”13 Weeding was one of the most important activities, especially during the first two years after the coffee trees were planted, when experts recommended four to six weedings a year. Subsequently, two weedings a year would suffice, and that was all that coffee farmers did in Nicaragua, according to Playter’s  report.14 Even in the s Managua cafetalero Alberto Navas noted that his hundred-manzana coffee farm was “cleaned” only twice a year.15 Table . Number of Coffee Trees by Land Category Category Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio

Trees/Manzana (avg.)     

Range of Total Trees ‒, ‒, ‒, ‒ ‒

Source: Nicaragua, Censo cafetalero (Managua, ).



 

The use of fertilizer was rare in Nicaragua, although Nicaraguan planter Carlos R. Wheelock published a pamphlet on the topic. Fertilization was largely limited to mulching and manuring. The most common method was to use a combination of weeds, leaves, and prunings from coffee trees and from native forest plants, which was hoed under and allowed to decompose around the coffee plants. Many farmers relied solely on leguminous shade trees to nourish the soil, while some larger growers used pulp from their processing plants (beneficios).16 Playter commented that few planters fertilized because commercial fertilizers would have had to be imported at an “almost prohibitive” cost.17 Beyond cost, there was the risk of damage from the fertilizer. Diriamba planter Alfredo Mendieta recalled that José Esteban González used guano imported from Peru around , but he put so much on that he burned the coffee grove.18 Such experiments were not risked by the smaller growers, who constituted the majority of Carazo’s producers. More attention was given to pruning the trees. The cutting of the shoots improves production levels by diverting the energy of the tree to fruit production rather than vegetative growth.19 Without pruning, trees would grow to be forty feet high. Pruning the trees to five to fifteen feet not only improves the yield but also facilitates the harvest. Playter reported that three prunings were conducted a year in Nicaragua, constituting the largest maintenance expense. A famous pruning system, known as the Vaughan system, was developed circa  by Diriamba planter Arturo Vaughan, a transplanted Englishman who became one of Carazo’s leading planters.20 Two years after the trees are transplanted they begin to produce berries; a crop is available at the end of three years, and after seven 21 years the coffee grove reaches maximum production. Once planted, coffee produces for forty or more years; fifty-year-old trees are common, though they are most productive between five and fifteen years. And once they are productive, the farmer finds that the most intense period of production is the harvest.



 

The harvest is the final phase of production and requires the largest labor force. Collection of the berries begins in December and continues for about three months. The berries need to be picked quickly after maturing, but they do not all mature at the same time. Under the most careful conditions the tree would be gone over several times, with only ripe berries chosen. But in Nicaragua, where growers complained of a labor shortage, the berries were usually stripped from the branches. Strip picking mixes the immature with the mature berries but is a much quicker procedure and eliminates the need for second and third passes at the trees. Under ideal conditions, planters would provide the most thorough attention to their crops, with careful weeding, irrigation, and harvesting. In Nicaragua, however, that was not often the case. Playter could note in , “The past tendency . . . has been to depend too much upon providential weather for a good crop. Planters are beginning to realize that a tree well cared for, planted in a selected locality in any of the districts, will give a fairly uniform yield unless weather conditions have been exceptionally bad.”22 But for most of Nicaragua’s history, the more accurate comment comes from Edwin Lester Arnold, writing in : “of South America and the West Indies it may be said broadly that Nature does everything she can for Coffee, and man does as little as possible.”23

The Costs of Production Coffee has been characterized variously as the great democratizer, open to all comers, and conversely as a crop that requires a large initial investment and therefore precludes participation by the smaller grower. This dichotomy in approach is exemplified in Steven C. Topik’s “Coffee: Stimulating or Addictive?” Topik reflects the variety of opinions throughout the literature on start-up costs for coffee production: on the one hand, “A tree crop that takes four to six years



 

to reach maturity, coffee was a relatively expensive and inflexible investment.” But he also states, “Smallholders were able to compete because they used family labor and grew their own subsistence crops between the rows of arabica seedlings. Their overhead and investments were minimal.” And in perhaps the ultimate contradiction, he writes, “While capital requirements for coffee were substantial because of trees’ lengthy maturation period, coffee could be successfully grown on a virtual self-sufficient peasant scale.” 24 The contradictions stem from the differing scale and intensity of coffee production, which entail different costs. For all phases of production—cultivation, maintenance, and harvesting—the largest investment is labor. If the coffee groves could be established, maintained, and perhaps even harvested primarily by family labor and kin and community networks, then the costs were rather modest. In contrast, the larger grower, dependent on hired labor, faced substantially higher costs. Further, the larger and more sophisticated growers were more likely to use a higher standard of cultivation—for example, more weedings during the year, experiments with fertilizers, and careful harvesting, which would increase costs. How much did it cost to establish a coffee farm? According to Lévy, a farmer needed , pesos fuertes for the first three years to create a twenty-manzana farm (table .). But Lévy assumed that this farm would be formed and maintained at optimum levels and that outside labor would be hired. Almost every item in his budget is for labor, with the exception of two iron buckets, two mules, some work tools, a provisional house of palm or straw, and presumably some of the costs of the nursery, which are not enumerated. He also estimates the cost of interest at  pesos over three years—a cost that would probably only be incurred if the farmer were borrowing large sums to pay for outside labor. Subtracting labor costs, Lévy’s outlay would drop to . pesos. Similarly, the Bureau of American Republics reported in  that the costs of planting one manzana of land in coffee would run from  

  Table . Budget to Establish a Twenty-Manzana Coffee Farm in Nicaragua: First Three Years, ca.  Activity

Cost (pesos fuertes)

Clearing land, including two burns Measuring and nailing stakes Preparing the soil around each stake Sowing seed into mounds Cost of nursery (./, trees) Sowing bananas for shade during first years Replanting to replace trees that die Weeding (/year for  years) Mounding dirt at foot of trees Pruning Manager (./month,  years) Two iron buckets to transport irrigation water Two mules to haul water Work tools Provisional house, palm or straw Extraordinary expenses Interest Total cost, three years

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,.a

Source: Pablo Lévy, Notas geográficas y económicas sobre la República de Nicaragua (Paris: Librería Española de E. Denné Schmitz, ), ‒. Lévy presents the data in pesos sencillos, which is converted here to pesos fuertes to facilitate comparison with data from other sources. a Between the second and third years, the finca will produce , pounds of coffee worth  pesos, thus offsetting these costs.

to  pesos, but  to  pesos of the cost was in labor. Another  to  pesos was for land acquisition, and  to  for clearing the land, costs that may not be applicable for the small farmer turning his already cleared land to coffee production.25 Costs would then drop to a more affordable  to  pesos (table .). Once the farm is established, maintenance and harvesting costs



  Table . Budget to Establish a One-Manzana Coffee Farm in Nicaragua,  Item

Cost (pesos fuertes) ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ – –

One manzana of virgin land Clearing and cleaning land Preparing land , trees Transport and sowing Assistance for first three years Total

Source: Bureau of the American Republics, El café: Su historia, cultivo, beneficio, variedades, producción, exportación, importación, consumo, etc., etc. (Washington, D.C.: Oficina Internacional de las Repúblicas Americanas, ), .

are still quite high, as budgeted by Lévy—, pesos fuertes for twenty manzanas—and by Playter— pesos. However, all but a few pesos of the estimates are for labor expenses (tables . and .). If no outside labor is hired, these expenses disappear as cash outlay (although there is a cost to the farmer of the value of his time). There were, however, no opportunity costs in such self-employment, since most Nicaraguans were not employed in work outside their farms, as evidenced by the repeated efforts by the state to require Nicaraguans to work in the harvests of large growers. There are three key questions to consider regarding production of coffee by small farmers: Could family, kin, and community labor alone manage a coffee farm? How large could a family farm be before having to turn to outside labor? And what is the significance of hiring additional labor for the harvest? Robert G. Williams contends that the maximum a family could maintain was just under twenty thousand trees—equivalent to about twenty manzanas. But Williams based his labor estimates on the manpower requirements reported by Playter. Playter, in turn, based his



Table . Annual Costs to Maintain a Twenty-Manzana Coffee Farm in Nicaragua, ca.  Activity

Cost (pesos fuertes)

Weeding, five times a year Hilling Manager Harvesting Total

. . . . ,.

Profit: Income from , lbs. produced (min. price: $./ lb.) Expenses Net

,. −,. ,.

Source: Converted from Pablo Lévy, Notas geográficas y económicas sobre la República de Nicaragua (Paris: Librería Española de E. Denné Schmitz, ), .

Table . Costs for , Coffee Trees Yielding , Pounds, ‒ Maintenance Activity

Cost (U.S. dollars)

Summer weeding,  days @ ¢ Raising shade, cultivating, and marking,  days @ ¢ Pruning,  days @ ¢ Cutting back shoots (further pruning),  days @ ¢ Digging holes (),  days @ ¢ First cutting of sprouts,  days @ ¢ Final weeding,  days @ ¢ Second cutting of sprouts,  days @ ¢ Digging ditches ( ditches),  days @ ¢ Woodchopper during year,  days @ ¢ Cleaning and replanting shade,  days @ ¢ Planting  trees,  day @ ¢ ( to % loss per year) Cartage for above,  days @ ¢



$. . . . . . . . . . . . .

TABLE . (continued)

Activity

Cost (U.S. dollars)

Burying waste of picking,  days @ ¢ Proportion of superintendent’s time

. . . .

Subtotal Cost per quintal Harvest Activity

Cost (U.S. dollars)

Picking  medios ( pounds) ripe cherry, including cost of baskets, etc., @ ¢ per medio Proportion of superintendent’s time, measurer, sub-bosses, mule drivers, carters, harness, carts Food for one picker, including cost of cook and utensils Subtotal

. . . .

Treatment, Shipping, and Other Costs Activity

Cost (U.S. dollars)

Washing, pulping, drying in patio  days, incl. cost of tarpaulins, etc.; wages of mechanic, helper, fireman; cost of wood, other necessities Transportation, plantation to Managua, incl. cost of sacks Hulling in plant Sorting and sacking, incl. cost of sacks Export costs f.o.b. Corinto, incl. transportation, handling, commission agent, export tax Interest on loan Federal and municipal taxes Subtotal

. . . . . . . . . .

Total costs per quintal Price per quintal f.o.b. Corinto

Source: Harold Playter, The Coffee Industry in Nicaragua (Corinto: American Consulate, ), .



 

report on information he received from larger growers, who very likely used a higher standard of care and therefore more manpower than their smaller counterparts. A high level of care for the cafetaleros was not much in evidence, even among larger growers in the late twentieth century.26 Playter’s source estimated that . worker-days of labor per acre under permanent care were required, and  workerdays of seasonal labor per acre for picking. As Williams notes, however, there is a wide range of labor usage on coffee fincas. A  study in El Salvador showed a range of  to . worker-days per acre, with a weighted average of .—not much different from Playter’s weighted average of ..27 Diriamba cafetalero Alfredo Mendieta estimates that maintenance requires one worker for every four manzanas, akin to Williams’s family of five and twenty thousand trees, while harvesting requires one worker for every manzana.28 Alberto Navas, a Managua cafetalero, put labor needs lower, suggesting that one worker could maintain seven or eight manzanas—enabling a family of five to maintain thirty-five to forty thousand trees (equivalent to a thirty-five- or forty-manzana farm), and one worker could harvest one and a half manzanas.29 In addition to questions about the number of workers needed, Williams also may underestimate the number of people available to work. When he suggests that a family can maintain and harvest twenty thousand trees, he estimates a family of five. However, wills from Carazo indicate average family size to be ten. While certainly not all the children would be old enough to work on the farm, children from a young age worked routinely in the harvest. In Cuba boys begin work on the coffee fincas, carrying out simple tasks such as bringing water or moving animals, between six and eight years old. By ten or twelve years old they are involved in all aspects of agriculture, including planting, weeding, and harvesting. As U.S. farm families have noted, “No hands are too small to make a contribution.”30 In addition, Williams is not taking into account the possibility of using broader kin networks and neighborhood labor exchanges, as



 

he notes that Lowell Gudmundson found in Costa Rica.31 This arrangement seems quite likely for Nicaragua as well. Diriamba writer Salvador Mendieta describes the typical family formation at the turn of the century as a grouping of “concentric homes,” where the parents help the children “in everything, from building their poor huts, raising their livestock, or cultivating the lots that they are assigned.”32 The most difficult issue to address is the effect on a small farmer of hiring labor, becoming a boss. When Williams groups all growers who hire labor together as capitalists, there are implications regarding consciousness and power. Does hiring labor have the same significance for the owner who occasionally walks through the groves as it does for the owner who picks coffee alongside a small group of hired workers? The Carazo documents are silent on this point, and the answers of most scholars have tended to emerge somewhat mechanically from the position that the hiring of labor makes one a capitalist and that all capitalists share the same position. However, Stephanie McCurry’s study of yeoman farmers in the U.S. South offers food for thought. Her documents reveal that even farmers with up to  acres of land and nine slaves saw themselves as different from the gentry because they were “self-working farmers”—they worked the land with their own hands, alongside slaves or hired workers. In Carazo, the minifundistas and the small farmers were self-working farmers as well. The cost of hiring a few workers for the harvest was likely within the smaller farmers’ budget. Lévy reported circa  that male farmworkers earned  cents a day, plus meals, for a total cost of  to  cents per day; women and children earned half of men’s salaries. An  study estimated wages at  to  cents per day in the Pacific zone.33 Playter reported in  that daily wages in the Sierra-Pueblo region were  cents for men and  cents for women, including meals, for maintenance of the coffee farm. During harvest, pickers were paid by the medio ( cubic inches). “The picker receives from  to  cents a medio. In good picking a man may pick  or  medios a day but the average is  to  for men and  to  for women and children. 

 

On a large plantation, taking an average of men, women and children,  medios, or one quintal of clean coffee, per picker per week are calculated.”34 The small farmer then would need from . to . pesos per week for each paid worker—the planter Lévy interviewed estimated . per worker—and the harvest usually lasted for eight weeks. The practical result of the need to hire outside labor is easily seen—the need for cash to pay workers at the time of the harvest, before the coffee had been sold and brought in any money. Cafetaleros often had to pay workers advances in order to secure their labor. Even when advances were not in demand, producers still had to pay their workers on a weekly basis. This need for cash to pay wages drove the need for loans, adding interest costs and forging relationships between producers and lenders. Undoubtedly, the proprietors of both large and small coffee farms shared the same motivation—profits. Lévy and Playter show a remarkable consistency in profits for coffee across the coffee boom. Lévy estimated the profit circa  at  percent. Playter, drawing on more detailed statistics, estimated  percent profit earned over investment costs for the twenty-year average from  to  (see table .).35 The charts of specific examples they provided, however, show even higher profits. Lévy’s  percent estimate includes the costs of establishing the coffee grove over a period of three years. However, if one discounts start-up costs in order to estimate profits on an already established farm, the profit level rises to nearly  percent (table .). While Playter’s  percent is borne out in data over a twenty-year period, the estimates he shows for one farm put the profits even higher, at  percent (table .).

Agricultural Options Because it is a perennial, coffee is a rather inflexible investment. While coffee generally offered excellent profits, the value fluctuated



Table . Costs and Profit for a Sierra-Pueblo-Area Planter, /‒/ Year

Cost f.o.b. Corinto

Price f.o.b. Corinto

Profit (percentage)

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Five-Year Averages ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

Twenty-Year Average ‒

.

.

.

Source: Harold Playter, The Coffee Industry in Nicaragua (Corinto: American Consulate, ), ‒.



 

from year to year. Coffee was dependent on export markets, so its sales felt the impact of international economic and political woes. It was also a product produced by many competitors, chief among them Brazil, guaranteeing Nicaraguan farmers only a small slice of the market. Farmers needed to consider their options before making such an investment. The subsistence farmer was making a decision about transferring land from basic food cultivation—maize, bananas—to production of coffee, while the larger farmer was more likely to be choosing among export crop options—cacao, indigo, sugar. Newson indicates that, during the colonial period, the average family cultivated about six acres, or three and a half manzanas. Onethird of the land was used to grow enough maize to support the family for the year, with the rest divided into fallow land and production of tribute crops.36 In the national period, coffee production can be substituted for tribute. The owner of a five-manzana farm, for example, could easily convert nearly three manzanas to coffee production and still maintain subsistence. Coffee production does not interfere with farming of maize. A milpa, or cornfield, was prepared by clearing and burning land at the end of summer and planting maize with the first rains in May, continuing until August.37 Coffee land could be cleared and planted at the same time. Maize germination is visible in twenty-four hours, and a completely mature crop available in three and a half months. Earlier harvests could also be made of one-month corn, eaten as a vegetable along with the cob, or at two months, for tender young corn called ilote. Maize harvesting is conducted from September to January and could be completed before the coffee harvest begins in December, or with minimal overlap. Maize could be a commercial as well as a subsistence crop. Lévy estimated in  that the cost of producing maize was . to  pesos fuertes per fanega, and would sell for  to  pesos fuertes, for a profit of at least  percent. The same return was shown in an  estimate, which included the costs of buying land and paying labor (table



 

.).38 However, neither study provides data on the market for maize within the country. The domestic market must have been limited, since Nicaragua had a small urban population and no manufacturing beyond a handicraft industry. The majority of Nicaraguans had access to land and Nicaragua did not export maize in the nineteenth century. Larger growers, who traditionally supplied meals for their workers, may have purchased maize, although it is also likely that they grew their own supplies. There was a market for Nicaraguan maize in the rest of Central America from  to the mid-s,39 but most maize was for subsistence use. Bananas were even easier to cultivate than corn and constituted another important mainstay of the Nicaraguan diet. The trees were simply planted twelve to fifteen feet apart in a square in April or August. Eight months later the trees were in full harvest. The trees renewed themselves and the ground only required one cleaning a year, while corn required two. Harvesting was handled on a daily basis by simply cutting the mature fruit with one machete stroke. Each tree produced one bunch with twenty-five to thirty fruits. Lévy estimated that one manzana held five hundred trees, each producing thirty Table . Budget to Establish a Maize Farm in Nicaragua, ca.  Activity

Cost (pesos fuertes)

One manzana of terreno baldío Cleaning of ground for two plantings Two weedings or cleanings in both plantings Four medios of seed for both plantings Cutting and collecting of maize in both harvests Shelling of  fanegas

. . . . . .

Total Sale price for  fanegas

. .

Source: Nicaragua, Rasgos descriptivos de la República de Nicaragua, .



 

fruits, or fifteen thousand bananas a year, enough to feed seven men for a year or twenty-five hundred men for one day, if a daily ration were six bananas. (Presumably Lévy saw the daily ration as a significant but not sole item in the diet).40 Bananas have the added advantage of providing shade for coffee trees, as well as subsistence and a marketable commodity while waiting for the coffee to mature. Lévy does not give cost and benefit figures for bananas, but he does note that banana seeds sold for forty cents to one peso fuerte for a hundred trees.41 Bananas sold in the marketplace for five cents for twenty green bananas or for ten mature ones. At that rate, a hundred trees would yield an income of . to  pesos, for a profit of more than  percent. Similarly, a  percent profit was estimated in , when a bunch of bananas sold for ten to fifteen cents and the cost of maintaining a grove, limited to one cleaning and arranging of the plants per year, was estimated at a maximum cost of two cents per plant.42 And, like coffee groves, bananas last up to fifty years. But, as with maize, the domestic market was limited. Even city dwellers frequently owned a small lot, or solar, on which they grew fruit. While bananas would eventually become an important export crop for Nicaragua, that production would be centered on the Atlantic coast, where it became an enclave of U.S. interests. Basic food needs could easily be met with such subsistence crops, but neither maize nor bananas were likely to bring in much commercial income for farmers, making coffee very appealing for a small farmer interested in earning some cash to buy goods. Those with larger farms viewed coffee as one of several possible export crops. The crop of choice for elites in the nineteenth century had been cacao, but it was not a crop that invited those of modest means to invest. The cultivation of cacao required more labor and more careful tending than coffee. Cacao was sown in a nursery, often by planting the seeds in vinelike baskets of piñuela leaves. The young trees later were transplanted, basket and all, into a plantation interspersing two cacao trees between shade trees, with one thousand



 

trees per manzana. The delicate trees need a windbreak and mango trees were often used, but they had the disadvantage of attracting pests to the cacao. The trees also need both provisional shade, supplied provisionally by banana trees, and longer-term shade, usually from blackwood. Add the costs of irrigation, expensive land clearing to make the area level, fences (needed to keep out cattle attracted by the aroma), and careful weeding, with as many as fifty workdays a year. Then the cacao had to be carefully harvested, with each pod gently opened by hand. The pods were left to ferment for two or three days, then dried in the sun and cleaned. The cultivation of cacao had several similarities to coffee production that would make the transition an easy one for a farmer who had experience with cacao. Like coffee, cacao was sown in a nursery and later transplanted; one thousand cacao trees were planted per manzana, as was coffee; both crops needed a windbreak and shade from other trees; and both involved a delay between initial planting and the first harvest. But on this last point there is also the first of several crucial differences between the crops that would weigh in favor of coffee: cacao took longer to mature than coffee; production of cacao was more precarious, since unlike coffee it had many natural enemies that threatened the crop; and the harvesting of cacao is a slow, delicate process compared to the quick strip picking of coffee. And the most crucial difference of all was in profitability: Lévy estimated a  percent return for cacao, compared to  percent for coffee.43 Indigo attracted more producers than cacao because of the rapid turnaround on investment. “Indigo . . . demands the creation of workshops and costly apparatus,” writes Lévy, “but at the end of one year one has the product of the harvest in money at rewarding prices.”44 Indigo demanded costly clearing of property, along with fallow periods. But it was cultivated easily: it was sown like maize—simply drop the seeds into holes made with a stick—and germinated immediately. It was ready to harvest in three months, simply by chopping with a machete.



 

The most costly aspect of indigo production was the workshop, which consisted largely of two water troughs, one higher than the other. The indigo leaves soaked under weights for ten hours in one trough, where they fermented; then the liquid was decanted into another trough, where it was beaten with oars. The result was a paste, which was then dried and cut into cakes.45 A workshop to process indigo, including a tank, soaker, beater, and accessories, was worth  pesos fuertes circa .46 One manzana produced enough indigo for two tanks, and each tank in the workshop required a staff of four cutters, two muleteers or carters, four tank workers, and one burner. If there is no water pump and water is being brought from a well, the processor will also need “a man, a boy, and a beast” daily. The cost of indigo, then, would run sixty to seventy cents a pound (not counting interest on the usually sizable loans), with an average yield of forty pounds per manzana circa . Lévy provides no profitability figures, other than to say that prices at the time were elevated.47 Export figures for ‒ show that , pounds of indigo sold for , pesos, or eighty cents per pound, a profit of only  percent.48 The larger producers were likely to have had indigo obrajes, processing the indigo grown by smaller growers. The same arrangement would evolve in coffee processing.49 The easier access of smaller growers to indigo production is born out by Lanuza’s profile of indigo production in Rivas: in , . percent of the department’s indigo was produced by small growers using money borrowed from merchants. Fewer small producers were found in cacao production:  percent of the units contained only  percent of the trees, while  percent of the total number of cacao farms comprised  percent of the trees.50 Despite the better showing of smallholders in indigo production, the other half of Rivas’s indigo was claimed by only eleven producers. And five of the eleven, including future president Evaristo Carazo (‒), were also cacao producers, showing that production was concentrated across both export crops.51



 

Another option for commercial farmers was sugar production. Once planted, sugar is ready to be harvested in eighteen months and will continue to produce indefinitely. According to Lévy, it cost forty pesos to plant a suerte, or two manzanas, of sugar. It had to be weeded once or twice a year, with each row of sugar requiring two tareas (a tarea is a job that corresponds to six hours of work). Harvest lasted for six weeks and required four cutters and one cart with two men and two oxen. The greatest cost involved in sugar production is the sugar mill, or trapiche. It consisted of two or three vertical wooden or iron cylinders, one of which was rotated by oxen to express juice into cauldrons, producing a syrup that was crystallized in molds into cakes of twenty-five pounds. Further evaporation produced molasses, and mixed with malt it made rum or cane alcohol (aguardiente). A wooden mill cost about a hundred pesos fuertes; iron mills, which were not in widespread use circa , increased production by  percent but cost a much heftier seven hundred pesos fuertes. The boilers or cauldrons cost about a hundred pesos. At the mill, four men and four oxen were required, plus two men to tend the cauldron, which used a tarea of kindling. The operation produced about sixty thousand pounds of sugar per manzana and cost two pesos fuertes per hundred pounds to produce. Nicaragua’s cost was half the cost in the Antilles and Cuba, where slave labor was used, fertilizer was needed after four years, and the yield was  percent less. Total costs, then would run two cents per pound, while sugar sold for six cents per pound in ‒, a profit of  percent.52 In Carazo, farmers often continued to produce sugar along with coffee. As Mendoza observed, circa , “The sugarcane fields gave greater profits [than coffee] . . . sometimes they destroyed the coffee trees to plant sugar, and vice versa.”53 When Caraceños were first considering which commodity to plant, the price for coffee had risen  percent, while the price of sugar had dropped  percent.54



 

Clearly, coffee was an appealing option, both for smaller and larger farmers, given the choices of agricultural production prevailing in Carazo. The potential profits were sizable—and even more profits were in store for those who could install equipment to process the coffee.

Processing Coffee The cultivation of coffee is just the first phase of its production. Coffee doesn’t enter the market as raw berries picked from the tree. Coffee has to be processed, and it was the processing that separated mere growers from producers. As in indigo and sugar production, coffee processing involves extensive investment in machinery, investment that could best be recouped by processing a large volume of material. The market for small coffee growers was only indirectly the coffee drinker in Europe or the United States. The direct market was the coffee processor in Nicaragua, who bought coffee from smaller producers, processed it, and then sold it to the overseas coffee market. The coffee fruit is akin to a cherry, with a fleshy outer covering, or pulp, over the seed. Inside the pulp are two seeds encased in a slimy, sticky film over a thin parchment skin. The purpose of processing is to remove these outer layers and get to the seeds, or beans, which are then roasted—a final step that usually occurs abroad. There are two methods of coffee processing, the wet and dry systems. Wet processing results in a better grade of coffee and was more common in the north central zone of Nicaragua, in Matagalpa and Jinotega, where water was plentiful. But water was scarce in Carazo, and only the larger growers could afford to use the wet processing system. In the dry process, the entire fruit is allowed to dry and is then cracked open, or hulled, to remove the seeds. In the wet method, machine pulping removes the outer layer; fermenting in water loosens the sticky layer, which is then washed away. The coffee is then dried either mechanically or in the sun, then milled to remove the parch-



 

ment layer. The beans were sorted by hand for quality, by machine for size, then put in sacks to be shipped. In both the dry and wet methods, there is a drying stage; while some larger growers used drying machines, many continued to use cement patios. It was also common for coffee to be dried directly on the ground, on a cleaned, hard dirt area, known as a patio de tierra (earthen patio) or baño de polvo (dust bath). Small growers routinely used patios de tierra, and even larger growers used them when an unusually large crop overwhelmed the cement patios; however, the baño de polvo affects the taste, bringing a lower price.55 After processing, the coffee is then ready to be packed in sacks and shipped, either as “shell,” or “pergamino” coffee, with the inner parchment still on, or hulled, as “clean,” washed coffee (oro lavado). In the interest of developing the coffee industry, the Nicaraguan government commissioned a study by Pablo Edelman, a Guatemalan manufacturer of coffee-processing equipment. In his  report, Edelman presented options ranging from the most basic small-scale operations to the most elaborate wet processes. He advised that better processing added two or more cents to the price per quintal.56 To pulp fresh coffee, Edelman recommended the machine made by John Gordon and Co. of London (which was still the top pick in Mexico thirty years later).57 According to Edelman, the advantage was that the pulper was a “very simple mechanism and its management is within the reach of any day laborer.” The pulper consisted of a hopper into which the berries were placed, and either by turning a hand crank or, in more elaborate models by a current of water, the berries were drawn from the hopper and passed between a cylinder covered by a copper plate full of studs and a metal plate. Powered by water, the pulper could process thirty-six quintales in a twelve-hour day, or ten quintales if powered by hand, using two men to alternate in the work. A Gordon pulper was estimated at  pesos. To hull the coffee, Edelman recommended a simple machine, consisting of a circular channel with a wooden post in the center,



 

attached to wheels that when turned by oxen would rub against the coffee and remove the shell or simply the membrane, depending on whether the coffee had first been pulped. According to Edelman, the machine was so simple that it could be manufactured in Nicaragua. Two men would be needed to attend the machine, which could clean ten to twelve quintales in a twelve-hour day. To separate the hulled coffee beans from the removed shell and membrane, the beans would then be put into a ventilator, or fan mill, which blew the beans out through one side and the refuse through another. Usually the fan mill also separated the beans according to size, by passing it through a metal sheet with holes of various sizes. One man could operate the machine—just fill it with coffee and turn the crank—cleaning twenty to twenty quintales per day. Edelman noted that the machine could be configured to be powered by animals, in the same way as the huller. He also noted that ventilators were manufactured in the United States, but that they were also available “just as good and much cheaper” in Guatemala—conveniently, by the machinist Edelman—for eighty to ninety pesos fuertes. The coffee grower would also need large sorting tables, where women and children could be employed to separate the black, white, red, or broken beans, or those not thoroughly cleaned, from the desired green beans. The table would have holes through which the discarded beans could be rolled into waiting sacks pegged to the underside of the table. The origin of the sacks in the nineteenth century is not clear, but Playter reported in  that the sacks were jute, “nearly all of British origin, costing the planter about  cents each.”58 Those opting to process the coffee dried in the shell could put the coffee through the hulling machine twice, removing the outer shell formed by the dried pulp and the inner parchment, or they could invest in the expensive Ligerwood machine, manufactured in New York, which could remove the multiple layers at once. Edelman reported that the “Lijer-Wood” machine, which consisted of two metal



 

cylinders, one rotating inside the other, was impossible to move by hand and even difficult with animal force. Edelman manufactured a less-expensive version, using a vertical stone working across a tire spiked with iron, or two horizontal stones sliding across each other. Perhaps the stone masonry huller (de cal y canto) that appears in the registro records was the Edelman variety, or a similar device. This machine sold for  pesos, and with two men operating it could clean ten to twelve quintales of coffee per day. However, both these machines had a tendency to break large coffee beans and to not shell the smallest ones, causing a loss of up to  percent. All these recommendations, Edelman noted, “were based on what was most convenient for those with the possibility of doing everything by machine, that is to say, for the big proprietors. But since there are also small ones, we will add some lines more for your government so that you can get the best price possible for your fruits.” Edelman lists the simple tools that small growers could use: a wooden trough, hollowed from a tree trunk, for soaking coffee; sleeping mats (petates) or hides to dry the coffee on; a mortar similar to the device used to shell rice; and wire screen and perforated zinc plates to sort beans through. “Rich and poor must take pains to do their work methodically so that fortune will be the recompense for their ardor and intelligence,” he advised.59 Apparently at least some coffee processors heeded Edelman’s words. According to Mendoza, coffee processing in Nicaragua began in a basic, artesanal manner. Circa  there were no steam processing plants or mills driven by animal power, and coffee was hulled using wooden piles in boxes made of guanacaste wood.60 It has been assumed that no mechanical hulling of coffee in Nicaragua took place until the twentieth century. Diriamba cafetalero Alfredo Mendieta attributed the first beneficio in Diriamba to José Esteban González, circa , and put the start of washing coffee in Carazo circa , while researcher Alicia Gariazzo contended that mechanized processing in Carazo did not begin until the s.61 But



 

Registro de Propiedad records indicate that varieties of processing equipment were in use as early as the s. Among the nineteenthcentury property transactions were fourteen properties that listed hullers among their equipment (table .). Three of those detailed that the hullers were made of cal y canto, perhaps similar to the simple huller made by Edelman, or perhaps a makeshift device. In  José María Lacayo had a Gordon pulper on his -manzana farm.62 The average size of a farm with processing equipment was seventythree manzanas. All the nineteenth-century owners of smaller properties with equipment—such as Francisco Castro’s thirty-manzana farm in San Marcos and Salvador Lacayo’s Santa Teresa property, with thirty thousand trees63—also owned other coffee farms whose produce could be processed in the machinery. Castro owned the -manzana hacienda San Marcos, the twenty-five-manzana Ojo de Agua, and the hacienda Promisión; similarly, Lacayo owned several properties. By the twentieth century, processing equipment had become more common, and another twenty-two properties with equipment appeared in the property registry (table .). The  coffee census showed  percent of the farms with equipment, including eighteen farms with steam-operated machines. Another thirty-six had equipment operated by “blood”—presumably human or animal power— and one was operated by water power (table .). The cost of processing equipment could be prohibitive. In  Edelman estimated that coffee-processing equipment would run  to  pesos (table .), but he also revealed that the equipment on the fifty-thousand-tree Hacienda de Barcena in Guatemala cost , pesos (table .). By , when José Robleto died and an inventory was filed of his fifty-thousand-tree Hacienda San Jorge in San Marcos, the value of his equipment was listed as , córdobas (table .). It was the high cost of equipment that led  percent of Caraceños to bring their coffee to specialized coffee processors or more commonly to larger growers, who purchased and processed their coffee.



Table . Coffee-Processing Equipment, Carazo, Nineteenth Century Size (manzanas)

Date

Owner

Location

 

San Marcos Jinotepe

 

 

Domingo Ortega Manuel and Francisco Ortega Matus David Lacayo Antonio Gonzales

Jinotepe San Marcos

— []a

    

Francisco Castro Rito Baez Pedro J. Chamorro Cándida Moya José María Lacayo

San Marcos San Marcos San Marcos Jinotepe San Marcos

  []  []

 

Salvador Lacayo Agustín Sánchez

Santa Teresa San Marcos

[] 

  

Benicio Guerrero Remigio Vijil Juan Federico Peters

San Marcos San Marcos Diriamba

  

a

Equipment huller, winnower huller huller classifier, hullers, dryers huller huller hullerb stone masonry huller stone masonry huller, winnower huller classifier; stone masonry huller with  wheels; Gordon pulper;  washing tanks; winnower huller, pulper huller, winnower classifier, dryer, huller

Property size in brackets was estimated by the number of trees planted. By  this property had complete equipment to process coffee.

b



Table . Coffee-Processing Equipment, Carazo, Twentieth Century Size (manzanas)

Date

Owner

Location



San Marcos



beneficio

 

Francisco A. Pellas, Adolfo Benard Vicente Rodríguez Vicenta Ignacio Zúniga

Diriamba Jinotepe

 

 

Ernesto and José Blen Félix Parrales

San Marcos San Marcos

[]a 

   

Deciderio Román Juan Pío Medal Juan Pío Medal Rafael Castillo

Jinotepe Santa Teresa Jinotepe Diriamba

[] [] — 



San Marcos





Catalina Alemán v. de Velásquez Benjamín Gallo

San Marcos



 

Francisco Brockman Benjamin Barillas

San Marcos Jinotepe

— 



María Arévalo

San Marcos

[]



Lisandro Plata

San Marcos



 

Vicente Rappaccioli Lázaro García

Diriamba San Marcos

 



Francisca Dolores Roman Jorge Robleto Ramírez

Jinotepe

beneficio stone masonry huller beneficio stone masonry huller beneficio beneficio huller stone masonry huller stone masonry huller stone masonry huller huller misc. equipment to process coffee stone masonry huller stone masonry hullers, washer, dryer, winnower huller, washer old wooden huller Gordon huller



San Marcos



[] 

Equipment

beneficio

TABLE . (continued)

Size (manzanas)

Date

Owner

Location



Heirs of José Esteban González La Palmera Santa Teresa

Diriamba/ San Marcos Diriamba San Marcos

 

Monte Cristo/ El Recuerdo

San Marcos



Equipment

beneficio complete processing plant coffee-washing plant

a

Property size in brackets was estimated by the number of trees planted.

Table . Power Sources of Fincas,  Steam-Driven Machinery Proprietor

Farm

Ignacio Baltodano y Hermanos Adolfo Benard Fernando Chamorro Fernando Chamorro Rosendo Chamorro José Esteban González José Ignacio González Sinforoso Noguera Lino Oquel Rappaccioli y Hermanos Rappaccioli y Hermanos Vicente Rappaccioli y Hermanos Vicente Rodríguez J. y Dolores Román Anastasio Somoza Anastasio Somoza Teodoro Teffel Arturo L. Vaughan

El Brasilito San Dionisio La Amistad El Brasil Las Rosas Monte Cristo San Jorge El Salvador El Salvador La Moca El Pochotón El Paraíso Santa Cecilia La Guinea El Convoy El Porvenir Chilamata San Francisco



Size (manzanas)           ,       

Number of Trees , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

TABLE . (continued)

Farm

Size (manzanas)

Próspero P. Lama

Water-Driven Machinery Santa Cruz



,

Hipólito Acevedo Magdalena Acevedo Abel Alemán Gil Arévalo Luciano Avilés Crisanto Briceño Mercedes Canales José A. Conrado Nicolás Conrado Benjamín Gallo Lázaro García Martina García Urbano Guadamúz Juan G. Hernández Francisca D. Hunter Simeón Madrigal Juan D. Medál Félix Mena Santiago Mena Edwigis Méndez Noe Morales Francisco Ortega M. Ignacio Paralyse Marcial Pérez Jocinto Porras Ignacio Ramírez Rappaccioli y Hermanos Jorge Robleto Desiderio Román y Reyes Félix Román Gregorio Román J. M. Siero Jose M. Siero Catarina viuda de Vásquez

Animal-Driven Machinery San Rafael La Concepción La Flor San Alfonso Cervita Promisión Santa Lucía La Unión Dulce Nombre San Pedro La Concepción La Trinidad La Esperanza El Charco Providencia San Andrés Las Marías San Francisco La Concepción San Gerónimo Santa Margarita San José El Paraíso Las Guabes Buenos Aires El Destino El Pochotón San Jorge Nueva Guinea El Destino San Francisco Santa Gertrudis Andalucía Santa Catarina

                          ,       

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Proprietor

Source: Nicaragua, Censo cafetalero (Managua, ).



Number of Trees

Table . Prices of Coffee-Processing Equipment Manufactured by Edelman,  Item

Price (pesos)

Pulper to remove shells from fresh coffee Powered by  men, pulps  quintales/day Thresher to clean dry coffee still in parchment Powered by team of oxen, cleans  quintales/day Thresher to clean coffee dried as berries Managed by  men, cleans  quintales/day if washed Winnower, with screens and dividers Managed by  man, cleans  quintales/day Total

‒  ‒ ‒ ‒

Source: Pablo Edelman, Apuntamientos sobre el beneficio del cafe y las maquinas en que se ejecuta (Managua: Imprenta del Gobierno, ), .

Table . Cost of Establishing a Coffee-Processing Plant in Guatemala Equipment

Price (pesos)        

Gordon pulper  tanks,  x  varas  wooden box  building,  x  varas Pasture and extraordinary expenses Huller with case,  x  varas Winnower Drying patios, , varas @ . reales

,

Total cost

Note: This equipment is used on the Hacienda de Barcena, where there is a plantation of , coffee trees that produce , quintales a year. Source: Pablo Edelman, Apuntamientos Sobre el Beneficio del Café y las maquinas en que se ejecuta (Managua: Imprenta del Gobierno, ), .



Table . Coffee-Processing Equipment Owned by José Robleto,  Item of Equipment

Value (córdobas)

Elevator and screen for dry coffee Engelberg huller no. / Vencedor polisher no.  Elevator for hulled coffee El Jefe classifier Masson elevator for mature coffee “Leigerwood” double pulper,  inches Drying patio, stone masonry,  x  varas Water trough, stone masonry covered with zinc,  x  x  varas Water trough, stone masonry covered with wood,  x  x  varas Water trough, stone masonry,  x  x  varas Water tank mounted on piles Total

      ,      ,

Source: Part of inventory of Hacienda San Jorge in San Marcos, ninety manzanas with , coffee trees, filed as part of Robleto’s will. RPPC, Libro de Propiedad, January , , vol. , fol. , ‒, ‒; vol. , fol. ‒.

The earliest reference to processing plants in the registro documents, in , describes the plant owned by Nicasio Martínez Sanz and eventually known as La Trilla Castellana. La Trilla Castellana was built on two manzanas of land that originally were splintered off from a ninety-six-manzana property owned by Casilda and Juliana Sánchez, two Jinotepe housewives. They sold the uncultivated land to Martínez, a Jinotepe businessman, in . In  he installed two water tanks, a bath, a stone masonry patio, and a steam-driven coffee huller with all its accessories, worth an estimated $, (pesos oro americano). In  he sold the mortgaged property to Granada businessman Pedro Joaquín Arceyut for $,. The property was now described, in addition to the coffee processing equipment, as having machinery to saw wood and hull rice.64



 

A month later, Arceyut and Emilio Downing, a Granada farmer, formed Emilio Downing y Compañía, with the aim of processing their own and others’ coffee, selling coffee and other articles for import and export, and buying and selling commercial drafts. Presumably, Downing provided the coffee property. Arceyut provided La Castellana, worth , pesos, and the company was to pay him with its first profits. In  the corporation was dissolved. Arceyut retained possession of the processing plant, which he sold to the Commercial Bank of Spanish America, Ltd., for $,. Twenty days later, the bank sold the plant back to its original owner, Martínez Sanz, for $,. The plant remained in the possession of the Martínez family thereafter.65 Managua cafetalero Alberto Navas referred to Carazo as the “area de los beneficios”—the area of the processing plants.66 The  Directorio oficial de Nicaragua listed four Carazo processing plants: Martínez Sanz’s La Castellana, and Santa Rosa, which belonged to the heirs of Manuel Lacayo, both in Jinotepe; Román and Baltodano’s Santa Rosalia in Diriamba, and the U.S.-owned Compañía Mercantil del Ultramar plant in San Marcos. In  Jinotepe’s political chief boasted that Carazo offered numerous custom coffee mills: “[T]he best in the republic to process this product to the taste of the producer, ready for export, these mills have powerful machines that cost up to thousands of córdobas.”67 It was the coffee processors who exported or sold the coffee to exporters and pocketed the final profits available in Nicaragua. More value was added abroad, as the coffee was roasted and then sold to distributors and retailers. In addition to the investment in equipment and its upkeep, the processor needed to buy coffee from growers or receive coffee as repayment for loans; pay workers to run the processing equipment; transport the product to the ports; then pay shipping costs, sales commissions, interest, and handling charges. However, even with these costs, the processor/exporter could look forward to making about a  percent profit on these operations. In Lévy’s 



 

estimates, the return on cultivation alone for a twenty-manzana farm was  percent, and the profit on processing was  percent. Playter’s statistics show that processing and export expenses constituted about a fourth of the total costs for a grower/processor, for an average return of  percent over twenty years. While the processors could not control the prices they received for coffee, they could control the prices they paid for coffee to the smaller growers in Nicaragua. Frequently the price was set as part of a loan, with repayment in coffee. This futures selling usually called for paying market price at the time of delivery. Or the price was set by two or three area merchants, who undoubtedly colluded to set low prices. Lévy put the price of a hundred pounds of coffee in Nicaragua at . pesos fuertes in , and Playter put the price at an average of . from  to , while the price earned at export averaged .. Coffee growers and processors could have earned even higher profits, according to Hearst. Nicaraguan coffee producers did not give as much care to cultivation as neighboring coffee producers, and the results could be seen in both costs and profitability of production. Greater care generally yields more stable crops and income, Hearst notes, but the difference in net profit was apparently not enough to make the extra effort worthwhile. “A comparison of production costs shows that in general, Nicaraguan coffee is produced at a cost  or  cents below that of the average for Central America. The lower grade coffee naturally brings a lower price in the market than the higher quality product, but never-the-less, the per cent of profit for Nicaraguan planters in general is high.”68

Conclusions Coffee was obviously a highly profitable crop that could be produced by a wide range of growers, using levels of inputs and technology ranging from the most basic to the most sophisticated. The smallest



 

farms could be maintained and harvested by family labor alone, while also growing subsistence crops; the largest and most sophisticated farms would hire year-round labor and invest in equipment for the irrigation and processing of coffee. The necessary investment ranged from thirty-three pesos fuertes to thousands of pesos, depending on the number of manzanas planted, the level of attention given, and the level of technology used. Although profits were higher for many subsistence crops, there was a limited market for these products. Coffee offered advantages over cacao and indigo production, and it competed with sugar, depending on the prices prevailing in the market. Carazo growers frequently grew both sugar and coffee. Although prices and profits fluctuated over the years, in the long term there was a remarkable stability in coffee returns, with an overall return of  to  percent net profit over investment. In order to achieve these profits, however, growers needed two things: capital and labor. The two were often linked: growers enticed laborers with cash advances and they needed loans to do so. Loans were usually repaid with coffee, especially when the lender was a coffee processor. Thus, production was interlinked in key ways with the markets for capital and labor. .



Chapter 6

Capital Concerns

D   years of the Sandinista agrarian reform, attention was focused on providing capital for small farmers, an effort Wheelock called “spilling credit on the countryside.”1 Despite these attentions, many Carazo farmers initially still turned, as their families had for generations, to private loan arrangements, frequently with the González, Baltodano, and Rappaccioli families. Private loans were easier to arrange, recalled one cafetalero, just as it had been earlier in the century, when the first bank loans were made in Carazo.2 Unlike the banks, private lenders were not reluctant to provide small loans, quickly, with little paperwork. One can easily imagine a small farmer, hat in hand, at José Esteban González’s La Palmera, humbly requesting a loan. But imagine also this: a small farmer seeking the services of another small or medium farmer who has seen the advantages of making money through lending. This was an exchange between equals or at least near equals. And even the exchange with the likes of González was not as lopsided as it appears at first glance. While the small farmer needed González’s financing, González also needed something from the borrowers—their coffee. He needed it to fulfill his own loan agreements for thousands of dollars, or 

 

marks, or pounds sterling, to be repaid in coffee to foreign lenders. And, of course, the interest his borrowers paid brought him more profits. The availability of credit in Carazo challenges the traditional view of many economic historians and development scholars, who have framed three models of markets in Third World regions: either credit markets do not exist because of cultural or legal barriers; credit is scarce and inefficiently distributed; or rich moneylenders exploit poor peasants by imposing sharecropping. Supposedly, borrowers seek funds primarily for consumption, and therefore the loans are risky and interest rates are “impossibly high.” But, as Gareth Austin and Kaoru Sugihara argue, in much of the Third World “credit supply operated with apparent efficiency, the parties’ confidence being grounded in indigenous institutions.”3 As in the land market, Carazo’s capital market offered opportunities for all, but not on a level playing field. Those with the most resources had the easiest access to even more resources, and on the best terms. But those at the lower end of the spectrum found that, despite the usual concentration at the top, and the higher interest rates that often prevailed at the bottom, there were many options available to finance coffee. There were two kinds of loans available: The pacto de retroventa4 was a resale agreement in which the borrower sold his property to the lender, while retaining usufruct, with the agreement that he would buy back the property by a certain date; eighty-five people loaned money through the pacto de retroventa from  to . The hipoteca was a traditional mortgage with property or property rights provided as collateral for a loan, usually with interest, repaid in money, coffee, or other goods;  people and companies offered hipotecas in Carazo during the coffee boom.

The Pacto de Retroventa The pacto de retroventa was a method of financing open to those who had difficulty finding more traditional loans, although they were 

 

not the only ones to use this system.5 The pacto seemed to offer incredibly good terms: typically, the borrower was to repay the loan in one year with no interest. But the pacto was also a gamble for the borrower because it was really a sale. The borrower/seller sold the ownership of the land, with a duly recorded title, but retained usufruct of the property, essentially becoming a tenant. If the borrower/seller defaulted, the lender/buyer did not need to take any legal action, which could be time consuming and costly, since the deed had already been transferred. The onus was on the borrower not only to get payments to the lender, but also to find the lender and get a new deed filed at the property registry by the specified date. One Jinotepe coffee grower said it was common for lenders to be “unavailable” when borrowers came to repay their loans; the due date would come and go, and the lender then had full title to the property.6 The larger growers as well as the small used this system to borrow money, although minifundistas resorted to this arrangement far more frequently (table .). In all size categories there were losers and winners, those who could repay their debts, conserving their property, and those who could not. The majority of people who resorted to the pacto de retroventa— percent—were unable to repurchase their property. But the image of people desperate for funding who are then left landless and destitute was far from Carazo’s reality: only  percent of the people who used the pacto had no other property recorded in the data for this study.7 Since the funds were for use in the harvest, they constituted shortterm loans. Most were to be repaid in less than a year ( percent) or between one and two years ( percent). Another  percent were to be repaid in two years, while  percent were to be repaid in three to five years. Generally, the larger the landholding, the longer the time granted for repayment. The majority of minifundio and small-farm pactos were to be redeemed in less than two years, while the majority of medium, large, and latifundio pactos were to be repaid in three years or more.



  Table . Hipotecas, Pactos de Retroventa, and Coffee Farms by Size (percentage share)

Minifundio Small Medium Large Latifundio

Hipoteca

Pacto de Retroventa

Land Registry

 Census

    

    

    

    

Seventy percent of the pactos were to be redeemed with coffee, while only  percent were to be paid in cash. A handful of pactos called for other types of repayment, such as bank drafts, beans, corn, and sugar, and work. Given the high rate of default, the aim of the lender/buyer in the pacto would seem to be to acquire the property. But, the lenders were not simply interested in creating their own haciendas;  percent of them sold the properties they acquired through defaulted pactos. The pactos, then, might represent speculation, a mixture of credit and land markets in which people dabbled.

The Hipoteca The second form of lending was the hipoteca, a mortgage on the farm or on another property, to guarantee the loan that is used as habilitación, financing specifically for coffee production. The hipoteca was far more common than the pacto de retroventa; there were  pactos de retroventa recorded from  to , while there were , hipotecas involving coffee during the same time. These hipotecas were very rarely mortgages to guarantee the purchase of property. Mostly they were specifically to raise the coffee 

 

crop, for habilitación (from habilitar—to equip, enable, qualify, finance). Some loans specified exactly what the habilitación comprised: collection of harvest, expenses of the coffee farm, cutting and cleaning of coffee, weeding, feeding workers, maintenance of equipment, and processing of coffee.8 Most loans were to be repaid with coffee, and the collateral for the loan was usually the property on which the coffee was grown.9 The exceptions were for those borrowers who had usufruct of ejidal land, who then could mortgage only the crop or their usufruct rights to the land. The ability of those who did not own the land to still acquire financing is extremely important—it has frequently been assumed that lack of ownership interferes with the ability to finance production. Other borrowers chose to mortgage a different piece of property rather than the coffee farm itself; this often included a plot of urban land. In this way the cafetalero could lose a house in town but still keep the coffee finca, with presumably a house there as well. One striking difference between the pactos and hipotecas is the default rate. While  percent of pacto borrowers lost their property, only  percent of hipoteca borrowers defaulted or sold their property to pay off their debts. The aim of hipoteca lenders appears not to have been the acquisition of property through defaults but the earning of profits from interest. The profit motive seems even more clear when the timeliness of hipoteca repayment is considered. Most loans were repaid late, and the lenders did not rush to foreclose because they collected interest through the delay, which was typically one to two years beyond the due date. Cancellation of the loan was late in  percent of the hipotecas that provided both due date and cancellation dates ( hipotecas). While capital payments were usually made annually, it was often specified that interest payments would be made more frequently. In  hipotecas specifying when interest would be paid,  percent were to be paid monthly,  percent quarterly, and  percent biannually.10 It was also easier and less expensive to the lender to simply let the



 

loan roll over. Calling in the loan required filing legal papers to embargo the property, which was usually auctioned off at two-thirds of its value. Often lenders who tired of dealing with late borrowers simply sold or ceded the debts to someone else. For example, Juan José del Carmen borrowed $, at . percent interest from Nicasio Martínez Sanz in , guaranteed with his twenty-manzana coffee farm. The debt was to be paid with coffee by March  and if overdue the interest rate would rise to  percent a month. In March  del Carmen still owed $,.. Martínez ceded the debt to Valentín Horvilleur, a Granada merchant, for $,.11 Surprisingly, it was not the smallest landholders but the latifundistas who were most often late in repaying their loans: latifundistas were late  percent of the time. This may be because they repaid their debts after selling their coffee abroad, while their smaller counterparts sold locally to processors. When these larger growers were also processors, they had to wait for the smaller growers to deliver their coffee, which became part of the coffee that the grower/processor used to repay loans. Large landowners (‒ manzanas) were most likely to pay their debts on time ( percent). Minifundistas and medium farm loans were late  percent of the time, and small farms  percent. The amount of time they were overdue also tended to vary by size category (table .). Interest rates ranged from . percent a month to  percent a month, although most frequently the borrower paid . percent. Table . Time Overdue by Size Category (percentage share) Minifundio  years 

Small    

Medium    



Large    

Latifundio    

 

Higher interest rates, most frequently  percent, typically were charged as a penalty for late or missed payments. These higher rates may explain why lenders tended to allow loans to stay active well past their due dates. Another frequent penalty was to require payment in money rather than in coffee, indicating the scarcity of cash in the economy and the preference for payment in coffee. Most lenders ( percent) wanted to be repaid in coffee. Where price was specified,  percent stipulated that the coffee would be valued at the price in the marketplace when the loan was repaid. Only  percent specified a given price, and  percent called for repayment at from  cents to  pesos less than the price per fanega at the time of repayment. No loan after  provided a specific price, opting instead to go with the current market rate. Some loans provided that the coffee would be valued at the price paid by two area merchants, and several loans said the coffee would be valued at the price paid by Diriamba’s most prominent coffee grower, José Esteban González. Only  percent specified that they wanted to be repaid in money, and often these lenders were quite specific about the kind of money they would accept. Thirty percent wanted bank drafts or letters of credit. Others specified that they wanted minted silver or gold and would not accept paper money, while others specifically requested paper currency. Nicaraguan paper money became more acceptable after the turn of the century, though some lenders continued to request payment in U.S. dollars, deutsche marks, or British pounds sterling. Money had long been a problem for Nicaragua’s economy. In  the federal government authorized the city of León to mint copper coins, but they were insufficient for trade. There were various unsuccessful attempts to form banks, but by  there was still no production of national money. Until  the legal tender was the peso fuerte, equivalent to an ounce of gold or one U.S. dollar, while daily commerce used the peso sencillo, worth  cents and divided into eight reales, like the old Spanish money. Pesos sencillos became less common after the turn of the century.12



 

Paper money was first issued under president Joaquín Zavala in , due to the scarcity of coins. The money was redeemable in gold or silver but was not in itself legal tender until . In  the government stopped issuing bank notes and gave the Banco de Nicaragua the exclusive right of emission, which lasted for twentyfive years. However, in  the Zelaya government issued one million pesos in national treasury bills (billetes del tesoro nacional). The bank complained that the government was violating the bank’s charter. The government notes were not redeemable as bank notes and were supposed to have a metallic reserve of at least  percent behind them; these notes ended up going for a discount in relation to the bank notes and eventually drove the bank notes out of the economy.13 In , as part of monetary reform imposed by the United States, the peso was replaced by the córdoba. Originally, the peso fuerte was supposedly equivalent to one U.S. dollar, but by  the exchange rate was fluctuating wildly, causing some lenders to specify that the borrower would have to pay the difference if the exchange rate exceeded certain levels.14 On rare occasions lenders wanted to be repaid not in coffee or money but in work. The  percent who wanted to be repaid in work called for either maintenance of the lender’s coffee finca, harvesting coffee, work as a carter, or, for women, as a cook. These arrangements sometimes required that the borrower provide several workers rather than just his or her own labor. The infrequency of such arrangements indicates that, despite labor shortages, lending was not a significant means of securing labor. Instead, it may indicate the resourcefulness of cash-poor smaller farmers in finding ways to repay their loans. Terms for hipotecas differed by size of the landholding used as collateral. The smaller the farm, the higher the interest rates. Minifundistas and small farmers typically paid  percent per month, medium farmers paid . percent, large farm loans were less than  percent, and latifundistas paid about . percent (table .). This is a far cry from the  to  percent annual rates that Wheelock claimed 

 

small and medium producers were required to pay.15 There were no loan rates below  percent for minifundistas, and only for one of  small farmers, while no large farm or latifundio carried an interest rate of more than  percent. However, although larger landowners usually paid lower interest rates, they also paid sales commission, typically of . percent. And if there was not enough coffee produced to pay back the loan, the remainder could be paid in cash or bank drafts, with a “false commission” of . percent. Size also mattered for the fourteen loans that called for repayment in work: eleven were minifundistas, two were small farmers, and one was a medium farmer. The terms of the loans for smaller growers were usually straightforward: for example, in  Victor Villavicencio, a Diriamba farmer, borrowed  pesos fuertes at . percent monthly interest from José Esteban González. The debt was to be repaid with good quality mature coffee, free of any green, immature beans or extraneous material, and delivered at the borrower’s cost and risk to González’s hacienda, La Palmera. The coffee was to be delivered the same day it was cut, and it would be valued at the price paid by two merchants the day of the last delivery. If the farm did not produce enough coffee to cancel the debt, Villavicencio was to repay the remainder owed the following March in legal currency with no depression in its value. The loan was guaranteed with Villavicencio’s ten-manzana farm, La Peruana.16 Villavicencio was a lender as well as a borrower. In  he loaned  pesos to Pedro Gonzales Pérez, a Diriamba farmer. It was to be repaid in dry, unhulled, clean coffee at twelve pesos per fanega. If he

Table . Interest Rates by Size Category Minifundio

Small

Medium

Large

Latifundio

.%

.%

.%

.%

.%



 

failed to repay it all by the due date, the remainder was to be paid in cash at the commercial price of coffee at the time of delivery.17 González was also a borrower as well as a lender. In  he borrowed , German imperial marks from Managua merchant Teodoro Teffel. To repay the loan, González was to ship twelve hundred quintales of coffee at his own expense to whichever commercial house was designated by Teffel in Hamburg, Germany. The coffee would be valued at the price on the Hamburg market. González would pay the commercial house  percent sales commission on the coffee, and if he could not send the entire amount, then he would repay in letters of credit, along with a false commission of . marks per quintal. He guaranteed the loan with the famous hacienda La Palmera, along with its three houses, three water tanks, hundred thousand coffee trees, two-manzana pasture, accessories, and improvements.18 It was not unusual for borrowers to use the same piece of property to guarantee more than one loan. Second and third lenders accepted their place in line behind these prior claims, which usually were paid, albeit not usually in a timely manner. When borrowers with multiple debts defaulted on their loans, disposition was handled by a meeting of creditors (concurso de acreedores), who would determine how to satisfy the claims. Frequently, the land was auctioned to repay the creditors at least a portion of the debts. But at times the cases could become quite complicated. In an extreme case, Carlos Alberto Gutiérrez owed more than , pesos to thirty-one creditors (table .), who agreed to give him four years interest free to try to repay his debts. The collateral for the loan was the -manzana coffee finca Las Marías, which included thirty thousand coffee trees, two manzanas of sugar, rubber, bananas, pastures, drying patios, water troughs, and equipment to process both coffee and sugar. Gutiérrez himself had received the property because of debts: He paid Juan de Dios Medal , pesos, forgave , of debt Medal owed him, and was to pay two debts that Medal owed—five hundred quintales of coffee to Francisco Pellas and , pesos to Emigdio Bonilla.19



Table . Debts Owed by Carlos Alberto Gutiérrez on Las Marías Lender

Amount Owed (pesos)

Leandra Almendares viuda de Gutiérrez Francisco Álvarez Fernando Ampie Francisco Brockmann Anastasio Calero Fernando y Alberto Chamorro Pablo Emilio Chamorro Nicolás Conrado Bernardo Cordero Reyes Francesca Mercedes María Espinosa Narciso Forrente Juana Frana Demetrio González hijo José Manuel Gutiérrez Ortega Carlos Adrián Hernández Tomás Génaro Hernández Pablo Rafael Jimenes Benicio López Manuel López Vásquez Servanda Luna Luisa Madrigal Roberto Martínez Antonio Luis Mena Domitila Mercado Estanislao Narvaez Vicente Rappaccioli Carlos Rodríguez Valeriana Ruiz viuda de Marenco Luis Salazar Ramona Salinas Ninfa Vega

 ,  ,  , , ,  , ,  , ,  , ,  , ,  ,    , , ,   ,

Source: RPPC, Libro de Propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ‒; vol. , fol. ‒, .



 

Most of the time debts were eventually repaid. The most likely to default on loans were minifundistas, who failed to pay their debts  percent of the time. In comparison,  percent of owners of small farms defaulted,  percent of medium farms and latifundios, and  percent of large farms.20 While it is no surprise that the likelihood of default increased as size of the farm decreased, it is quite striking that the vast majority of even the minifundistas were able to repay their loans. The high rate of repayment undoubtedly was a result of lenders allowing delays rather than rushing to foreclose. It also was probably linked to the ongoing relationship between the small growers and the coffee processors, who needed to get coffee every year from the smaller growers to supplement their own coffee supplies and repay their own debts, or fulfill advance-sale agreements. Helping to preserve the smaller coffee-growing sector guaranteed a coffee supply, without the headaches of actually administering and staffing the farms, while continuing to earn income from interest payments.

The Lenders It is sometimes assumed that small growers found it difficult to borrow money, and when they did they were at the mercy of a handful of merchants from bigger cities or from abroad.21 However, in Carazo there were  people lending money from  to . Most of them ( percent) were Carazo residents. Only  percent of the loans came from abroad and  percent were from other Carazo cities. While Diriamba was the dominant location of coffee production in Carazo, the largest group of lenders was from Jinotepe, with  percent of lenders versus  percent from Diriamba. The most common occupation of the lenders was farming ( percent), with only  percent listed as merchants and  percent as businessmen. Housewives represented  percent and doctors and lawyers each composed  percent of the lenders. The remaining 



 

percent included a wide variety of occupations: surveyor, mason, secretary, dentist, engineer, musician, teacher, barber, tailor, bookkeeper, shoemaker, and priest. Twenty-four percent of the lenders were women and all but two of them listed their occupation as homemaker. One was a teacher and another a businesswoman. One woman who routinely listed herself as a homemaker on one occasion described herself as a farmer (agricultora). The majority of lenders ( percent) loaned money only once, and  percent provided loans on five or fewer occasions. But  percent of the lenders provided ten or more loans each, for  percent of all loans made. The top ten lenders provided  percent of all loans. And one family—the Gonzálezes—provided  percent of all loans made. Banks constituted only  percent of all lenders and provided  percent of all loans. José Ignacio González single-handedly provided more loans () than all the banks combined () (table .). Odile Hoffman also found many small lenders in the town of Xico, a region of roughly twenty-five thousand people in Veracruz, Mexico, during the same period of time. She divides the lenders into three categories: small lenders (prestamistas en pequeño), who loaned less than , pesos and generally were of the same social standing and origin as their borrowers; the local agrarian bourgeoisie, who may have loaned in amounts less than , pesos but also provided loans up to , pesos; and the strongest lenders, who were mostly businessmen, sometimes coffee hacendados, who provided loans of , to , pesos. None of the last group was actually from Xico, and that is the key difference in Carazo, where most of even the largest lenders were locally based.22 That so many people were involved in lending indicates several important phenomena: lending was lucrative and everyone with a little extra capital wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. While Hoffman characterizes the smallest loans as partly motivated by solidarity, it is also clear in Carazo that lending was part of a growing commercialization of society, in which markets had developed not



Table . Major Lenders in Carazo, ‒ Name

Number of Loans

José Ignacio González José Esteban González Compañía Mercantil de Ultramar Moisés Baltodano Vicente Rappaccioli Banco Nacional de Nicaragua Incorporado José Esteban González, heirs Nicasio Martínez Sanz Pablo Leal Francisco Brockman Anglo Central American Comercial Bank Pablo Emilio Chamorro hijo Andrés Murillo J. R. E. Teffel y Cia. Alberto Chamorro Teodoro Tefel Fernando Sánchez Manuel Lacayo Commercial Bank of Spanish America María González de Cordero Victor Manuel Lacayo Tapia Agustín Sánchez David Stadthagen Anastasio Somoza Anglo South American Bank Fernando Chamorro y hermano Juan Pío Medal Juan Manuel Mendoza José León Román Reyes Rosendo Chamorro María de Jesús González de Cordero Francisco Gonzales Parrales W. R. Grace y Cia. Enrique Palacio y Cia.



                                 

 

just for capital, land, and labor but even for hereditary and litigation rights.23 Although lending was dominated by several large coffee growers and merchants, it was also wide open to anyone with capital, and borrowers had a wide array of possible lenders to choose from. Stereotypical visions of domination by foreigners and larger cities are not reflected here.

Banks Export-led growth throughout Central America encouraged the formation of banks, beginning with the Banco de Honduras in  and the Banco Nacional de Guatemala in . In El Salvador, the Banco Internacional was founded in , and followed with the Banco Particular in . In  the latter changed its name to Banco Salvadoreño, which merged with the Banco Internacional in . Costa Rica was the latecomer, with the founding of the Banco Internacional de Costa Rica in , which changed its named to the Banco Nacional de Costa Rica in .24 Nicaraguans showed an early interest in founding a bank: the Congreso Nacional signed a contract in  with Jesús L. Costigliolo, representing his brother, César, to found the Banco de Nicaragua. But the six months’ startup time allotted in the contract came and went and no bank was founded. Congress tried again in , signing a contract with Gen. Héctor Galinier, representing the Compañía General de Centroamérica, based in Paris. It too was never established. In  the first banking law was adopted, and an  executive decree declared that within two years the government would establish a bank for national and foreign loans. The project never came to fruition.25 Finally, in  the government contracted with J. Francisco Medina to establish the first commercial bank in the country, to be named the Banco de Nicaragua. It opened a year later, with  million pesos and the authorization to issue money; the bills were printed abroad.26



 

Meanwhile, unsuccessful attempts to open other banks continued: by the end of  the Banco Agrícola Mercantil opened in León, but it collapsed in , unable to pay its debts.27 In  there was a plan to establish a commercial bank called the Banco Nacional de Nicaragua, or British Bank of Central America, according to a contract between the government and Pedro Calderón, representing his brother, Manuel Calderón hijo, and associates. This bank never opened its doors either. Similarly, the  plans of Dr. Teodor Delgadillo and José Solórzano for the Banco Hipotecario never materialized. After Zelaya came to power in  and authorized the Nicaraguan national treasury to issue money, the directors of the Banco de Nicaragua decided a change was necessary. In  Francisco J. Medina acquired the Nicaraguan branch of the Bank of Nicaragua, which was based in London and had been directed by Carlos E. Nicol. In  this branch merged with the London Bank of Central America, with Nicol as director. In  the London Bank of Central America was reformed as the London Bank of South America. So the Banco de Nicaragua operated independently for only five years before essentially becoming a branch of an English bank.28 During the ensuing years, the bank operated under a variety of names, including the London Bank of Central America (), Cortez Commercial and Banking Company (), Commercial Bank of Spanish America, the Anglo-South America Bank (), and finally in  it fused all operations under the Bank of London and South America.29 These first banks functioned under the  banking law, the main purpose of which was to establish the rules for banks that would emit currency. Articles  and  set provisions for agricultural mortgage banks, limiting interest to  percent. Judging from the registro records, this cap must have only applied to institutional and not personal lending. The  law remained in force until , when the Banco Nacional de Nicaragua was incorporated in Hartford, Connecticut. The formation of the bank was the result of an agreement between the



 

government of Nicaragua and the New York bankers Brown Brothers and Company and J&W Seligman. The main objective of the bank was to facilitate conversion of the Nicaraguan currency from the peso to the córdoba, a monetary reform negotiated with the United States as part of the economic changes imposed by the U.S. government after the overthrow of the Zelaya government. The bank remained headquartered in Connecticut until . It became the most important of the banks lending in Carazo, eclipsing the British banks. However, such banking institutions had little impact in Carazo, where most of the lending continued to be done by individuals. There were no bank loans made in Carazo until , when Vicente Rodríguez borrowed  pesos fuertes from the London Bank of Central America for the harvest on his Diriamba farm, Santa Cecilia.30 Banks tended to lend large sums of money to big growers; of  bank loans, only twelve were for less than $,. Private lenders, in contrast, were willing to lend as little as sixteen córdobas. In some ways, bank loans might be seen as offering more favorable terms. The average interest rate on a bank loan was . percent, while for nonbank loans the average was . percent. But  percent of the bank loans also carried a . percent fee as sales commission on coffee, or a false commission on repayment in cash or bank drafts. Both banks and individuals were likely to allow loans to roll over for long periods of time, and neither institutional nor personal lenders were eager to foreclose.

Commercial Houses Lending was also offered by the import-export houses that bought and marketed the coffee. These loans were usually repaid in coffee, which was sold abroad. The first commercial houses to operate in Nicaragua were German, beginning with Franz Johannes Bauer of Hamburg, who in  opened a credit for Vicente Rodríguez of £, or , imperial marks. The loan was to be repaid with



 

coffee, including a  percent acceptance commission,  percent annual interest, and a . percent sales commission.31 The German houses continued to operate in Carazo until World War I (table .). The dominant commercial houses emerged later in the twentieth century: Calley, Dagnall and Company and Compañía Mercantil de Ultramar. Wheelock describes the first of the two, founded by “two immigrants of English nationality, David Dagnall and a Mr. Calley,” as dominating the north central zone starting in , with its processing plant, Beneficio de Café Calley-Dagnall, in Matagalpa. The company loaned money to smaller growers, bought, processed, and exported their coffee, and bought many of the farms when they failed.32 Its influence in Carazo, however, was minimal; registro records show only nine loans made in Carazo by Calley, Dagnall (in  and ‒). But Calley and Dagnall do appear more than nine times in the registro records: Arthur Henry Calley, or Arturo Enrique Calley, was the representative for Ultramar on hipotecas in , , and ; David James Dagnall appears as a representative of Ultramar in ‒. Dagnall also appeared as a representative of the Banco Nacional in . Both appeared as representatives of the Mortgage

Table . German Commercial Houses Operating in Carazo House

Borrower

Eggers Stallforth, Bremen Friederich Gerlach, Hamburg

Juan Federico Peters Gerónimo Ramires Ernesto & José Blen y Muños L. Behrens und Söhne, Vicente Rodríguez Hamburg Gabriel Lacayo e hijos Franz Friederich Susemhil, José María Siero Gutiérrez Bremen Ötling Gebrüder Co., José Esteban González Hamburg



Date

Amount

     

DM , DM , DM , £, £, DM ,



DM ,

 

Company of Costa Rica and General Mortgage Company of London. Several loans in  and  were ceded from Calley, Dagnall to the mortgage companies.33 Of far more importance to Carazo was the Ultramar company. Wheelock describes it as “an appendix of the Banco Nacional, controlled since its creation in  by North American bankers, monopolizing practically all the commercialization of coffee produced in the southeast, and it was only very late—the decade of the fifties—that it permitted competition by local houses: Comercial Internacional, S.A. (CISA), Agrícola Industria Nicaragüense, S.A., and others controlled principally by the large producers of Managua and Diriamba.” He lists the latter as the Baltodano, González, and Rappaccioli families.34 Indeed, Ultramar provided  loans in Carazo from  to , and it operated a beneficio in San Marcos. However, the company certainly did not freeze local producers out of the market. The González family provided  loans, Moisés Baltodano gave , and Vicente Rappaccioli  (table .). The largest growers in Carazo did not usually borrow from Ultramar. José Esteban González took a loan from Ultramar only once, but borrowed twelve times from Managua merchant Teodoro Teffel, three times from W. R. Grace and Company, twice from León doctor Norberto Salinas, and once each from Casa Hamburger Polhemus Company, León attorney Fernando Sánchez, and the Oetling Gebrüder Company. W. R. Grace, the San Francisco-based company that so dominated Central America, especially with its railroad construction and banana investments, only made ten loans in Carazo during this period. Further, Ultramar loan terms in Carazo were not any more onerous than those of other lenders: interest averaged  percent, . percent sales commission was charged, loans rolled over for extended periods, and the company was not eager to foreclose. Nonetheless, the popular image of Ultramar in Nicaragua was of a predator. In Los estrangulados, Hernán Robleto’s  novel about the role of the



 

United States in Nicaragua, Ultramar is depicted as a tool used to dispossess cafetaleros. The protagonist, Gabriel Aguilar, goes to Managua to finance the coffee harvest on Las Lilas, his cafetal in the Sierras of Managua. He has hundreds of workers to pay and an estimated harvest of three thousand quintales. His first stop is the Banco Nacional de Nicaragua, where its American director, Mister Looder,35 tells him that the bank doesn’t finance coffee and refers him to “the Compañía Mercantil de Ultramar, which the people call ‘Ultratumba [tomb].’” Ultramar lends , pesos, which Aguilar is to repay with coffee at market price, guaranteed by Las Lilas. Looder and other magnates control the market, Robleto writes with obvious disgust. The irony, of course, is that these terms are the same as what Nicaraguan lenders had always provided each other.36

The Borrowers There were  people who borrowed money in hipotecas from the  lenders from  to . Fifty-three percent described themselves as farmers, as compared to the  percent of lenders who did so. Lawyers and doctors represented barely  percent each, down from  percent of the lenders. Merchants, who made up  percent of lenders, were only  percent of borrowers; and businessmen, while  percent of the lenders, were only  percent of the borrowers. The remaining borrowers came from a wider variety of occupations than the lenders, with more from the working class: masons, scribes, barbers, carpenters, laborers, housewives, teachers, tailors, bookkeepers, shoemakers, an accountant, a butcher, a priest, a student, a smith, a musician, and a notary. More women were borrowers than lenders:  versus  percent. Most of these borrowers were from Carazo’s main production centers: Diriamba ( percent), Jinotepe ( percent), and San Marcos ( percent). The majority of borrowers,  percent, only took out loans once,



 

and another  percent borrowed twice. There were twenty-six borrowers who took out ten or more hipotecas over the years, representing only  percent of borrowers but  percent of the loans. At the top of the list are Granada merchant Alberto Chamorro and José Esteban González, with twenty-one each, and Juan José del Carmen, of the import-export house Carmen y Mena, with twenty (table .). In other words, the biggest lenders were also big borrowers. Owners of large farms and latifundios, with their need for a large workforce, were more in need of funds than were smaller farmers, who hired little outside labor.

Conclusions Lévy listed coffee’s advantages circa : “It produces after little time and one can create an average cafetal with little capital. In spite of that, many cultivators do not have this modest capital, and to get it, they sell their harvests in advance at scandalous prices. In coffee, as in all products, the businessman/buyer earns more than the producer.”37 Similarly, in  an anonymous editorial writer, urging the formation of a farmers’ association and bank, complained in the Carazo newspaper Pabellón nacional, “Currently the farmers are no more than agents—ad honorem—of merchants, who extort the farmer after years of spending his life, supreme forces, and large sums of painfully acquired money to plant coffee—then the merchant acquires it for the price he wants as though he were doing the poor worker a favor. If the farmers unite, they will dictate the price of coffee; the powerful could found an agricultural bank to favor the least wealthy, repaying the money with the product of future harvest, and all would be remitted to the consuls of the foreign markets for sale, achieving in this way the best prices.”38 But the institutional banking that the editorial writer sought, even when it became available later in the twentieth century, was still not as



  Table . Major Borrowers in Carazo, ‒ Name

Number of Loans                         

Alberto Chamorro José Esteban González Juan José del Carmen Amanda Chamorro Mercedes Arévalo José María Alfaro Rojas Juan José Narvaez Francisco Sánchez Espinosa Guillermo Briseño y Hermanos Anastasio Calero Benedicto Ortega Cruz Trinidad Acevedo José Manuel Ortega Cruz Carlos Romero Francisco Valle Fernando Chamorro Benjamín Conrado María Mónica Cruz viuda de Arévalo Emilia Gonzales de Quintanilla Francisco González Parrales Sebastián Hernández Ignacia Mora de Cordero Nemesio Porras García Vicente Rodríguez Joaquín Serrano

appealing to the smaller grower as a small loan, easily and quickly obtainable through personal contacts. Indeed, the same was largely true of even the larger growers, who turned to each other for loans. Personal relationships, whether via client-patron relations or neighborliness, facilitated the flow of money that helped fuel the coffee economy.39 Of course, it is questionable to what extent that personal



 

touch was lost even in the more institutionalized settings; Wheelock notes that members of the Baltodano and González families became directors of the new Banco de América and Banco Nicaragüense.40 It may be questionable whether Carazo had a fully developed capital market, in the sense described by Winifred B. Rothenberg: “Farmers have always extended credit to one another. Farming, with its long production periods, seasonal discontinuities, and periodic disasters is unimaginable without credit. It is not, then, the presence of promissory notes in rural portfolios that makes a capital market. Rather, it is the displacement by financial assets away from cattle and implements and toward evanescent forms of wealth whose liquidity is enhanced by the collective willingness to make that shift.”41 Caraceño wealth was still tied up primarily in land, crops, and tools, though cash, letters of credit, and bank drafts were growing in prominence. Certainly, Carazo was seeing what Rothenberg has called a “proto-capital market.”42 This market for money provided opportunities for broad participation by borrowers as well as lenders, with remarkable similarity of terms between larger and smaller growers. Forget the stereotypical version of farmers locked in the usurious grasp of a handful of merchants from the big city or from abroad, eager to foreclose and acquire more property to add to their extensive holdings, and in the process free up a workforce. Instead, there were  lenders, most of them local, offering to lend as little as sixteen córdobas or as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lending was a money-making venture, not a means to acquire land or create a proletariat for the coffee haciendas. This profit-making appeal can be seen in the hundreds of people who loaned money, at a ratio of roughly one lender to every two borrowers. Flexible terms meant that borrowers could repay in coffee or other produce, money, bank drafts, or labor. If they could not repay in the specified time, the loan simply rolled over, with the lender continuing to collect interest. And the vast majority did repay their loans—though it commonly



 

took a year or two past the due date to liquidate. And while smaller growers tended to pay slightly higher interest rates and were more likely to default, the difference in terms by size category was not significant. Those with the most debt were not overburdened smaller farmers but larger farmers who needed to hire outside labor. Acquiring a labor force, at the prices that cafetaleros were willing to pay, was not an easy task.



Chapter 7

Lamenting about Labor

I  s U.S. consul Ephraim George Squier noted, “The system of peonage (slavery under a less repugnant name) is here unknown.”1 Some twenty years later, Pablo Lévy made the same observation: “Peonage, as one sees in Mexico and various other points in Spanish America, does not exist in Nicaragua. This is a positive moral advance, but it has disastrous economic consequences. . . . Perhaps it is the only country in which the laborer receives in money four times as much as the value of his maintenance.”2 Labor shortage in Nicaragua in the nineteenth century was lamented by travelers and growers alike, who were sure that the economy would flourish if only they could get people to work—and to work cheaply—especially during the harvest season, when labor needs swelled. Nicaraguan growers were not averse to the idea of peonage, and many laws were passed throughout the coffee boom to try to force people to go to work on the coffee farms and to hold them there. These concerns resulted in several methods of trying to hold labor, including advances of money or goods, vagrancy laws, mandatory labor contracts, and the forced return of fleeing workers. But the



  

attempts were far from successful and the recurrent passage of legislation—twenty laws during the Zelaya years alone—is testimony to the ineffectiveness of these attempts, although Nicaraguan historiography has frequently cited the litany of Zelaya-era laws as proof of just the opposite.3

Legislating a Workforce Mendoza commented in , “Bad bosses have made bad workers. . . . The boss’s worst enemy is his servant, a species of Robin Hood. . . . Workers commit to many hacendados at the same time and fulfill their obligations to none of them. . . . Laws are not enforced rigorously, and when they are, they are used to favor political allies.”4 Those laws began as early as , when the Nicaraguan government first tried to regulate labor in favor of the large producers. A legislative decree said that agriculture was facing setbacks because workers made commitments to work but then did not comply. The law provided that “anyone who promises to work, whether receiving an advance or not, is obliged to comply at the fixed time with no excuse whatsoever.” Further, the state would “give preference to the complaints of the farmers against the workers who fail to comply with their obligations.” The law provided that no worker should receive advances from two different people to work at the same time. In such a case, the worker would be brought to the first farmer with whom he had a contract, and he would be punished with eight days of labor on public works.5 Revisions and expansions of this law in  and  stipulated that the workday was from  A.M. to  P.M., with a lunch break, and that workers who abandoned their commitments could be pursued and brought back to the farms.6 The laws were framed within a discourse that drew on both traditional Christian values that frowned on idle hands as well as the Enlightenment theories that so influenced Latin America in the



 

nineteenth century. An executive decree of  outlawing vagrancy began by noting that “idleness [is] the origin of all vices and crimes in society.” Interestingly, this law allowed for duly licensed beggars to plead for alms, as long as they did not bring along their children, who should be trained for employment. The same law went on to say that vagrancy was really a police problem—citing the opinions of the “best writers (Wattel and Montesquieu among others)”—“that it is necessary to accustom the people to order and obedience,” and to help them see that what seems like a minor police matter can really be a more grave problem to society.7 Work was so essential to society, in fact, that in  the legislature eliminated penalties for working on holidays.8 Vagrants were presumably those who wandered about—without special dispensation—and without fixed employment, practicing a trade, or owning or possessing land. Since land was easily claimed in the ejidos, it was assumed that anyone who was not productively occupied was willfully indolent and should be made to work. But while the discourse addressed the needs of a healthy and productive society, the reality was that growers complained about a labor shortage. There is, of course, never really a labor shortage—if wages are high enough, people will work. But growers did not want to pay higher wages: their products were largely for export and they did not need highly paid workers as consumers. Further legislation regarding labor was passed repeatedly from  to ,9 and the issue was addressed in the constitutions of  and . The sheer volume of laws speaks to the contentiousness of the debate about how to provide a labor force for coffee and to the difficulty of enforcing the laws. Had the system been successful, there would have been no need for the nearly constant revisions. The laws were a mixed lot, with provisions at times that were onerous for workers and that authorized indebtedness and the use of force. Other laws held growers responsible for payment and just treatment of workers. Workers—referred to variously as operarios, mozos, or jornaleros (operators, servants, day laborers)—were rarely



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defined. Given the ease of acquiring land, being a worker was not likely linked to landlessness—although a  law tried to tie worker status to the worth of land held. According to cafetalero Raul Castro, “jornaleros [commonly] had two to five manzanas.”10 Day laborers substantially outnumbered farmers,11 but as Castro indicates and the registro records make clear, jornaleros had access to land and were even coffee growers as well. Eventually, the  labor code simply defined a worker as someone over fourteen years old who gave his or her work to another for a stipulated salary. An  law provided for an eight-hour workday and stipulated that the worker must be paid what he was owed within three days. But the law also said that the farmer’s account book was sufficient proof of a worker’s debt, unless the book appeared suspicious or the worker could prove otherwise.12 The  law stipulated that agriculture judges could arrest drunken workers, assign work to the unemployed, and levy fines up to ten pesos—when harvest wages averaged . a week—for not fulfilling a labor contract and that, if necessary, the judge could contact his counterpart in another jurisdiction to retrieve runaway workers. But while the worker could face penalties of one to ten pesos or an equal time in jail for not fulfilling his contract, the law also set penalties of ten to thirty pesos or an equal number of days in jail for farmers who cheated workers of their wages, and no farmer’s complaint would be heard if the farmer was not registered with the agriculture judge, along with a registry of all workers. No worker could be forced to repay advances that were not recorded.13 The  reforms added that farmers must give workers receipts showing they had fulfilled their work requirements or repaid their loans, so that the receipt could be shown to the next employer. A worker who committed to working for the harvest and received an advance was required to work the entire harvest, and if he abandoned his work, the judge could have him returned to the hacienda. A worker who fled a second time would also face eight days in jail. 

 

Abandoning a contract could also lead to a penalty of three to fifteen days of labor on public works. However, if the employer did not pay the advance within twenty-four hours of the fulfillment of the obligation, he faced a fine of five to fifteen pesos. The same fine was levied for knowingly hiring a worker already contracted to work for someone else. Those who convinced a contracted worker to go work for another faced a ten-peso fine or ten days in jail.14 That same year the government authorized Federico Alberding to contract Chinese workers for eight-year periods to work in agriculture or other businesses. It does not appear that Alberding’s business was successful, as growers continued to search for ways to get Nicaraguans to work for them.15 In  President Pedro Joaquín Chamorro proposed an Agricultural Code that would eliminate the matricula system, which required workers to register with agriculture judges. “Congress did not approve the project, but echoed the president’s ideas about work freedom,” notes Sara Haydée Granados Doña. The following year, the system was repealed, but farmers tried their best to undermine the system. By  workers were required to carry cards confirming that they were employed; anyone without the card would be considered vagrant.16 The  revision raised the number of days of labor on public works to five to fifteen if a worker abandoned his commitment; it added that those who signed on for the harvest could not take off before the end of the workday on the eve of a holiday, under a penalty of ten days in jail. The third time that a deserting worker was caught, he would be assigned military service in a frontier garrison. Police were given the right to cross jurisdictional boundaries in order to catch fleeing workers. The law also recognized that workers were falsifying receipts proving their solvency from debt, which would incur a penalty of eight to fifteen days’ labor on public works.17 The  law required farmers to give the local authorities a list of workers who deserted their jobs so that authorities could print and distribute the



  

names to governors, police, mayors, and judges.18 The  and  laws made it the government’s obligation to capture and prosecute fugitive workers.19 Still, government officials lamented the difficulty of getting Nicaraguans to work. A Ministerio de Fomento (ministry of development) report from ‒ complained, “If one observes the relationship between the working population and the number of businesses, there is not, properly speaking, a shortage of workers, but a lack of stimulation to work on the part of our workers, who have few needs and easy means of satisfying them, so that, shamefully, they have taken on the tendency to defraud businessmen, whom they provoke to give them advances of money, committing their services under onerous conditions and at times falling victim to injustices. . . . It is necessary to seek the remedy in the education of the masses, attracting them to the civilized life, which will create new needs and aspirations.”20 An  law provided penalties of jail time or public works for those who failed to register with the agriculture judges and stipulated that workers could not leave the haciendas without permission of the patrón. As a result, the number of registered workers jumped from  in  to , in .21 But the increased numbers did not mean that all eligible workers registered or that they stayed at their jobs. As Zelaya came to power in , elites debated whether to abolish the imprisonment of workers for failure to pay their debts. Zelaya said he would oppose any agricultural law and defy the constitution if it did not include “energetic disposition to protect coffee growers from operarios.” The result was the law of August , , simultaneously interpreted by former foreign relations minister José Madriz as more oppressive than previous laws, while hailed by then foreign relations minister Adolfo Altamirano as the establishment of “free work” in Nicaragua, ending the “slavery” that under Conservative administrations limited national wealth.22 The law called for agricultural agencies,defined workers as those over fourteen working for salary, and defined the obligations of operarios



 

as well as patrones and agriculture judges. Hacendados and entrepreneurs had to register along with workers, while employers were to provide lists of workers and of fugitives. The law prohibited patrones from hiring or bribing already contracted workers and required them to rescind the matricula when work was completed. Workers had the right to complain about delays in returning their cards, with late hacendados to pay a five-peso fine and indemnify workers with one and a half pesos a day. But, if the boss was not satisfied with the work done, the worker could be required to pay the hacendado ten to fifty pesos. At first the hacendados were pleased with the result of the law, but soon they complained that the system was ineffective; workers continued to break their contracts and falsified the official stamps required on their registration cards. By  a new law was passed, eliminating the matricula and prohibiting hacendados from giving cash advances, but simultaneously creating a new passbook system and requiring workers to stay on the job till their debts were repaid.23 The  law made changes to the passbook system but still required registration, with police authorized to capture fleeing workers. This law stipulated that those over sixteen years old and with capital of less than five hundred pesos were required to register, which effectively called on small growers to join the workforce. Advances were prohibited, but hacendados could give loans with interest. Workers would then not be jailed for failure to pay debts but for failure to fulfill their work contracts.24 But this work pass system was abolished in  by a vote of  to , and Zelaya’s subsequent veto was overridden by Congress. Jeffrey L. Gould attributes the changes to pressures from highland Indians and regional rivalries: “Many congressmen seemed to have tired of seeing their regions’ workers shipped off to work for the Managua cafetaleros.”25 While a  law outlawed vagrancy, required a passbook, and sentenced workers to fifteen days of public works for breaking a contract, it also prohibited the mandamiento, a form of forced labor reminiscent of colonial practices. The  constitution outlawed im-



  

prisonment for debt, and both the  and  constitutions abolished forced labor. Coffee growers lobbied unsuccessfully for debt enforcement legislation in , but they finally succeeded in . However, the  law also prohibited advances of more than the amount that could be earned in two months and provided for fines of five to ten córdobas for farmers who falsified their lists of workers and fines of one to four córdobas for not paying workers within twentyfour hours. In addition, it required that workers be over fourteen years old and that sick workers be given time off, with the farmer providing free care and medicine for up to thirty days.26 By  Managua hacendados favored abolition of debt bondage and forced labor, which they saw as hurting productivity and driving away workers, who fled to Costa Rica, while growers from the northern highlands lobbied for the old, coercive system.27 The myriad coercive laws simply did not work. As Lanuza notes, “It seems contradictory that these laws, taken with the aim of keeping the workforce from fleeing, had the opposite effect. Nonetheless, this contradiction is perfectly understood when one is advised that there did not exist an authority capable of making anyone comply with the law.”28 The evidence from Carazo makes that quite clear.

Contracts and Fugitive Workers Few workers from the Carazo region can be found among the hundreds of contracts on file in Granada from  to . The contracts included physical descriptions, to be used if the worker fled. For example, Simón Narvaes, a Jinotepe laborer, signed a contract in  to harvest coffee on Rito Baez’s hacienda, Elvira, in San Marcos. He was to be paid one real for each five medios harvested, plus meals, for the entire harvest, and he had received an advance of eight pesos sencillos. He swore that he had made no other work commitments. Narvaes was described as being of regular height, thin, moreno



 

(swarthy), beardless, with black straight hair and no visible scars.29 In  Apolonio Quiroz of Tisma signed a contract to harvest coffee for Baez at his San Marcos hacienda El Brasil, in which he committed to also bring his wife. While his wife is unnamed, Quiroz is described in detail: fifty years old, five feet seven inches, curly black hair, black eyes, regular nose, mouth, and forehead, swarthy, with mustache and goatee, without visible scar. He was to earn one real per five medios plus meals, and he received an advance of twenty pesos sencillos. Wages for his wife were not specified.30 Juan Gonzales was hired for a variety of jobs at different wages in his  contract. Gonzales, a twenty-two-year-old from Jinotepe, was to work for Celedonio Morales at whichever of his haciendas he was needed, earning four reales per day and meals when he worked as a day laborer, and one real for four medios when he worked harvesting coffee. He would only be paid one real for five medios picked while working off his advance of eighty-nine pesos sencillos. He was also to serve as a muleteer “when his boss thought it convenient,” earning sixteen pesos sencillos per month.31 Such descriptions were certainly used to track down workers. Diego Miranda, agent of the rural police in Diriamba, reported to the prefect of Granada on September , , that he had received no requests from outside authorities that week regarding fugitive workers, “but I have proceeded to capture the workers that I have been asked for by hacendados of this villa.”32 Similarly, he reported on August , , “I have proceeded to capture various workers, at times by order of the agriculture judge, at times by solicitude of bosses [patrones].”33 The local judges also sent the lists of workers collected from hacendados and businessmen. A list sent on February , , consisted of nineteen pages, noting that it was organized according to law specifically for the purpose of being able to round up workers who deserted.34 Workers were indeed caught and sentenced: Esteban García of

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  

San Marcos was arrested in  for running away from the farm of Juan Vega. He was sentenced to ten days of public works, which was commutable if he paid a fine; García opted for work, probably because he did not have the money. He was then to be returned to Vega’s hacienda.35 In  José Angel Martínez, a carpenter, was sentenced to fifteen days of public works for leaving José María Lacayo’s hacienda Santa Gertrudis. And in an interesting twist, in  Ruperto Jirón, a Jinotepe laborer, was sentenced to a five-peso fine or five days in prison for inducing María Sirias to default on her commitment to pick coffee on Carlos E. Gonssen’s hacienda, La Amistad, in San Marcos. Sirias was not penalized.36 But just as frequently the workers could not be found. In August  Diriamba agriculture judge Benito Rivera could not find Francisco Vivas and Domingo Pérez, sought in Jinotepe.37 The agriculture judge of San Marcos reported in September  that while he found José Sanches and returned him to Masatepe, Juan León Ampié could not be found to return to La Victoria; in neighboring Diriamba, the agriculture judge could not find Prudencio and Salvador Navarrete, contracted to Juan Pío Medal in Jinotepe.38 In  Justo García wrote to the prefect that he could not find many fugitives at all: “Either they are not in the city or the judges only provide the name and surname of unknown people.”39 Another worker who was sought was reported to be in Costa Rica, illustrating how easy it was for workers to simply move on.40 Sometimes the workers found employment at another farm, perhaps where work conditions or wages were better. With intense competition for workers, farmers sometimes ignored the law and did not check to see whether workers were committed elsewhere. In  Juan Pablo Mercado of Diriamba was captured at the request of Sebastián Gutiérrez hijo, for whom he was contracted to work on the hacienda San Sebastián. Mercado admitted that he had run out on his commitment, but it turned out that he was already contracted to Pío Argüello. Gutiérrez admitted that he hired Mercado without the

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 

solvency ticket showing that he did not work for anyone else, in accord with the law of March , . Mercado was sentenced to five days of public works, or a five-peso fine, but Gutiérrez also was fined five pesos for hiring him. In an  case, Juan Acevedo was captured at Carlos Ettienne’s finca, Paraguay, where he was sought by the Diriamba agriculture judge on a complaint from Carlos Uriarte. Ettienne admitted hiring Acevedo without the solvency receipt, and he was fined twenty-five pesos, which he was required to pay within twenty-four hours.41 At times it appeared that the officials were complicit in the competition among farmers. In  Jinotepe’s agriculture judge Ramón Quiroz complained to the prefect that he repeatedly sought the capture of Cipriano Hernández, who had fled Luciano Acevedo. But when Hernández was captured he was instead taken to the hacienda of Fruto Arévalo.42 Conflicts among officials of neighboring communities were common. In  Sebastián Aragón of San Marcos complained to the prefect that the chief of area police, usually based in Jinotepe, had been in San Marcos but refused to help him catch a fugitive worker because he was on his way back to Jinotepe. “I am reporting this to you because this conduct puts me in danger of complaints from the contractors, for lack of complying with their petitions, as required by law,” Aragón complained. “Now you can see with what indifference this employee views the voice of authority. It is too much to believe that a judge can fulfill his obligations.”43 The agriculture judge of San Marcos, Pedro S. Villavicencio, wrote to the prefect in , complaining that he had sent a request to his counterpart in Diriamba to capture worker José Apolonio Cruz and his sons, who were legally contracted to work in the coffee harvest for Francisco Castro, but “they pass freely in the streets of Diriamba.” Villavicencio asked the prefect to force the Diriamba authorities to comply.44 Filiberto Cruz, the Diriamba judge, defended himself in a January  letter dripping with sarcasm. He noted that he and the



  

rural police received the San Marcos request on the eighteenth. “We both procured the capture, which followed on the twenty-third, and the next day we sent the workers to the complaining judge, who perhaps is of the belief that the mere act of sending an authorized request was the same as having the individual imprisoned.”45 At times it appeared that the officials charged with pursuing and returning workers were actually on the workers’ side. Dolores Vargas wrote to the judge of Santa Teresa on January , , “I ask you for the second time to capture and send José Acebedo [sic], the worker who deserted from the work of don José Angel Mora. The former judge of that town sent him to me on his word of honor, and the individual sent the remittance note, but he did not appear. It is strange that prisoners of this nature are permitted that consideration, which the law does not authorize for any authority.” Eventually the authorities in Jinotepe did locate Acevedo and send him back to work for Mora.46 Acevedo was not the only worker trusted to return on his own. S. Mejía wrote to the agriculture judge of Diriamba that he had sent Francisca Rojas back “without custody of soldiers, because being a woman, there could be danger that the soldiers would be up to their old tricks, seeing her as at their orders.” So she gave her word that she would return on her own.47 The sharpest disputes were between Carazo-area communities and the department of Managua, which was not only the largest coffeeproducing region in the country but also had the advantage of being home to the nation’s capital. Managua farmers took their complaints to the federal government, not just to local and regional officials. When Managua judges sent requests to Carazo officials to catch fugitive workers, instead of eager partners they found that local officials dragged their feet. For example, in  Juez de Agricultura Sebastián Aragón reported to the prefect that he received a request from the juez de agricultura in Managua to capture worker Dolores García, “whom I did not send because I found him with fever in the act of capturing him.”48 In an  case, the agriculture judge of Diriamba wrote to the



 

prefect in Granada that he did not return María Mendoza to Managua, instead accepting her husband’s promise to pay the fifteen pesos she owed her patrón. Then she disappeared, the judge reported, because she knew that she would be declared fit to work and sent back, even though she was about to give birth. “It is for that reason that I have not sent her to the judge in Managua; and this is the same thing that I answered him, and he has kept bothering me on this.”49 In an  case, the agriculture judge of Diriamba, Cecilio Rocha, defended himself to the prefect, saying that the workers repeatedly sought by the Managua authorities, Gordiano and Ramona Vargas, were too sick to be sent back to work. Rocha decided to give them a few days to see if their health improved—“wanting to reconcile positive human law with divine natural or moral law.”50 The Managua complaints led the federal government to issue circulars to the other departments urging their compliance. Circular no.  of , addressed to the prefect of Granada from the ministro de fomento, said, “The agriculture judge of this city has complained to the prefecture of the department of the ineffectiveness of the capture of fugitive workers because of the negligence with which the requests sent by judges of other towns of the republic are viewed. If this is true, it causes the greatest ills to agriculture in this country, especially in this department and during this season; I hope that you will call this to the attention of the judges and agents of your jurisdiction, so that they apply the utmost effort in complying with their duties in accord with the agriculture laws and the police.”51 The next year the minister issued an almost identical circular, adding that by enforcing these laws the newly appointed prefect of Granada would have the gratitude of all the farmers.52 Two years later, the same complaint was renewed. The minister issued another circular: “As public interest along with duty demands the fulfilling of these requests, for the protection of the rights of agriculture, and the end of fulfilling the law, the president has ordered me to direct you to watch with the greatest interest to make sure that the

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  

functionaries alluded to punctually attend to that part of their obligation and energetically pursue the workers that are claimed.”53 Again local officials replied with sarcasm. Diego Miranda, the police officer in Diriamba, reported on January , , “I have captured the workers that I have been asked for. . . . Here I am occupied constantly catching workers and criminals.”54 Conflicts existed not just between communities but between officials within communities as well. Diriamba agriculture judge Telesforo Argüello wrote to the prefect in , “The municipal police here, having been ordered by me to capture a worker that was sought by his boss, answered me by saying that I do not command him.”55 Some of the conflicts were likely to be petty political squabbles between rivals, who were often struggling over limited turf, power, and funds. But even if the officials could agree on their goals and division of labor, they struggled with shortage of manpower and of funds, lack of jail space to hold captured workers, conflicting demands made on their time, and conflicting demands made on the workers themselves. Local authorities complained that they did not have the manpower to capture runaway workers, and they sought help. In  a government accord created a rural guard post in San Marcos because the town needed “the permanence of a functionary that, using sufficient force, is occupied with the pursuit and capture of prisoners, fugitive workers, contrabandistas, and to fulfill the requests received from other authorities.” The post was to include a sergeant, a corporal, four soldiers, and a “sergeant of agriculture.” Nicolás Bravo was appointed captain, with a salary of thirty pesos a month.56 The prefect, however, was dubious about this solution. He responded to the Ministro de governación (government ministry): “This accord suggests some doubts to me. By accord of the twentieth of October of last year, a mobile rural guard was created in the district of Jinotepe, naming to that post Capt. don Nicolás Bravo with a salary of thirty-five pesos, and he is currently carrying out that role. . . . I think we could avoid the creation of a rural inspection in San Marcos



 

and the consequent expense if we determine that the Jinotepe guard will carry out the functions of rural inspector, staying alternately in one or the other of the towns. Besides, the same reasons that exist for establishing a rural inspection in San Marcos exist in other towns, like La Victoria, Diriamba, etc., . . . it is doubtful that the Supreme Government intends to demand a rural guard for each of its respective towns, which as you well understand would cost the public treasury a considerable disbursement, perhaps without much effect.”57 It was also difficult to hire enough rural guard members. Diriamba agriculture judge Benito Rivera explained to the prefect in  that he would need to recruit from among the workers, “who undoubtedly would be missed by the boss, harming the farmers and the benefits that the law in this regard is supposed to provide. They are laughing at my office, since although the workers are sentenced to public works for not complying, they flee and we do not have the force to hold them.”58 On April , Rivera followed up with a telegram: “I have great need for two to three soldiers to capture workers. The police officer is not in Jinotepe. You provide them for me. Answer me.”59 On July  the rural police officer for Diriamba wrote to the prefect, “The agriculture judge of San Marcos asked me for soldiers to take care of workers. What shall I do?”60 The response was to appoint Bravo to head the mobile guard, and as he headed to San Marcos with his squad the prefect sent a communiqué to the Ministerio de Governación in Managua, noting that the Ministro de Hacienda needed to send orders to the tax collector of the district of Jinotepe to pay Bravo and his men. “Captain Bravo has observed to me that he has to make useless expenditures for the office, light, and perhaps quarters because the town hall of San Marcos is insufficient.”61 The costs of government service were a constant concern. An  circular attempted to clarify how expenses incurred in enforcing the  labor law would be paid: “costs of capture of fugitive worker s will be paid . . . by the corresponding tax collector or commissioner.



  

. . . The employees and individuals of the armed forces who capture or transport [fugitive workers] draw salaries and in complying with their duties do not have the right to charge any costs. [Costs] will be paid solely to those of the public force who do not earn salaries.” Different fees were charged for various categories of workers. “A difference must be made between a fugitive worker [operario prófugo] and a defaulting worker [operario rebelde], for the purpose of paying for the capture: a person is a fugitive who not only abandons his first commitment but has contracted another and without justifiable cause changed jobs; a person is in default if he has only stopped attending work at the business to which he had committed. Only in the first case will capture be paid, and in both transport.”62 But two years later costs were still in dispute. When José Acevedo was finally sent back to Santa Teresa by Jinotepe authorities, the police chief then asked Santa Teresa agriculture judge Dolores Vargas to have Acevedo’s boss pay sixty cents for his imprisonment, sixty cents for his capture, and twenty cents for transport. Vargas, however, maintained that the law did not say that bosses must pay for the capture of their workers.63 The local officials had more duties to deal with than just the pursuit of runaway workers: enforcement of contraband laws—especially regarding illegal production of aguardiente—was supposed to be a priority. In  police chief Lanislao Castrillo told the prefect he would try to respond to orders that he aid the agriculture judges of the district. But superior orders demanded that he pursue contraband, leaving few officers in quarters to seek fleeing workers.64 When the squad did turn its attention to workers, they were reprimanded. In  the prefect wrote to the mayor of Diriamba, “According to information this prefect has, the guard that stays in that villa is dedicated solely to the transport of workers that have deserted the haciendas. As you know the principal object of that force is the persecution of contraband, and it is strange that you do not dedicate your attention to the repression of that crime, since that is a duty of all the



 

authorities. I hope that you will comply in that respect with what is required by law.”65 But attention to contraband was not what the local farmers wanted, and the local power brokers whom they influenced agreed. In  San Marcos priest Eduardo Urtecho wrote to the prefect that the newly elevated municipality of San Marcos wanted troops from the squad of the rural agent of Diriamba “especially now that they encounter serious difficulties every day in the coffee harvest, since the judge in that business cannot carry out the necessary activity without help from this element. Also, the rural agent Diego Miranda stays in Diriamba, most of his time occupied by interests outside the business of agriculture, which is resented by this town.”66 The solution was often sought by asking for police or soldiers to do the job. But recruiting enough manpower into the armed forces was problematic as well. Mayor Enrique Baltodano complained to the prefect via telegram in  that the town could not fill its military contingent because “most had given their service, others are servants at Santa Cecilia, some have serious physical impediments, and the few who are able take to the hills.”67 In  the prefect released several recruited workers when their patrones complained and cautioned the rural guard commander, “Do not forget, I repeat, to take the greatest care so that you do not again divert individuals who are at times citizens in these towns.”68 In  the Ministry of War warned the military chief of the region not to recruit troops in San Marcos and Santa Teresa: “if you evade complying with these orders I will find it necessary to avail myself of the legal remedies to make you follow orders as directed. Therefore, you will suspend the recruitment of the towns mentioned here and will give decisive orders that no soldier is to be taken in Jinotepe, Diriamba, and La Victoria, immediately discharging without prejudice citizens of those towns that have been enlisted.”69 While the most common conflicting demands were for workers and soldiers, there were occasionally other conflicts as well. Juan

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  

Mora, agriculture judge for Santa Teresa, wrote to the prefect in Granada in  with this odd request for guidance: Isidoro Acuña of the barrio of the Potrerillos was legally elected head of the district (jefe de cantón); Acuña, however, was also registered to work for Narciso Arévalo. Arévalo wanted Acuña captured and returned to the finca. Mora felt that Acuña did need to return, but whether to fulfill his commitment as a worker or to fulfill his electoral duty was not clear. “[F]earing the committing of an error or injustice, I am ready to consult you whether his boss should be preferred or the discharging of his office, which is by law.”70 Sebastián Aragón, agriculture judge for San Marcos, also sought guidance from the prefect in  because “various bosses have made claims for the capture of some youths of both sexes legally registered to pick coffee in the current harvest; and as the authority of this town by means of the police officer Capt. Pablo Marenco has ordered they be captured to take them to school, I hope it would serve for you to tell me what I should do about this, to not enter into competition with the mayor.”71 Even if all the authorities could agree, manpower could be mustered, and the fleeing worker found, the question then became where to put the worker till he or she could be transported back to the hacienda. The local judge in Jinotepe, Felipe Ibarra, complained to the prefect on April , , that he did not have enough jail space for criminals and that he needed three or four more cells. He was concerned about holding murderers—“we have just caught the famous thief and murderer Sabino Navarrete, and he more than anyone needs to be in complete security.” But if he lacked space for serious criminals, where would he put fugitive workers?72 Of course, once the worker was captured and returned to the hacienda, there was no guarantee that he or she would stay, and the whole miserable business would begin again. The agriculture judge of San Marcos was informed in  that Martín Romero, a worker that had just been returned after deserting the farm of don Raimundo Tapia

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 

after working off only . pesos of his advance, had taken off again, this time taking the entire work crew with him. The authorities asked that he be captured and that the team be sent back with security.73 The workers took goods with them as well—even the coffee itself. The federal government notified the prefect in , “There have been many complaints that on the coffee haciendas of the town of San Marcos and its environs frequent thefts of this fruit take place, under the protection of the laxness of those authorities. . . . It is my duty to ask you to prevail upon the mayor of that town to . . . set up ambushes at the entrance and exit of the town or at the haciendas to capture the delinquents.”74 Guards at the gates of town or the haciendas seemed like a good idea to some of the hacendados as well. For example, in  a coffee grower from San Marcos suggested to the prefect that rural police be stationed at haciendas and at the exits of the town of San Marcos to keep workers from taking off early for the weekend or for holidays and to make sure that they had permission to leave—a system that was already “ producing a magnificent result” in Managua but had yet to come to Carazo. The letter writer complained, “What happens is that on Saturday or the eve of whatever fiesta, even though it is a work day, they abandon the job of harvesting coffee, leaving between eleven and twelve in the day, and . . . most of them are gone till Tuesday, obtaining in consequence only three and a half total days of work. Well, without the material support of the authorities in this case we cannot save ourselves from losing a great part of our harvest.” To illustrate his point, the grower recounted this story: “this Friday I left the finca to supply myself with more workers and to arrange for provisions, leaving installed forty-four cutters. . . . imagine my surprise on arriving early Monday morning to find only the manager, a foreman, and six empty fields. All the people went to their different neighborhoods, that is, Niquinohomo, Nandasmo, Masatepe, and Masaya, giving as their reason the fact that it was Sunday and the fiesta of Nandasmo was approaching. . . . Now imagine for a moment, Mr.

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  

Prefect, in what difficulty I find myself to resummon all these people in their different towns. And why? For the simple reason that on leaving San Marcos there is no one demanding to see their passes.”75

Workers in Debt A key element in the attempt to control the workforce was the use of debt, and the nature of the system of advances from hacendados to workers has been the subject of heated debate by scholars, some of whom see it as the creation of debt peonage that differed little from slavery and others who see it as a system that benefited workers.76 In Nicaragua the tendency seems to have been for workers to demand advances as their due, and frequently not to feel particularly bound by them. Lévy addressed the question circa : “The worker evades many of the persecutions of the agriculture judge, and if many hacendados abuse their workers, it is also true that the workers have taken, and take every year, quantities that would seem enormous if not, happily, for being composed mostly of goods sold at exorbitant prices.” The workers laughed at the hacendados, who sometimes gave workers the last of the money in their pockets rather than lose them to another farm, a practice that added to the problems of money scarcity but failed to solve the problem of keeping workers. Said Lévy, “The money taken is much greater than might be seen at first glance. I have heard that just in the department of Rivas the loss due to desertion by workers has been over $, in .”77 Gould found that in Matagalpa “workers did respond to wage incentives and often moved from hacienda to hacienda in search of advances rather than return to their milpas [subsistence farms].” Workers played one cafetalero off against another. “Female workers in particular responded to piecework incentives, often earning enough to pay off their debts.”78

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 

In Carazo a handful of wills from , , , , , and  show debts from workers listed as part of growers’ inheritances. At times these references merely note that the deceased is owed several debts from workers, or as the will of Juan Tardencia of Jinotepe put it, “various quantities in workers and cutters.” Others detailed the debts by name and amount, ranging from a mere three workers owing money to a list of thirty-four workers who owed money to Mercedes Umaña, with those debts included in the goods that constituted , pesos bequeathed to her husband, Juan Sánchez, in . The workers’ debts ranged from  to . pesos.79

Legal Recourse Although few legal records for Carazo survive, the documents available show officials with a tendency to side with the workers, not the bosses. For example, Narciso Arévalo complained in  that the agriculture judge of Jinotepe, Bacilio Bermudes, did not force Salvador Jiménez to go back to work for him. According to Arévalo, Jiménez contracted to work for a year on his farm, Ofir, in Jinotepe. After two months or so, Jiménez left and despite several attempts Arévalo could not get Jiménez to return and could not get Bermudes to force his return. The judge contended that Arévalo was trying to get Jiménez to return to work off advances of money and goods, which was illegal. Arévalo contended that it was not an advance but a work contract with which Jiménez must comply. The complaint was referred to the local court in Jinotepe. Bermudes testified that he and others were witnesses when Bermudes settled his account with Jiménez, and in the process described the amount in question as an advance. The court upheld Bermudes and the appeal was denied.80 In another case a successful appeal overturned the lower court conviction of two men who allegedly spent their time drunk on street corners bothering people. Francisco Sandino and Antolín Pineda were

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  

accused in  by a local barber, Rodolfo Campos, of being vagrants who “suspiciously and obnoxiously disturb[ed] the tranquility and well-being of laborious workers and honorable people” of the town of San Marcos. Campos filed a complaint, and in the course of the investigation it was decided that the men were indeed vagrant and should be sentenced to eight days each of public works. Sandino and Pineda appealed the decision, saying that the accusations were false, that each had an occupation and property, and that the police never took statements from them. The final decision held that people should not be penalized for errors by the police, and the two men were acquitted.81 And in  Macario Salazar went to court to demand . córdobas from grower Rafael Estrada for day labor on his finca. The court sided with Salazar, a verdict that was upheld on appeal in Jinotepe in . It was an old story: back in  agriculture judge Juan Pacheco of Diriamba reported fining farmers for withholding their workers’ wages.82

Conclusions The laws on the books paint a picture of a Nicaraguan workforce that became more regulated over time—forced to register for work and to sign contracts with detailed physical descriptions, chased by the police and returned to their bosses after serving jail time or giving their labor on public works. But to believe that picture assumes that these laws were actually enforced. The evidence for Carazo shows that enforcement was sporadic at best. The elaborate system devised to register, describe, and capture workers was constantly tested, both by workers who repeatedly fled and by farmers who had no compunctions about hiring workers away from other farmers. The evidence indicates that there was acute competition for labor and that workers actively sought out bosses who might pay or treat them better.

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 

Underfunded government institutions struggled to find the manpower and income to pay for the forces needed to search for, capture, hold, and transport workers. The armed forces were limited as well, partly because their very targets for recruitment—who could be used to round up workers—were too much needed in the workforce. Some government officials wanted rural police forces searching out contraband, which interfered with the limited sources of government revenue collected through monopolies on such products as liquor. The rooting out of contraband could put more money into government coffers to pay for the rural police, but local hacendados demanded that their workers not be recruited and that the limited forces focus on rounding up runaway workers. Further, administration of the laws was complicated by rivalries between officials, towns, and departments. Caraceño authorities ignored requests for the return of fleeing workers from Managua, and within the region, officials from Diriamba, San Marcos, and Jinotepe clashed. As Wolfe puts it, “The system had reinforced a form of localism, not the localism of Granada and León in the grand narrative of Nicaraguan history, but the localism that cares not for those beyond the city limits.”83 Most of the available data for Carazo is from the nineteenth century, and it is certainly possible that conditions worsened in the twentieth century. However, it is not likely that the administrations in office between the fall of Zelaya and the rise of Somoza were much more successful in their attempts to control labor.84 The twentiethcentury legislation that provides for better working conditions may not have been enforced, but they are at least indicative of the political need and will to address workers’ rights. Lévy attributed the labor problem to the abundance of land and the fertility of the soil, which made it easy to maintain subsistence.85 “Here there is nothing of peons, nothing of privileged proprietors,” he wrote. “Every citizen, regardless of his race or color, can install himself on a vacant hillside, build a palm roof on four poles, and cul-

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  

tivate the area with the bananas and corn he needs to live and to buy the few indispensable items. No law prohibits him from going nearly naked; he needs no more than a machete; his woman needs only a stone to grind corn; his children need not fear the cold and only need to learn to do as their father. This system is perfect as a political institution and for respecting individual liberty—but we see the results: land still is not worth much, and you have to pay workers high wages to get them to give up their independence.”86 But the workers did not have to give up their independence completely and become a rural proletariat. Because of continued access to the ejidos, they could be subsistence farmers, working in the nearby harvest as needed. They would run their small farms much as they always had—as family operations.



Chapter 8

Social Structures

O M , , Cesilia Sánchez, a San Marcos housewife, filed a lawsuit before the district judge in Jinotepe. She charged that without her permission, her husband, Venancio García, had sold the farm she had inherited from her parents. To make matters worse, he sold the farm without the legal formalities and for less than half of its just price. The buyer was Anastasio Somoza, father of Anastasio Somoza García, the progenitor of the Somoza dictatorship. Sánchez demanded that the sale be nullified and the farm restored to her. On November , , the court ruled for Sánchez, giving Somoza three days to return the property and charging him court costs. Somoza appealed, but on March , , the higher court upheld the decision. During the course of the proceedings, Venancio García testified that he thought that as Sánchez’s husband he had the right to sell the land.1 In the past García did have that right. There was even a form used by notaries in  so that husbands accused of misappropriating their wives’ property could continue administering their goods.2 But García was living through a time of changing values, reflected in changing laws. Women, like the rural population in general, had new

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 

opportunities. However, just as the broad distribution of property did not provide equality, the new opportunities for women did not end exploitation or level a hierarchical society. Change came slowly and unevenly, building on rather than eliminating past patterns. García did not know that his rights had been altered. But Sánchez’s rights were neither easily nor consistently won. This mix of change and tradition is reflected in the reminiscence of Salvador Mendieta, an intellectual from Diriamba who supported the modernization of the economy and society but simultaneously waxed nostalgic for the traditions of his youth. Writing in  about Diriamba circa ‒, Mendieta sighed, “I remember it well.” He rhapsodized about an idyllic place where barefoot children, innocently devilish in their wild play, careened down streets, fighting as though warriors of Diriangén as they jostled past old ladies who made the sign of the cross. A place of cool winter evenings in bed with a jícaro of cacao, light glinting through the disintegrating roof, where vultures had tried to keep warm. “Half asleep, hands together on the chest—oh, blessed patriarchal customs!—we would go to the parlor: ‘Good night, Papá,’ ‘Good night, Mamá,’ ‘God make you be good, children.’” That tranquility—Mendieta says, “more than life, was sleep”—and Diriamba was about to be awakened by coffee to the agitation of progress, of a society more secular than religious, of a “modern civilization.”3 Those blessed patriarchal customs would be challenged, modified, but not eliminated.

Family Labor Farms—especially small farms—are by their very nature family enterprises. Most of the workforce is related by blood or kinship ties. The land they farm is also their home, their heritage, and their legacy. As one study puts it, “The farm family is built on traditions, expectations,

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 

and shared understandings of their mutual interdependence.”4 The family unit, then, was the base of Carazo’s economy and society. Family served as primary workforce, as collateral, as guarantor of property, income, and well-being. For poorer people, the family network was the main survival strategy; at higher economic levels, family was the basis for building wealth, social standing, and political power. As Verena Stolcke has shown, women and children were generally in charge of subsistence food production in colonato, or sharecropper, systems and for families in which husbands worked primarily on haciendas. In essence, they provided uncompensated labor to large coffee growers, providing “a vital link between productive and reproductive systems.”5 But that link was equally vital in making possible an independent subsistence sector and small commercial farming. As Chayanov argued, families exploit themselves to provide subsistence. He was wrong, however, to posit that self-exploitation as a sign of a separate mode of production, divorced from the market. Self-exploiting behavior also obtains for small commercial farmers producing coffee for the market. It is the reliance on family labor that makes the small business viable.6 The dependence on child labor was undoubtedly one of the reasons that, as the San Marcos school director reported to the prefect in , parents were reluctant to send their children to school, even though the federal government made primary education mandatory in .7 The larger the family, the bigger the available workforce, whether for subsistence production, commercial crops, or cash income from working in the harvest of larger coffee-growing neighbors. As John Tutino suggests, surnames provide an indicator, albeit an imperfect one, of family members working together on large estates.8 For example, a  will listing debts owed by workers includes Clara and Julia Espinoza; Agustín and Salvador González; Ramón, Guadalupe, and Benicio Gómez; Miguel, Juan, and José del R. López; and Laureano, Evaristo, Santos, and Pía Narvaez.9 Family labor is more clearly described in several loan agreements

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 

in which borrowers promised to work off their debts—along with the work of several family members. When Diriamba farmer Modesto Flores borrowed . pesos from José Ignacio González, he pledged to repay the debt with his labor and that of his sons, Máximo and Lucas, on González’s coffee hacienda. The collateral on the loan was Flores’s own five-manzana coffee farm, which presumably the whole family worked on as well.10 When Pía Felícitas Narvaez borrowed  pesos from Juan Sánchez in , she agreed to pay it back not just with her own work in the coffee harvests, but to also supply three additional workers; presumably, those would be family members.11 Similarly, Luis López Munguia was to repay his  debt of  córdobas with the work of at least six laborers (brazos) in Horacio Jarquín’s coffee harvests.12 Guadalupe Morales’s  loan agreement was even more specific: he was to repay  pesos from José Esteban González with his own labor driving his cart, with two workers who were grown men (ya hombres) to clean the coffee groves, and with three single daughters to cook or to cut coffee, at González’s choice. If any one of the workers did not come to work, González had the right to demand payment of the debt in money at  percent interest per month.13 This ultimate requirement, which could cost the family dearly if all its members did not comply, makes clear the importance of family solidarity or patriarchal authority.

Family Land Familial relationships were reflected in land as well as labor arrangements. Mendieta’s description of “concentric homes” was cited in chapter  to indicate the nature of extended families available to work on smaller coffee fincas. Through another lens, Mendieta’s description is as much about land as about labor arrangements. The concentric homes are the households of a couple’s offspring, built “around

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 

the house of the old man.”14 Depending on familial relationships, these households might constitute separate properties or might be considered one. During the lifetime of the parents, usufruct arrangements were often used as ways of guaranteeing a secure old age while simultaneously giving younger generations a start. For example, parents frequently sold or donated dominion of their property to their children, while the parents retained usufruct for the rest of their lives. This may have served two purposes: one would be to give the children resources they could use, since dominion over the property could be sold or mortgaged, and borrowed money could be used to acquire more land or begin a business. Meanwhile, the parents would continue to have usufruct of the land, maintaining subsistence or commercial income (or both), and not burdening their children in the process. For example, Manuela Calero viuda de Ortiz sold four manzanas of land to her daughter, Gricelda Ortíz de Mercado, for  córdobas in debts that Gricelda would pay on her mother’s behalf. Manuela subsequently sold Gricelda another . manzanas and donated another manzana, but on these two properties she specified that she would keep usufruct for the rest of her life. Gricelda, meanwhile, was able to mortgage all the property.15 Parents sometimes used such arrangements to try to dictate the terms of how land was handled and, in the process, how offspring dealt with each other. In  Mercedes Canales and Tomasa Arroyo of Jinotepe donated various properties worth , pesos to their children, Remigia, Jasinto, Salvador, and Valois. Not only did the parents retain usufruct during their lives but they insisted that the children form a corporation to manage the property, with Jasinto serving as director. Their goal may have been to keep all the children involved together in the farm. Nonetheless, Salvador almost immediately sold his rights to Remigia. Between  and  both Mercedes and Jasinto Canales died. In  Valois and Remigia gave the property to Juana Robleto de Aburto in payment for a debt of

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 

$,., and their mother agreed to give up her lifelong claim to usufruct. Ten days later the corporation was dissolved and the Canales heirs kept only one lot of the original property.16 From another angle, offspring sometimes used usufruct arrangements to protect parental needs. In  José del Carmen Cruz sold a small farm in Santa Teresa to José Jesús Sánchez for five hundred pesos, but he specified that Sánchez would not get usufruct of the farm and its one thousand coffee trees until the death of his mother, María de los Angeles Cruz.17 When a parent died, division of the property became an issue. Usually there were several surviving siblings entitled to share half the property, with half going to the surviving spouse under community property laws. Families ran the risk of seeing their property divided into ever smaller portions to share among a rising number of heirs, perhaps leaving none with sufficient land, or threatening to splinter large and efficient haciendas. However, divisions on paper were not always real divisions, that is, divisions of real estate. While legal titles might show each heir with a share of the land, actual practice might continue as it traditionally had, all helping with the land in “concentric homes.” For example, when Pedro Ramos and Ygnacia Martínez died, they left their property, worth . córdobas, to their children, Eulogio Ignacio, Frutos Ignacio, José Benigno, Rita Emilia, Eudilia, Juan Coronado, and Ana del Carmen. Each was awarded one-seventh of the property, but there were no further sales or transfers, and it is likely that they kept working the property as they always had—that is, although on paper the property was divided in sevenths, in practice it probably was not.18 Even if the property were sold, the possession and use might not change. When Juan Pío Medal died in , the finca Auraleña was inherited in thirds by María Eulogia, Cándida Concepción, and Carmela Medal. Six months later, the three jointly sold the property to Jinotepe farmer Antonio Reyes for , pesos. While Reyes owned the land, it is doubtful that he ever had usufruct. The next

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 

transaction recorded shows that Reyes had promised to resell the land to Cándida. Cándida, in turn, sold the promise of sale to Eudimilia Anaya, a Jinotepe homemaker, for , córdobas in . At the time, the document noted, Cándida retained usufruct of the property.19 A different pattern can be seen in the September  death of Ramón Alonzo. Alonzo’s property was also split three ways: seventeen manzanas each was left to Trinidad de Jesús Alonzo de Abillar, Ignacia Esmeralda Alonzo de Baltodano, and Mariano de Jesús Alonzo.20 The heirs slowly sold off all but three manzanas of the property, which was bought up bit by bit—sometimes after a first sale to someone else—by Francisco Artola. By  the property had been splintered and reassembled, under a new owner.21 Sometimes the land could not be easily divided and the children could not agree on what to do. Those cases ended up in court, with a judge conducting an auction. When Abel Alemán died, the judge assigned to settle the estate, José Gilberto Ortega, auctioned off the finca La Flor, a seventy-manzana farm in La Paz with , new coffee trees,  manzanas of sugar, and , plantain trees, for twothirds of its value because there was not a comfortable division (por no admitir comoda división) among the children, Francisco Isaac, Abel Antonio, Porfirio del Pilar, and José Agustín.22 The heirs of José Esteban González handled their inheritance by forming a corporation in which they were all shareholders, but business was managed by José Ramón González. The prospect of inheritance was an asset that could be sold, and there are sixty-six documented cases of inheritance rights being sold. Perhaps because the actual property would not change hands for some years, the birthright was sometimes sold at a considerable discount. In , Diriamba carpenter José María Pérez sold his rights to the inheritance of his mother, Ramona Pérez, for  pesos but noted that the property in question was valued at  pesos.23



 

Sometimes the inheritance rights were sold to other family members, and payment could take the form of assuming the seller’s debts. Diriamba farmer Diego Castro sold his rights to the inheritance from his father, Paulino, to his mother, Josefa Gonzales viuda de Castro, and his sister, María. Josefa received the value of  pesos that Diego would pay on her behalf to Alejos Mendieta; María would receive the value of  pesos in coffee and money that Diego would pay to her over the next ten years.24 Sometimes the buyer had a clear vision of a property that would be formed in the future. In  José Esteban González paid , pesos for the hereditary rights to a -manzana farm called La Esperanza, which bordered on “properties that were Eureciano Romero’s and today belong to José Esteban González.” Circa  the property was one of several registered to become part of González’s La Palmera, which by  had grown to  manzanas and by  to  manzanas, merging twenty smaller properties. An interesting twist to this tale is that the rights to La Esperanza were sold not by the heir but by the testator: Josefa González sold the rights that her son, Pedro, had in the farm.25 The inheritance rights could be used in the same way as the property itself: as collateral for mortgages and to sell in pactos de retroventa, with the right to buy back. Abelardo Espinosa sold his paternal inheritance rights to Napoleon Espinosa for  pesos in , with the right to buy them back at the same price, plus . percent interest per month.26 In  María Trinidad Mercado mortgaged the hereditary rights that she had purchased from Jesús Mercado to guarantee her debt of  pesos to Francisco Sánchez Espinosa.27 The selling of inheritance rights meant that the sometimes messy battles over inheritance were complicated by the participation of one or more outsiders to whom various heirs had sold their shares over the years. These disputes could end up in court and the buyer might not get exactly the value he was promised years earlier.



 

Creating and Maintaining Families The wife’s role in this system was clearly both producer and reproducer. Wills show the average family size in Carazo to be ten. It is no wonder, then, that women’s occupation was almost always listed (with the exception of the occasional seamstress) as oficios domésticos or the even more apt oficios de su sexo—phrases that were synonymous with homemaker or housewife and that indicated the primacy of the domestic roles these women played. This was hazardous duty— death in childbirth was still common and the survival rate of children was certainly low. In his will Ignacio Conrado lists as heirs his second wife, María Ramona Selva, with whom he had thirteen children. Only five survived.28 In elite families, women’s occupation was still oficios domésticos, and they also produced large families. The children, however, were not important as a labor force. Instead, they linked wealth and position through marriage. The most powerful coffee growers in Carazo were José Esteban and José Ignacio González, Enrique Baltodano, and Buenaventura and Vicente Rappaccioli. José Esteban González married Teresa Garcia Baltodano, granddaughter of Enrique. José Esteban’s brothers married Teresa’s cousins: José Ignacio married Teodelinda Montiel Baltodano, daughter of María Baltodano and prominent attorney Fernando Montiel. Teodelinda’s sister, Oresteles, married José Dolores González. The final link in the chain of the three families was forged when Ramón Ernesto González, son of José Esteban González and Teresa Garcia Baltodano, married Vicente Rappaccioli’s daughter, Haydée. These new Carazo elites also sought links with the long-established doyens of Granada society. Three of Haydée Rappaccioli’s siblings married into the most important families of Granada society: Emilia Rappaccioli de Lacayo, Matilda Rappaccioli de Lacayo, and Blanca Rappaccioli de Chamorro. The Lacayo and Chamorro families were also interconnected: Granada merchant Manuel Lacayo



 

married Rosa Lacayo, and their children included Berta Lacayo de Lacayo, Sofia Lacayo de Lacayo, Graciela Lacayo de Lacayo, and Rosa Delfina Lacayo de Chamorro. Their other daughters’ marriages provide a virtual who’s who of Granadino elites: Cora Lacayo de Benard, Amanda Lacayo de Argüello, and Angela Lacayo de Cuadra. As Maurice Zeitlin and Richard Earl Ratcliff put it, “freely intermarrying families, not individuals, are the constitutive units of classes, especially those of the dominant class, where ownership and control of capital and of landed property tend to be held by the family or other effective kinship units.”29 But while family served as a kind of insurance, it was no guarantee. Family feuds were common, both within and between prominent families. As Mendieta commented, “Fierce localism rises virtually to the level of war, . . . worsening day by day into the most profound and stupid hatreds. These hatreds are not limited to the inhabitants of different towns but also exist, and very deeply, between families, principally caused by disputes over land. . . . The death of the head of a family with sad frequency signals the beginning of terrible hatreds between brothers and brothers-in-law over the division of capital.”30 Mendoza records the shifting alliances among Diriamba’s dominant families: in  the González family, nominally Conservative, feuded with the Rappacciolis and Baltodanos, supposedly Liberals. In  Enrique Baltodano shifted his allegiance to the Gonzálezes. In  Baltodano shifted back to the Rappacciolis and pledged loyalty to the newly triumphant Zelaya.31 But the feuds were not just between the families either. Mendoza tells a sordid tale of the Baltodano family: Enrique’s brother, Ireneo, was also a coffee and sugar grower, but he did not share Enrique’s political ambitions. The two agreed on few things and rarely visited one another. Yet, when Ireneo died, he named Enrique executor of his will, expecting that his brother would follow his instructions. Instead, Enrique filed suit against the estate and cheated his nieces out of their inheritance. Mendoza claims that Viviana ended up homeless



 

and insane, Gertrudis and Gregoria died in poverty, Isabel and her three children begged for alms and died of hunger, and circa  the elderly Josefa was living in poverty.32 While not left penniless, each heir, according to registro records, received ,. pesos fuertes, not much considering the Baltodano fortune.33 Vivian, Gertrudis, and Isabel’s names do not appear in the registro linked to any coffee property, but Gregoria and Josefa apparently bought coffee farms with their spouses. Gregoria, who married Enrique Granja, passed on to her heirs the farm Santa Rita in , which they in turn sold to Josefa for ,. pesos fuertes. Josefa, who married Pablo Solórzano, sold Santa Rita for , pesos in . She also gave her daughter, Saba, the finca La Cruz, worth , pesos. Saba gave her parents , pesos and was to give them  pesos a year as a pension for the rest of their lives.34 Enrique’s son Ignacio, according to Mendoza, was much like his father. When Enrique died, the heirs fought bitterly over his estate. Enrique had left everything to his wife and she wanted to leave the goods to all her children, but Ignacio and his brothers, Moisés and Román, conspired to leave their sisters out. There was a lengthy court battle in which the brothers claimed that there were no goods to divide. One assessor, Juan Rivera, concurred; another, Ramón Gutiérrez, said the property was worth , pesos. A third assessor appointed by the court, Narciso Rodríguez, according to Mendoza could barely write his name and was “incapable of understanding the importance of things, much less their value.” Rodríguez sided with the brothers. Public opinion was on the side of the sisters, and word even reached President Zelaya, who according to Mendoza offered to intervene in exchange for the favors of one of the Baltodano daughters.35 The only record of the battle in the registro indicates that in  the brothers agreed to pay each of their sisters , pesos.36 Families fractured in yet another way—divorce. Despite the social importance of marriage, women were not locked into these arrange-



 

ments. Divorce was legal and it meant a division of the goods that would provide the woman with wealth that she alone controlled. For example, Marcial Pérez and Juana Tapia were married on September , , but in  they decided to divorce. They agreed to divide the goods they had acquired during their marriage. They made a roughly even division of the property, estimated at , pesos in value, with Pérez receiving six farms worth , córdobas, bales of tobacco, and various farm animals, and Tapia receiving six farms and an urban property, worth , córdobas, along with tobacco, livestock, and debts owed by workers. In addition, Pérez was to pay Tapia  córdobas every April for an unspecified period of time.37 It was apparently an amicable divorce: in  she sold three of the farms, all heavily mortgaged, to Pérez.38 When Laureano Chavarria and Desideria Rodríguez divorced in , it was noted in the public documents that they liquidated their property between them and that now they could do what they wanted with it. Chavarria sold his share, while Rodríguez kept hers.39

Expanded Roles for Women It was not just marriage and divorce that made women property owners, and they did not become landowners for the first time in the nineteenth century. Asunción Lavrín’s pathbreaking work shows that women had been landowners of medium rural properties in colonial New Spain since the sixteenth century.40 Nicaraguan records show that occasionally a woman earned property rights in rather spectacular ways. For example, in  Rafaela Herrera, a Granada homemaker, was given property by the king of Spain, “in thanks for the glorious defense that doña Rafaela Herrera y Sotomayor made in the Castillo de la Purísima Concepción del Río San Juan de Nicaragua in the war that the king of Spain fought with the English nation in .” She was given two sites, both located in



 

the town of Santa Teresa. The first measured more than six caballerías and the second comprised seven, giving Herrera roughly , acres of land.41 Whether women had much access to land in their own right before the nineteenth century depends largely on whether they were part of communities operating under Spanish or indigenous traditions. Dore finds in her study of the primarily indigenous town of Diriomo that women before the coffee boom had access to property only through kinship relations with men.42 However, Spain had a long-held tradition of female property rights. As Silvia Marina Arrom has shown in Mexico, women “were allowed to buy, sell, rent, inherit, or bequeath property of all kinds. They could lend and borrow money, act as administrators of estates, and form business partnerships. They could initiate litigation [and] be their own advocates in court.” In addition, “Widows and emancipated single adult women needed no one’s permission for these acts; wives and unemancipated single women could perform them with the husband’s or father’s consent.”43 In the late nineteenth century, Liberal ideas encouraged the promotion of individual rights, and to some extent that included women. Nicaragua’s Civil Code of , a classic liberal document, recognized only civil marriage, allowed divorce by mutual consent or for particular causes in contested divorces, and provided for the disposition of private property. Article  stipulates that “every individual is free to dispose of his property without any restriction, by sale, donation, will, or any other legal title.” The choice of the word individual is quite intentional. In contrast, Article  provides, “Every man is free to embrace the profession, industry, or work that he sees fit to, and to take advantage of its product.”44 Women did indeed get involved in both land and capital markets. Transactions for which there is complete data show that  percent of all loans on coffee properties were made by women and that  percent of the borrowers were women. In sales of property, women were



 

the sellers  percent of the time and the buyers in  percent of the transactions. The  coffee census showed that  percent of all coffee fincas were owned by women. Some of the documents in the registro note that the transaction carried out by a woman was accepted by her husband; however, the vast majority make no mention of the husband having any role whatsoever in the transaction. Husbands did frequently act as representatives of their wives. For example, when Josefa and Gregoria Baltodano inherited their share of their parents’ estate, the documents regarding the partition of the goods were inscribed at the request of their husbands, Pablo Solórzano and Enrique Granja.45 But women also frequently served as representatives of their husbands. In  Managua businessman Angel Caligaris bought a property that was still encumbered by a  mortgage. When he paid the mortgage, it was canceled by doña Blanca Cusín de Zelaya, authorized to represent her husband, exiled former president Gen. José Santos Zelaya. The power of attorney was drawn up in Barcelona in , and Cusín de Zelaya traveled to Nicaragua to carry out Zelaya’s business for him.46 The deposed president obviously could not conduct his own financial affairs from his exile in Spain, but men much closer to home also frequently turned to their wives to be their representatives in situations that were far more routine. For example, in  homemaker Adriana Sandoval de Ortiz represented her husband, Pedro Ortiz, a farmer, in the filing of documents to form a corporation with businessman Carlos Uriarte for the management of Ortiz’s farm, Promisión.47 Even the new opportunities available to women were fraught with the complications of a patriarchal society. Women had new opportunities, but not necessarily equal opportunities. The story of María Luisa López de Abut is illustrative. On November , , her husband, David, signed a loan agreement with Nicasio Martínez Sanz for an open credit of $, at  percent interest per month to be liquidated in three years. As collateral, Abut mortgaged his farm, Monte



 

Líbano, planted with ninety thousand coffee trees.48 On November , Abut and Martínez Sanz decided to amend the agreement, raising the credit to $,. They then gave the mortgaged properties and the responsibility for them to Lopez de Abut to better guarantee the loan (“para mejor efectividad de la garantía”). The contract says that Martínez Sanz and Abut agreed, but there is no mention of López de Abut being a signatory. Yet she was given primary responsibility “to direct all the work related to said properties, . . . to collect the harvests of coffee” and to turn the harvests over to Martínez as creditor. López could use the harvests in ways other than direct payment to Martínez, but only if she were given authorization by the two men. She was responsible to the men for the good administration of the properties, but the ownership of the land was to return to Abut as soon as the account was liquidated. The men reserved the right at any time to name another manager, without giving López a reason. Martínez was to pay López  córdobas a month and provide all the money she would need to manage the property. López was to give him an annual report, which he was to approve. Martínez could assume the management of the property at any time whether López or Abut was managing the farm. In July  Martínez ceded the remaining debt, $,., to Anglo Central American Commercial Bank for $., and there was no further mention of María Luisa López de Abut in the property registry.49 Why did they give the management to López? Perhaps she was actually a better property manager than her husband, and the creditor believed that he had a much better chance of collecting his loan if she were in charge of the property instead of her husband. But the limits on her freedom to manage the property and to own it were clearly dictated by patriarchal tradition and perhaps even wounded pride. After all, the documents reveal not just the historical patterns and examples of property relations, but the messy business of interaction among human beings.

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 

New Forms, Old Content The independence that women may have acquired, thanks to divorce, property rights, and opportunities in the coffee market, did not diminish traditional social mores and in fact merely created more opportunity for male prerogatives to be exercised as well. A woman had to accept her husband’s infidelities—while her adulterous behavior was grounds for divorce, his was not, unless he flaunted his lover in an unseemly manner. The evidence of such male infidelities took material and public form in the settling and recording of wills. When Feliciano Lopes died in , his wife, María de Jesús Román, inherited their house, coffee, and a fifty-manzana pasture worth , pesos, but she was also to give  pesos each to Salvador, María, Sabina, and Francisca Acevedo, illegitimate children that Lopes had with Benifacia Acevedo, and fifty pesos each to Emilio and Juana Ramos, children of Juana Ramos.50 Although extant wills indicate that marriage was the norm, Leonardo Gallo apparently never married but openly recognized his children. In  he left his property to illegitimate daughters Cecilia and Angelica Gallo.51 Others had to bring suit to have their rights to property recognized: in  Juana Manuela Espinosa went to court to modify the will of her late father, the priest Isabel Espinosa. Her contention, which the Supreme Court of Justice upheld, was that Espinosa did not know that his illegitimate daughter had property rights, although he clearly recognized her as his daughter in an  document. She was awarded half his estate.52 Other claims were even more complicated: Salvadora Canales went to court in , claiming that she had been married for thirty years to Marcelino Castillo Luna and that she and their children, Esmeralda, Antonia, Isabel, Agustín, and Cosme Damián, were entitled to his estate, worth , córdobas. He had left his goods to Francisca Castillo de Tórres, his daughter with his late wife, Margarita

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 

Rojas. Salvadora’s children, the would-be beneficiaries of her lawsuit, said they wanted nothing to do with her claims “because they were never recognized by him in any legal form, much less was he married to their mother.” Francisca, who supposedly was legitimate, agreed to split the estate with Salvadora.53 Husbands sometimes used wills to try to control their wives’ and children’s behavior. In  eighty-year-old Agustín Sánchez left his coffee farms to his sons, Félix Pedro and Agustín Segundo. His thirty-year-old wife, Josefa Campos, received only the house and lot, without the right to sell or mortgage the property. She was named an executor of the property along with León attorney Fernando Sánchez, who was also named guardian of the boys and was poised to take custody of them. The will stated that “if she remarries or behaves in a manner without good customs, from that moment she will cease to be executor and my sons will pass to the absolute dominion of Dr. Sánchez. . . . I don’t doubt that my wife will comply with the duties of a good mother, but she cannot carry out any business, and Dr. Sánchez is the one who has that right, and I am certain that he will do all that he can for the well-being of my wife and my children.”54 Property records show that fourteen years later, the widow still had not remarried. Over the years, she and others represented her children’s interests. In  Félix Pedro, apparently then of legal age, represented his own interests and those of his younger brother. After that, Josefa Campos did not appear in the registro documents again.55 Sánchez clearly was trying to control the behavior of the much younger woman whom he had married, but sometimes parents tried to control their children’s behavior as well. Nemesio Porras Pérez’s will left property to his sons, Nemesio Francisco and José María, but only under these conditions: “Upon reaching legal age, my sons will divide the capital, if they are honorable and if that is agreeable to them; and if by some disgrace one of them cannot do that because he has some vice, the capital will be managed by the most honorable of them, without passing to the one who has bad habits, until he has



 

shown his conduct to improve, while providing him enough funds for basic living expenses.”56 By the turn of the century, then, there was little change from the patriarchal system that Mendieta said had existed circa : “Paternal authority over the son was prolonged, and he lived with constant tight links to the family.”57 The patriarch might die, but patriarchy was alive and well.

Social Mobility Patriarchy was one of the aspects that marked a hierarchical society. Another marker frequently is the social distinction between old and new money, established and arriviste families. In aristocratic Granada, the nouveau riche who made their fortunes in coffee found that their money did not buy them admittance to long-entrenched elite society. When Conservative social clubs, which had been closed by Zelaya, were reopened in , they frequently refused to admit newcomers. Michel Gobat reports that “club members bitterly disagreed over what role factors such as wealth, profession, kinship ties, racial and social origins should play in admitting prospective members into their ranks.”58 A classic example was the controversy over the proposed admission of José de la Rosa Sandino, a Nandaime native who had worked as a foreman on cattle ranches, to the Club de Granada. Sandino had become business partners with Ernesto Selva, head of an established, elite family, to found an import-export business in Jinotepe and Diriamba. They acquired coffee haciendas, established the firm Selva i Sandino in Granada, and Sandino married into the Argüello family. He went on to become mayor and jefe político, delegate to the constituent assembly, and minister of finance, replacing Manuel Lacayo, for whom he once managed a ranch.59 Gobat attributes the snubbing of the indigenous Sandino to racial prejudice.

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 

But Carazo was not Granada, and the new coffee elites did not have to worry about admission to Caraceño society—they created it. And the most powerful families in Carazo—Rappaccioli, González, Baltodano—came from the most humble of backgrounds. Vicente and Buenaventura Rappaccioli were the illegitimate sons of Macedonia Gutiérrez and Italian immigrant Juan Rappaccioli. Macedonia, who earned her living making cigars and selling aguardiente, had three other illegitimate children: Juan Manuel and José María Siero, the sons of José León Siero, and Hersilia Argüello, daughter of Telesforo Argüello.60 In  Buenaventura was one of the founders of Diriamba’s first social club, bringing the elites together.61 In  the Rappaccioli brothers were the largest landholders in Carazo, with , manzanas of land and , trees, worth ,, pesos. Vicente Rappaccioli served as both a senator and a deputy and was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in .62 The González brothers, José Esteban and José Ignacio, were behind the Rappacciolis in landholding, at  manzanas, but with , coffee trees, their properties were worth ,, pesos. Their roots were humble as well—their grandfather, Román González, was the illegitimate son of Juan Gualberto Parrales and an indigenous woman, Bernabela González.63 Román married Marcela Alemán and they had two children, José Mercedes, who became a priest, and Francisco, who became a moderately successful farmer and married Gertrudis Parrales. It was their children, José Esteban and José Ignacio, who would make the family fortune. In addition to being a leading coffee farmer and processor and financier, José Esteban became a civic leader. It was during his administration as mayor of Diriamba in  that gas lighting was brought to the city, and he was the Liberal party’s presidential candidate in . A great modernizer, he was one of the first to try fertilizing his coffee fields, and brought the first Ford automobile to the region in . His many children were all educated in the United States. His brother, José Ignacio, was a medical doctor and surgeon,



 

trained in the United States, as well as one of the most important coffee growers and money lenders in the region. He was a candidate for vice president of Nicaragua in . The third most important family socially and politically was the Baltodanos. Patriarch Enrique Baltodano, according to Mendoza, had been a day laborer—“poor, inoffensive, intelligent, and muscular.” He had the good fortune to marry Dolores Parrales, the daughter of the prominent Francisco de Sales Parrales. Parrales gave Baltodano work as a carter and some uncultivated land. From these humble beginnings, Baltodano built a fortune. According to Mendoza, the clever Baltodano was illiterate, but his educated wife would read aloud to him the Gaceta nacional, and Baltodano would repeat the information as though he had read it himself. His brother, Ireneo, was also a successful farmer, though he lacked his brother’s political ambitions. Ireneo’s home, the first in Diriamba to be built of tile, was the scene of lively tertulias, social gatherings where Ireneo played the guitarilla for Diriamba’s new society. In  Enrique’s sons, Ignacio, Román and Moisés, owned four hundred manzanas of land worth , pesos. While not the wealthiest of the elites, their political and social influence was great. Moisés was a medical doctor, educated in Paris, and also served as a senator.64 As late as  the most important fincas in the region still belonged to Buenaventura Rappaccioli, José Ignacio González, and the corporation Moisés Baltodano y Hermanos.65 There were also wealthy absentee landlords in Carazo, but their influence on local society and politics was minimal. Managua merchants Vicente Rodríguez and Teodoro Teffel seemed to view their considerable holdings—in  Rodríguez had  manzanas worth . million pesos and Teffel had  manzanas worth  million pesos—simply as financial investments rather than as investments in local politics and society. Granadinos Fernando and Rosendo Chamorro, whose family produced five Nicaraguan presidents, and Adolfo Benard, whose family was one of the wealthiest among the



 

Granada elites, focused their political and social interests on Granada and Managua. Arturo Vaughan, originally from England, spent many years in San Marcos, where he had a -manzana farm worth ,, pesos. But he probably never became a citizen and did not get involved with local politics. When he retired, he returned to England and on his death, in Locarno, Switzerland, in , he left San Francisco to his stepson, Arthur Henry Smith.66 The social hierarchy, then, was one dominated by Carazo-born farmers, the richest at the top and the poorest at the bottom. A class of professionals—doctors, lawyers, teachers, government functionaries—became aligned with the elites, often marrying into their families. Whenever possible, they purchased coffee farms as well. All became invested in the same economic system and the social and political systems that emerged as a result.

Conclusions The coffee economy made new fortunes and with them, new societies, particularly outside the old colonial centers like Granada. But even the Granadino elites would intermarry with the rising coffee parvenus of Carazo. Humble roots mattered little compared to economic power, which led to social and political power. At the base of this hierarchy was the family unit, which cemented alliances and united family fortunes among the upper classes. Among the lower classes, family provided the labor force that kept small farms in business. The modernization of social relations that coffee brought allowed women to take a more active role in the economy and society and to divorce husbands and become independent, as the story of Cesilia Sánchez and Venancio García illustrates. However, social mores changed less quickly than the laws: husbands exerted control over their widows and children via restrictive wills, under the tutelage of handpicked, male executors. The broader distribution of land and



 

increasingly public documentation of private lives meant that publicly filed wills put husbands’ infidelities on display, as a share of property was passed on to lovers and illegitimate children. Despite the openings for women, they still lived in a patriarchal society. As late as  the husband would still be referred to as the “chief of the marital corporation” (jefe de la sociedad conyugal ).67 Indeed, the reference to marriage as sociedad is in keeping with the traditional Spanish view of corporate society, with marriage as just another corporation of economic, political, and social interests. The family also served as the model for a hierarchical and patriarchal political structure. As Mendieta put it, “The small proprietor . . . believes that if the house is governed with the stick and blows, then the same method should govern the people.”68 And the one wielding the stick was likely to be a cafetalero. As cafetalero Raul Castro put it, “They [cafetaleros] were the directors of the community, directed all the activity of the people. Those who managed . . . were those who ruled like chiefs [original: como jefes]. Of course they were coffee growers.”69



Chapter 9

Politics and Public Works

I  R Campos was surprised when he found that he had not been inscribed in the book of citizens of San Marcos, making him ineligible to vote in municipal elections. “I supposed that it was an oversight,” he said in a complaint to the mayor, “since there had been no reason for me to lose my rights.” Campos went to the officials in charge, who told him there was no mistake; he had been removed from the voting rolls. The municipal officials claimed that Campos was ineligible to vote “for not having property that exceeds a hundred pesos, or an industry or profession that produces the annual equivalent.”1 Campos countered with the deeds filed at the Registro de Propiedad that showed he did own property: a little farm on the edge of the town, measuring  by  varas (about seven-tenths of a manzana), which he bought for  pesos sencillos from María Campos and which was recorded in . He also owned an urban lot, measuring  by  varas, with a straw house, which he bought from Rosendo Mejía for  pesos and registered in . The mayor refused to overrule the electoral directors, then refused to comply with an arbitration committee that also found for Campos.



   

Finally, the prefect in Granada ruled that Campos should be registered to vote and that each of the members of the electoral board be fined ten pesos for denying his rights. Rodolfo Campos was not a rich man. He owned little land and he was probably illiterate: though he signed one of the documents in this case, his previous inscription in the electoral rolls was marked with a cross, and at one point in the appeals process the documents were read to him and he indicated that he understood. But Campos was an active participant in the political system. It was a system, however flawed, that could indeed be responsive to him. The  Nicaraguan constitution gave suffrage to adult men, defined as those over twenty-one or those over eighteen who were heads of families, were of good conduct, and had property worth a hundred pesos or an industry or profession that would produce equivalent income.2 As Wolfe comments, “While this certainly limited suffrage, it was hardly an exceptional policy, similar to policies in many European countries until the mid-to-late nineteenth century.”3 For example, the  census showed  men twenty-one years of age or older, and the voting list for that year shows  registered voters, or  percent of the population. The number registered rose to  by .4 Most of the registered voters were not members of the elites: an analysis of those who appear both as registered voters and on the census in  shows that only  percent were white and  percent were employed as day laborers.5 Voter registration was not automatic, however, as Rodolfo Campos found out. Each year the rolls were revised to reflect new citizens, those who had come of age, those who had lived in the community at least one year, those who had gathered enough wealth, and those who had no physical or moral impediment, the latter usually indicated by having been arrested for a crime. The constitution provided that a man’s citizenship rights could be suspended for being a debtor to public funds, for being arrested or under process of law, or for voluntarily abandoning his office, industry, or profession. He could lose



 

citizenship rights for being convicted of a crime, for being declared a “fraudulent debtor,” for trafficking in slaves, for notoriously corrupt conduct, or for “ingratitude toward one’s parents or unjust abandonment of one’s wife or legitimate children.”6 In  the prefect upheld a challenge against the voting rights of forty-three individuals from San Marcos. The decision that all but one should indeed not be allowed to vote noted that “some are minors, others have lost their rights by being processed for various crimes without being rehabilitated, others lack the capital that the law designates, being mostly indebted and contracted as day laborers.”7 Nonetheless, the political system that emerged in Carazo may have been designed by and for the elites, but it was open to many male Caraceños. Under the  constitution, elections for national office were indirect, with voters choosing electors, who then chose senators, representatives, and the president and vice president. But voting for local office was direct and it was hotly contested. When a new constitution was enacted under José Santos Zelaya in , it granted universal male suffrage and direct elections. The accessibility of this system contributed to the creation of a polity in which the masses could feel invested. It was not a system without conflict; but it was one in which people believed in the processes created to settle conflicts. And it was a system in which the little guy, like Rodolfo Campos, could win.

Indigenous Political Roles During the colonial period the Spanish established indigenous municipal councils, reformulating traditional councils of elders or nobles into organizations with a more Spanish form to manage indigenous communities. Their duties usually included the provision of indigenous labor on public works and the properties of the neighboring encomendero, to whom the village was assigned in the early colonial



   

period, or to several Spanish hacendados via the repartimiento system, which eventually replaced the encomienda. These indigenous councils eventually disappeared as indigenous communities were subsumed into more mixed communities or lost their strictly indigenous identities. As wage labor replaced the encomienda and repartimiento, and as the indigenous population assimilated, separate indigenous councils were not only unnecessary but, after independence, were inimical to the project of creating a new, ladino state. After the mid-s, institutionally designated and recognized indigenous communities no longer existed in the prefecture of Granada.8 However, indigenous councils still existed, parallel to ladino municipal governance. Although they no longer had a separate community to govern, the indigenous councils had jurisdiction over the indigenous population within the ladinoized municipality. It is not clear when these organizations disappeared from the Carazo area. A handful of records in the Archivo Municipal de Granada refer to indigenous matters between the s and , when Carazo was elevated to a department and separated from Granada. In the s the alcaldes indígenas of the region seemed confident that the established order was still recognized and that they had significant roles to play. By  the indigenous people seemed to be petitioning ladino authorities with complaints but without the protection of an alcalde indígena. For example, in January  members of the comunidad indígena of Jinotepe wrote to the prefect of the department to complain about a conflict with ladino authorities over the cleaning of public wells. They framed their complaint as equals in a shared enterprise: “Our object is not to take action of any kind or seek some kind of justice. We come to solicit a favor in support of common interest.” The indigenous community professed that they had always gladly helped with public works, and thanks to them Jinotepe had a good church, bridges, and water troughs, with clean plazas, streets, and roads. “More than this,” the letter continued, “the constitutional



 

authorities have always known how to deal with the indígenas through the alcalde that they name, continuing and respecting our uses and customs and proceeding in all things with a truly fraternal harmony that stimulates us to comply willingly and with pleasure to the works of public interest.” The letter then described the process by which the ladino municipal officials would meet at the beginning of each year, choose the public works projects to be done, then call the alcalde indígena and inform him. The alcalde indígena would then gather the indigenous leaders, who would name squads to alternate in service, “and everything would go well and move forward without obstacle on the road of progress.” “Unfortunately, Sr. Alcalde Primero D. Ramón Sánchez, a youth without experience, has chosen to abandon this smooth, harmonious, and easy rule of conduct, which prudent authorities have observed with us. Because the alcalde indígena, Pedro Sánchez, did not promptly give some men to clean a well because said alcalde found it was the time to do some work on the church, Sr. Sánchez, moved no doubt by the thoughtless ardor of his youth, spoke very badly to him, concluding by saying that in the future he would not view him as alcalde and would deal with the indígenas via the jefe de cantón.” The indigenous complaint went on to say that such treatment, besides being illegal, was dispiriting and could cause more serious problems that would interfere with works of common good. “We indígenas are docile and submissive; we want peace, harmony, and progress.” For that reason, they appealed to the prefect’s “prudence and wisdom.” The prefect asked the alcalde primero to respond to the charges within three days. Ramón Sánchez wrote back on February , , characterizing the complaints of the alcalde indígena as unjust. He explained that two public wells were in near ruin after the winter, with deposits of sand raising them to the level of the roads, with the result that animals were falling in. Sánchez said he called on the alcalde indígena, but several days went by without action. Sánchez then



   

called on the jefe de cantón, Filadelfo Somoza, who put together a squad of workers. The alcalde indígena, however, came to Somoza’s work site and told the squad to leave because “being Indians they had no greater authority than him.” Somoza told Sánchez that the Indians proceeded to laugh at the ladino orders and to explain the “ancient customs of the villa.”9 The record does not show how the dispute was resolved. But similar complaints were registered by other ladino authorities: the alcalde constitucional in Diriamba in  complained that the alcalde indígena would not cooperate with construction of the town hall, and in  the alcalde indígena would not provide workers to help build the church.10 A decade later, however, the tone and outcome of such complaints had changed. In  members of the comunidad indígena of San Marcos complained that they were being charged taxes for the construction of the church even though they provided the workforce, that work on the church had been suspended, and that they were too poor to pay. They also contended that their wealthy ladino neighbors were not paying their share. The dispute went through legal channels at the prefecture in Granada, with documents from San Marcos showing the lists of who had paid, the various laws regarding the legality of the taxation, and the history of the enterprise. The ladinos dismissed the indigenous complaint as the manipulations of rivals in Jinotepe, who were “abusing the trust of the poor Indians.” Distrusting the process, the indígenas refused to swear affidavits when asked. The prefecture found in favor of the ladino cabildo and ordered the indígenas to pay the taxes.11 There was no further mention of alcaldes indígenas or other indigenous authorities in the records. However, the end of separate indigenous political entities does not mean the end of indigenous political presence and representation. Indians constituted  percent of the registered voters in Diriamba in  (but  percent of the population). The rest of the electorate was  percent white, 



 

percent mestizo,  percent mulatto,  percent zambo, and  percent black.12 In primarily indigenous Rosario,  percent of the adult male population was registered to vote;  percent of them were indigenous and the rest zambo. However,  percent of the registered voters do not appear in the census.13

Partisan Politics The conflicts between political parties in Nicaragua, at both the national and local levels, were frequently bitter. Mendoza provides a wonderful description of the supposedly two-party system as it played out in Diriamba: “The parties were called Above and Below. Two circles that every year formed and splintered, in variable forms and groupings, according to circumstance; they had no fixed, concrete, stable ideas; they did not debate principles but offices. . . . The assigned names of the two parties follow the two regions of the town. The line of separation was established in the cross street between the Catholic church and the public square. From there to the west was the domain of those Below. Those Above lived to the east. . . . At times, the two neighborhoods were incommunicado because of the outbreak of hostilities. . . . Whoever crossed ‘the line’ committed an offense, a provocation . . . as though he had crossed the border of a foreign land.”14 But the divisions, he said, had more to do with family and personal power struggles than any ideology; they grouped and regrouped according to what was convenient. In  the González family began to form opposition against the Rappacciolis (Gutiérrezes) and Baltodanos, who presumably were conservatives—Enrique Baltodano labeled himself a Conservative in the  census. But in  Baltodano defected from the Gutiérrez circle and joined forces with the Gonzálezes, who with this alliance became quite powerful. In  Baltodano realigned with the Rappacciolis/Gutiérrezes and 

   

pledged loyalty to the newly triumphant Zelaya, “with Enrique Baltodano’s oldest son offering, in his brother Román’s house, the banquet that the Conservatives gave for the Liberals.” Mendoza also noted that the political chief of Carazo, Felipe Neri Fernández, though nominally aligned with Zelaya and a professed Liberal, attacked local Liberals and embraced the Conservatives.15 As anti-Zelayista Enrique Guzmán noted, “Descendants of former Conservatives in Jinotepe and Diriamba [also] are Liberals. By the hundreds, Zelayistas are counted in Carazo.”16 (Of course, Guzmán had also been in opposition to the Conservative governments that preceded Zelaya.) As Benjamin Teplitz characterizes party politics, “The quarrels between Liberals and Conservatives were largely personal, and family feuds transformed into lasting resentments. If there were a major ideology shared by the two parties, it was one which rewarded the victor with the spoils.” Or as Arturo Taracena Arriola puts it, “It was a struggle of factions.”17 Despite its partisan limitations, Mendoza’s work makes two things very clear: Liberal-Conservative designations meant little in terms of material stands on issues, as was already seen in Conservative Party policies promoting coffee during the Thirty Years. Party disputes did not center on coffee versus noncoffee interests, since most of the players in these political battles were cafetaleros. The main leaders—as opposed to their designated representatives, or puppets, as Mendoza characterizes them—were latifundistas and beneficio operators as well.

Election Disputes Historically, governmental office was not always considered a plum. In  Pablo Lévy reported that members of Congress often would not occupy their seats unless obliged to by authority or force. They were even less likely to welcome service in local offices, which were obligatory and were not remunerated.18 The only excuse for not serving was



 

illness, and some citizens would rather be considered ill and frail than have to give their time and energy to governmental service. When José María Espinosa of Jinotepe was chosen as alcalde in , he insisted that he suffered serious and chronic illness and could not take office. “Abundant desire warms my soul to serve my country as the vote designates me, but sadly I suffer from serious illness in vision and even in the head, which is practically chronic, since I have been suffering for a long time from agitation, sleeplessness, and other problems.” Espinosa was not alone: Cerapio Urbina could not serve as mayor of Jinotepe in  because of a bad leg. Gregorio Parrales of Diriamba begged off in , only to be ordered in January  to take office.19 By the late s, however, the situation had changed. Local office had become a prize sought by rival political factions. The prefect’s records in Granada are filled with angry complaints about local elections, prompting official investigations detailed in reams of testimony. One thing was clear: public office, even at the lowest level, had become a source of power. Political power could be used to protect and extend the economic and social power acquired by the new coffee elites. Municipal officers were to alternate in office, but this was far from an orderly process. In  Diriamba alcalde suplente Enrique Granja reported to the prefect, Eduardo Montiel, that he had been forcibly removed from office by Alcalde Cecilio Padilla, who claimed it was his turn in office, although Granja still had several weeks to serve. Wrote Granja, “The miserable fragments of the Liberal Party here in their determination to destroy the principles of order and to be in open conflict with the ideas of the Supreme Government, arrived today at about twelve o’clock, headed by Alcalde Padilla . . . to violently carry off my insignia and disturb the administration of justice, forming what the law calls a real mob attack.”20 One witness said that Granja was clearly menaced by Padilla, who was quoted as saying he “remembered that in his time one awakened to blood in the streets.”21 Montiel



   

ordered Jinotepe police chief Feliz Vallecillo to investigate and ended up suspending the municipal corporation and appointing Vallecillo to keep order until new elections could be held.22 A similar dispute occurred in Santa Teresa the same year, when alcaldes Leandro Páramo and Sebastián Vanegas tried to take the staff of office away from the alcalde suplente, Eleuterio Guadamuz. Guadamuz wrote to the prefect: “We are back to the old tricks. I do not know what motive they have or what interest guides the alcaldes, who have already completed their term of service, to demand in an imperious way that I give them the staff. Something is up with this.”23 One observer complained to the prefect, “The actions of Páramo and Vanegas are very scandalous. . . . All of this has been public and, as nothing like this has happened before in this town, is very notorious.”24 In  two Santa Teresa residents complained to the prefect that the elections were canceled while in process because the officials in charge saw that they were going to lose. According to Urbano Guadamuz and Ignacio Conrado, people came to blows and shots were fired after the election was stopped. Those who ran the election countered that it was Guadamuz and Conrado who started the violence after the election was halted because of many abuses.25 Similar complaints emerged in Jinotepe in  and , when voters from the city’s eastern district walked out, refusing to vote.26 Common complaints about election irregularities included charges that deals were made with criminals, “commuting their sentences or responsibility in exchange for their vote” or allowing “famous criminals” to vote (San Marcos and Santa Teresa, ).27 The litany of complaints that were most common could be seen in Diriamba in : people allowed to vote who were not in the catalog of qualified citizens, beginning the election before the designated hour, and the presence of police to intimidate voters.28 Additional complaints in Jinotepe in  included charges that many of those who voted were drunk and that the municipality did not assign the correct number of seats to one district (cantón).29



 

There were demands for the invalidation of municipal elections in Jinotepe in , which were not granted, and in Diriamba in , which were.30 The Jinotepe complaints included charges that the Liberals insulted the Conservatives as they went in to vote, that the Liberals withdrew from the election when it was clear that they were losing, and that the Liberals bought votes. The Conservatives, in turn, were accused of refusing to allow people to vote, keeping people jailed until they agreed to vote for the Conservatives, and allowing unqualified people to vote. Relations between the parties were so tense in Jinotepe that the respective members stayed in separate rooms of the city hall during the election and took turns casting their ballots. In accusing the authorities of allowing unqualified people to vote, the charges became quite personal. They accused Paulino Castro of having abandoned his wife and children, arguing that he was no longer a resident of the community; other testimony said that it was Castro who had been abandoned and that he remained at the same residence, with his children. As elections neared, the prefect in Granada would receive frantic telegrams: at  P.M. on November , , Julián Bendaña telegrammed that the alcalde of Diriamba was pursuing balloted (sorteados) citizens to relieve them of their duties and impede the next day’s vote. At  P.M. a telegram arrived from the mayor and police chief in Jinotepe complaining that the guard of twenty-one men “is not enough to keep order in this town much less to send to other towns.” At : P.M. a telegram arrived from the ministro de gobierno in Managua, telling the prefect to be aware of the problems brewing in Carazo communities because of the elections and to instruct the police and local authorities to maintain order.31 The disputes often threatened to turn violent, leading to calls for troops to keep order and guarantee peaceful balloting. Sometimes the requests for troops came directly from the communities: Diriamba alcalde constitucional Cecilio Rocha in  asked the prefect for “no fewer than fifteen soldiers.” At other times, the requests came from



   

Managua, responding to local concerns: the federal government alerted the prefect to the need for attention in Santa Teresa in  and instructed him to send an official and ten soldiers to Diriamba in .32 But in Santa Teresa in  there were fears that sending in the police to guarantee order would not help, since the head of the rural guard was said to align himself with the opposition political group.33 Two years later the same complaint was made. José María Alegría and T. Lino Jirón of Santa Teresa called on the prefect to have troops removed from town during the election. “Among civilized people the display of an army during elections is not seen as important because it is well known that they sustain individual rights and free suffrage of citizens against the oppression that caudillos want to exercise. But among other people, dread turns to real panic when a small number of soldiers signals . . . oppression.”34 Like many other discussions of the era, the disputes were frequently couched in the language of progress. The local commander in San Marcos, José María Martínez, wrote to the prefect in : “With the next elections coming up, the enemies of the government are preparing to run against our group in the elections and to present themselves as faithful interpreters of general opinion. . . . It would be very opportune if you would direct the government or at least think about discouraging the influence of the opposition so that they do not disturb the march of progress that the government and its employees propose to continue.”35 Abuse of power became one of the central complaints, particularly the drafting of people to keep them from voting. The alcalde constitucional of San Marcos, Juan Aragón, complained to the prefect in : “As the commander is giving proof of a marked disobedience to the orders of the minister of war and the governador militar, I seek the immediate discharge of the four citizen cafetaleros recruited yesterday and put at the service of the rural agency of Diriamba, who has sent them to the Pacific Coast . . . with the intention of sending them far away to deprive them of their right to vote in the next election.



 

This is contrary not only to the fundamental laws that prohibit recruitment ten days before or after elections but also of the recent government decree excepting cafetaleros from service.”36 According to Teplitz, such discord disappeared under the Zelaya regime, which stripped municipal government of much of its former power and enlarged the role of the departmental jefe político, who was appointed by the federal government. Unfortunately, records from this period have not survived in Carazo, but it is unlikely that local jockeying for position and for control over resources ended, even if local decision making was more limited than it had been in the past—especially as the available resources increased.

Public Works The elites of Carazo, by controlling municipal government, could provide the amenities that their economic interests required and that their social interests desired in order to make Carazo the “progressive” community they envisioned. It was a slow process, but as early as the s Caraceño leaders began to seek improvements that would modernize their communities. In  Jinotepe leaders requested a post office, rather than having to go to Masaya. They were told they would have to wait, as the postal system was being reorganized nationwide.37 The next year the town leaders asked for a telegraph office. Managua officials enthusiastically promised action within four months. “[We are] excited by the firm prospect of having the hard-working and honorable district of Jinotepe participate in the advantages that telegraph wiring offers, . . . despite the embarrassment and disagreeable incidents the executive has faced on the road to improvements.” Jinotepe had only to wait for the government to order the necessary equipment from abroad.38 In  telegraph operator Carlos Castillo sent the first telegram from Jinotepe to the prefect: “I have the honor of notifying you of the



   

inauguration in these moments of the telegraphic office that president don Pedro J. Chamorro arranged to establish at the nation’s expense. For this important improvement, which satisfies the most urgent need of modern civilization, all Nicaraguans should congratulate ourselves and congratulate the president of the republic for having established this telegraphic communication, which brings so many services to society.”39 But getting assistance from the federal government was one thing; raising local resources was another. In  Jinotepe officials struggled to build a town hall, as funds ran out while the building was still under construction. Municipal officials noted in March  that the season in which adobes could be made was soon to end, but the town council had not even been able to collect the first installment of a decreed contribution from local residents. One official lent his own money to the council— pesos sencillos for two months at  percent monthly interest.40 Meanwhile, the municipality rented a corner of resident Agustín Sánchez’s house for . pesos to temporarily house the offices of municipal administration and justice. Eventually they decided to sell ejidal lands donated by the federal government and to sublet the municipality’s cockfighting concession for five years to raise the needed funds.41 Despite the difficulties, Jinotepe’s town fathers succeeded: in July  Enrique Guzmán editorialized in La Prensa about the comparatively poor condition of Granada’s city hall. “Who could believe that the Casa Municipal of Jinotepe is a thousand times superior to Granada’s?”42 Modernization, a primary goal of local and national governments of the late nineteenth century, included both material representations—municipal buildings, telegraphs—and increased services as well, such as education. Diriamba opened its first public school in  and opened a telegraph office in , six years later than Jinotepe, which as departmental capital was the administrative center of the area.43 But in  San Marcos did not even have enough chairs in the local schoolhouse. School director Honorato Molina



 

wrote to the prefect, “Many and repeated times have I told you about this school’s need to be provided with chairs, since the number of students is considerable and it is completely impossible to accommodate them in the few chairs we have, since, as you know, here we lack a chair even for the director.”44 The pressures on the system came partly from the population growth that accompanied the economic boom. Even tiny Santa Teresa felt the pressures. In , Alcalde Suplente Constitucional Cleto Fonseca wrote the prefect, “This town is growing every day. New huertas on the outskirts need streets, and I am consulting with you to see whether this authority can make special expropriations for public utility, since the lands of this town are commons, and no one possesses what they have with the right of exclusive property, and we are accustomed to giving lots for free.”45 Population growth was also manifested in increasing complaints to local officials as area farmers encroached on one another. Some complained that their neighbors’ pigs got into their fields, and others complained that dogs ran loose and bit people. The mayor suggested the issuing of dog licenses,46 which was emblematic of the times, as in the s and s civic leaders tried to create administrative apparatuses that functioned to keep public order and provide needed improvements. They did this in regions unaccustomed to such controls, and with limited funding to pay for the changes and enforce new laws. Santa Teresa alcalde Sebastián Vanegas wrote to the prefect in , “I have reports that in a place called Los Encuentros, which is in your jurisdiction, the neighbors get drunk frequently. The same thing also happens in the Guisquiliapa neighborhood of Jinotepe. This is due to the frequency of contraband. For my part I must tell you that more than once I have seen the orders of the authorities laughed at; as a result the auxiliaries make themselves scarce, to not end up with enemies, and at other times they flee and abandon their authority.”47 Even if the authorities enforced the laws and made arrests, they came up against the limitations of municipal facilities: in



   

 Jinotepe leaders sought funds to build a women’s jail, “a lack felt here more by the abundance of contraband crimes, almost always committed by individuals of the other sex.”48 The inability of local government to initiate and complete these public works projects was related to the limited means at their disposal to raise revenues. Lévy explained the tax system circa : the municipalities adopted local ordinances for tax plans, with the main sources being taxes on carts, beasts of burden, warehouses and stores, butchering meat, billiards, lotteries, games and cockfights, dances and serenades, public and private buildings, milk cows, as well as fines and prizes and rental of ejidos.49 The federal government, meanwhile, relied on customs fees, taxes on butchering meat, on indigenous cane liquor, paper stamped with the government seal, postage stamps, and gunpowder, the revenue from which was just enough to cover national expenses of some $, a year.50 Monopolies were an important part of both federal and local income. For example, the government had the sole right to make and sell cane alcohol but it rented out its production rights to companies based in León, Granada, and Chinandega. The companies sold aguardiente to the state for  cents a gallon. The liquor was delivered to the office of the administrator of each region, and it was resold to authorized liquor stores at . pesos and to the public at  pesos. A share of the proceeds went to municipalities. Similarly, farmers paid the government a fee of . to butcher meat, with . going to the federal government and  cents to the municipality. Tobacco was bought from authorized producers at  cents a pound for secondclass and  cents for first-class tobacco, then resold to the public at  and  cents.51 For the month of September  local taxes in Diriamba brought in . pesos: . from five sugar mill owners, . from four stores, . from two pool halls, and . for milk cows. In  San Marcos only brought in . from eighteen trapiche owners, . from four drugstores, and . from Anastasio Somoza’s pool hall.52 

 

Local residents were expected to provide the services that would someday be provided by the government. When they did not comply, they were assessed fines that served partly as punishment and partly as a source of revenue. In , Jinotepe fined twenty-eight people forty cents each for not sweeping the streets, and four people were fined two reales sencillos each for not putting lights up in their doorways at night, a practical forerunner to streetlights. Local officials were fined for not carrying out even purely ceremonial duties: síndico (trustee) Francisco Jimenes was fined thirty pesos fuerte for failure to attend Semana Santa (Holy Week) festivities in —a substantial fine, equal to the cost of an urban lot or small farm.53 The ten years from  to  saw a jump in municipal budgets: while Diriamba paid out . pesos a month for salaries and . pesos a year in annual expenses in , Jinotepe in  paid out  pesos a month for salaries, with annual expenses of  pesos a year.54 The government expenditures in these budgets were for basic operating expenses—paper, pens, books, lighting—and not for public works, which were paid for by direct levies on the local residents. In towns that were originally indigenous communities and still operating communally in the s, the work was the cooperative task of the entire community. In  in Rosario, the roof, façade, and walls of the church were repaired, “work that the neighbors paid for themselves because the church is so poor that it does not have any income or funds.” In addition, local residents gave several days of work to improve the roads from El Guapinol to Los Aguajes, and from Paso de Enmedio to Santa Teresa. The same year, La Paz residents spent . pesos and gave their own labor to build the town hall, a twelveby-six-vara building that still awaited doors and plaster. They raised funds for the main altar of the church, and collectively worked a milpa so that its produce could be used to buy a bell for the church. Municipalities that had lost the cooperative tradition turned to laws to try to enforce contributions of labor or money. In  Diriamba tried to adopt a plan requiring that all males between eighteen



   

and fifty years old give two days of work or sixty cents each to fix the streets and roads. But federal officials invalidated the levy, “because it is not considered equitable that the tax weighs equally on the proletarian class and the propertied.”55 The federal government encouraged Diriamba officials to put forth another plan to provide the much-needed road repairs, and presumably they submitted something along the lines of the  plan approved for Jinotepe.56 The Jinotepe plan required that every male from eighteen to sixty years old would give a one-time contribution of one peso for work on the town’s jails. The only excuse permitted for not contributing was permanent physical impediment. For the same work, landowners were to contribute “in proportion to their productive capital. Those that have ‒, pesos, with  pesos, more than ,‒, with ; more than ,‒, with ; more than ,‒, with , and those that have more than , pesos will contribute with , all for one time.” Municipal officials were to appoint two well-respected citizens to draw up the lists of contributors and what they owed, and an appeals board to settle disputes.57 When Diriamba officials in  assessed fees to repair the road to Managua, not all levies were paid gladly. Wealthy coffee grower Arturo Vaughan complained, drawing the acerbic comment from Alcalde Constitucional Gregorio Arcemio de la Rocha, “Mr. Vaughan, in my judgement, has nothing to complain about, since his hacienda is in this jurisdiction, as is generally known, and the contribution detailed is proportional to the utility that he gets.”58 Despite the fervid attempts at public improvements, little material progress was made in the region until the s, according to Julian Guerrero and Lola Soriano, “when the first activities of progress appeared, thanks to the patronage of town founders, private local forces, and efforts of the independent governments.”59 It was in this era that local leaders wanted the region to be more than a district of the department of Granada. In  Jinotepe was made a subprefecture rather than a district. During the next two years local leaders lobbied



 

heavily for the region to become an independent department. The leaders of the movement were Néstor Rodríguez, who was the first subprefect of the region, and Buenaventura Rappaccioli, who served as a deputy to the National Congress during the administrations of presidents Evaristo Carazo (‒) and Roberto Sacasa (‒). Rodríguez was an attorney, but he also owned coffee farms. Rappaccioli was one of the most important coffee growers and money lenders in the region. In  they succeeded in getting departmental status. The importance of coffee to the departmental fathers was such that they chose the name Carazo to honor the former president for his progressive administration and “for having been the creator of a national prize for the best grower of coffee, whose cultivation would over time constitute the essential sources of the economy of the new department.”60 As the turn of the century neared, Carazo certainly had grown into a wealthy region, thanks largely to the value of coffee. In  Carazo had the smallest population of any Pacific department in Nicaragua, but it was the third richest department in the country, ranking behind Managua and Granada (tables . and .). Three Carazo communities—Jinotepe, Diriamba and San Marcos—ranked in the top ten cities in the country based on propertied wealth (table .).61 But that wealth did not necessarily translate into increased public works and well-being. Mendoza reported circa  that in Diriamba “the streets are badly lit; the bare ground is dusty in summer and muddy in winter . . . the sources of potable water that supply the poor people are in complete decay.”62 Electricity did not come to the re63 gion until the Empresa Eléctrica de Carazo was founded in . Mendoza blamed the lack of concern for public welfare on individuals whose personal interests conflicted with the community’s. For example, in  Jinotepe leaders suggested that a macadam road be built from Jinotepe to Diriamba. Jinotepe raised funds via a small, temporary tax on coffee exported from Jinotepe and Diriamba. According to Mendoza, most farmers gladly and punctually paid, but



    Table . Population by Department, Nicaragua,  Department

Population

Urban

Rural

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

%             

%             

León Managua Chontales Jinotega Chinandega Masaya Nueva Segovia Matagalpa Rivas Granada Carazo Zelaya Comarca Cabo de Gracias a Diós Comarca San Juan del Norte

Source: Gustavo Niederlein, The State of Nicaragua of the Greater Republic of Central America (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Commerical Museum, ), . Niederlein drew his data from the Departamento de governación.

the Rappaccioli and Baltodano families objected, protested to Managua, and the project died. The road would have gone through the coffee hacienda La Moka, and Vicente Rappaccioli objected, even though he would have been remunerated for the easement.64

Legal Recourse One might expect the judicial system to be as politicized as municipal governance, and undoubtedly, political considerations affected both the selection of judges and their judgments. Nonetheless, just as Rodolfo Campos found a system of appeals regarding voter registration, other Caraceños found recourse in the courts to settle issues regarding land, labor, and debt.



Table . Relative Wealth in Property by Department,  Department

Millions of Pesos . . . . . . . . . . .

Managua Granada Carazo Masaya León Rivas Chinandega Matagalpa Chontales Jinotega Nueva Segovia Source: Niederlein, State of Nicaragua, .

Table . Principal Nicaraguan Cities by Property Value,  City

Total Value

Urban Property

Rural Property

Managua Granada León Masaya Rivas Jinotepe Chinandega Matagalpa Diriamba San Marcos Jinotega

,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, , , ,

,, ,, , , , , , , , , ,

,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, , , , , ,

Note: Quantities in pesos. Source: Niederlein, State of Nicaragua, ‒.



   

For example, in  Justo Selva filed suit in Jinotepe against Anastasio Somoza García for illegally taking possession of and fencing six manzanas of land. Selva said he had purchased the land in  from Santiago Selva, who in turn had been awarded the land in . Although Selva had a clear deed to the property, he contended, Somoza took six manzanas of the land and enclosed it in wire fencing. The court found that legal possession of the land was inscribed to the Selva brothers since , and by partition the dominion clearly passed to Justo Selva. Somoza never had legal title. He was ordered to return the land unoccupied and in a state in which Selva could possess it and to pay the court costs.65 In  Santos and José Rodríguez took Juan Pío Medal to court for not returning the deed to a property sold in a pacto de retroventa. They verified that the debt incurred by their late father, Pedro, had indeed been repaid, and District Judge Eduardo Córdoba ruled in their favor.66 In December  businessman José Gregorio Cuadra accused Francisco and Gregoria Cerda of trespassing on his San Marcos farm “against his expressed will, to take plantains, kindling, water, and other things,” charging them with theft, trespass, and destruction of fences, damage reckoned by an expert at five córdobas. However, it turned out that Cuadra had acquired the farm when it was auctioned after an embargo filed by Francisco Brockmann over money owed by Rosa García, mother of Francisco and Gregoria. Francisco and Gregoria Cerda joined the legal action, saying that only their mother’s share in the land should be embargoed, and not the portion coming to them as heirs of their late father, José Luis Cerda. The judge found that no crime had been committed and dismissed the suit.68 And in  Macario Salazar successfully took Rafael Estrada to court, demanding payment of . córdobas for work as a day laborer on his Jinotepe farm. Using the Law of Agriculture and Workers of February , , the judge ruled for the worker.67 Certainly there were legal actions taken against workers and small



 

property owners as well. But it is evident that while the coffee barons were building their economic, social, and political power, they were also creating a legal system that offered workers and smallholders the opportunity for successful recourse against the ruling class.

Conclusions The relatively high percentage of registered voters in Carazo, followed by the relatively early granting of universal male suffrage (which, for example, did not occur in the more developed country of Argentina until the Saenz Peña law of ), indicates that Nicaragua established an open political system by Latin American standards in the nineteenth century. The avid pursuit of political issues through the electoral system indicates that citizens identified broadly with this process. Political labels meant little; political liaisons were based as much on family connections or feuds as on any ideology. Nonetheless, political contests were heated and competitive. With limited support from the federal government, it was local government that raised the resources to modernize Carazo. It was a slow and uneven process, but the newfound wealth produced by coffee did eventually lead to at least a superficial modernization. By  the growing and modernizing Jinotepe was elevated from a villa to a city and Diriamba was elevated from a pueblo to a villa.69 In Diriamba, gas lighting was installed in  under Alcalde José Esteban González.70 Two other prominent coffee growers, Crisanto Briseño and Buenaventura Rappaccioli founded the first social club in , and in  local leaders made a voluntary loan available, along with their counterparts in Masaya, to build the railroad, Ferrocarril Masaya-Diriamba, which was inaugurated in .71 Mendoza dismissed local government as “government by intrigue.”72 But he also noted that a number of public improvements were carried out. José



   

Esteban González ordered the building of a road leading to the railroad station, public gas lighting, and improvement of streets and roads. Clodomiro de la Rocha built a dike and extended Diriamba’s main street to the railroad. Moisés Baltodano, by imposing private contributions, built a dike and set up a tax plan.73 There were some paved roads for José Esteban González to drive his Ford on in , even if most of the department was still crisscrossed by dirt paths. And those who still trod the dirt paths, on foot or by mule cart, may well have seen themselves as much a part of the system as the man behind the wheel.



Chapter 10

Conclusions

T   the growing scholarship on rural Latin America that demonstrates the complexity of the processes of transition to expanded export agriculture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, emphasizing the agency of actors at all levels of society.1 As each new work shows the limitations of traditional analyses in yet another country, it often seems that the stereotypes might still be applicable somewhere else. Even as he challenges traditional views of Guatemala, David McCreery suggests in his  work Rural Guatemala: “The conversion of land from communal to private property in Guatemala did not come as the sudden and thoroughgoing event it apparently did in El Salvador or parts of Nicaragua during those years.”2 His citations for El Salvador and Nicaragua are the classics: Rafael Menjivar’s Acumulación originaria y desarollo del capitalismo en El Salvador (), David Browning’s El Salvador: Landscape and Society (), and Wheelock’s Imperialismo y dictadura (orig. pub. ). Aldo Lauria-Santiago’s An Agrarian Republic () effectively challenges the classical view of El Salvador. Cultivating Coffee does the same for Nicaragua.





The story of coffee in Nicaragua is similar to what Mario Samper found in comparing Costa Rica and El Salvador: “Costa Rica was not, and is not, a country of small and medium farmers, nor was export agriculture the result of the exclusive and self-generated force of peasant coffee growers, however important they have been and continue to be. Neither is El Salvador its exclusively oligarchic opposite, a country completely polarized between big landlords and dispossessed proletarians.”3 Historical reality is always messier than neat models suggest. The history of coffee in Nicaragua includes big growers and landless workers. But it also includes much more. The case of Carazo shows that Nicaragua had a sizable sector of minifundistas, small, and medium coffee farmers who, in their interactions with larger coffee growers, lenders, processors, and exporters, created an economy, society, and polity in which the smaller actors played important roles. The smaller growers did the same things as their larger compatriots: they looked for ways to make money in what became a highly commercialized society. They were all involved in buying and selling land, borrowing and lending money, gathering a workforce, growing and marketing crops, and participating in local institutions. Their involvement, however, was not equal. This study finds important differences with traditionally held views of coffee societies: most coffee farms in Carazo were formed not by usurpation of ejidal property or purchase of baldíos but by the buying and selling of land that was already privately held. Rather than facilitating expropriation, the state guaranteed the continuation of a subsistence sector by continuing to provide access to ejidal lands well into the twentieth century. That land came under the control of local, ladino government agencies, which in at least some cases were but a ladinized veneer on older indigenous institutions. Guarantees for smallholders provided a more stable workforce for larger growers, who found that coercive methods were of limited effectiveness. Laborers easily fled their obligations, often to seek out advances and higher wages. Local authorities were uninterested in or



 

unable to force compliance with labor laws. For smaller growers, family provided the main workforce, while extended family, kin networks, and cooperative arrangements likely provided additional labor for harvest. Smaller growers were also likely to work for wages on the farms of their larger neighbors, giving them a dual identity of both owner and worker. Lending was not solely in the hands of a few powerful landlords or urban merchants who took advantage of small landowners. Instead, hundreds of neighbors loaned money to each other. And while interest rates tended to be higher for smaller growers, in general the terms were the same and loans were easily rolled over. Ownership of the property was not a prerequisite for loans; borrowers could put up usufruct rights and improvements as collateral. There was little expropriation of property to settle debts; and in the cases where property was confiscated, it was usually resold rather than added to larger farms. This dynamic system exerted pressures on traditional patriarchal patterns, simultaneously changing and reenforcing them. Women bought and sold property, borrowed and loaned money, worked for wages and hired workers, won divorces, and won lawsuits against their spouses. But they also were frequently controlled by male prerogatives over their households. This patriarchal structure extended to the hierarchical and male-dominated legal and political system, in which women could neither vote nor hold office. Nonetheless, the system was not closed—women won victories in the courts, lowerclass men won political rights, and new elites were created, drawn from the ranks of coffee parvenus who grew from humble roots. And all this took place not on a frontier of opportunity, as in Venezuela, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Brazil. It took place in the very heart of Nicaragua’s first coffee-growing area. This portrait of Nicaragua differs markedly from Dore’s characterization of the Pacific zone, based on her study of the Granada municipality of Diriomo, as “dominated by a few cafetaleros who depended on systems of forced labor for cultivation and harvest.” Just as Gould found in





Matagalpa, widespread proletarianization did not take place in Carazo. But unlike Matagalpa, self-conscious indigenous communities did not formally retain much of their land in the Carazo area.4 The chief difference between conditions in Carazo and those in Diriomo and Matagalpa may be an ethnic one: both Dore and Gould find the continued active presence of self-identified indigenous communities. Despite a large indigenous population, Carazo’s indigenous communities seem to disappear, to ladinize and blend into the new coffee economy. It is telling that the San Marcos farmer who sought stricter governmental controls of workers in  complained that his workforce had scattered to “their different neighborhoods, that is Niquinohomo, Nandasmo, Masatepe, and Masaya”—not a Carazo community in the lot. Carazo, on the flat and easily accessible plateau of western Nicaragua, had been a territory where long-distance and local trade was carried on during the precolonial era. It was a place where Spaniards, creoles, and mestizos built their economy as well. And it appears that the indigenous communities there adapted early on—the image that recurs is that of Jinotepe’s Indians attending their clanking trapiches processing sugar, as Froebel observed in . The coffee transition in Carazo was undoubtedly eased by traditional commercial involvement by indigenous communities in the very areas where coffee would be grown, and by a reserve of land inappropriate for coffee that remained largely under indigenous control (e.g., Rosario, La Paz). However, there was simultaneously a pattern of increasing land concentration, which may have worsened after . The factors contributing to the landlessness that the Sandinistas found in the late twentieth century were the impact of the Great Depression; the corruption of the Somoza regime, which led to Somoza controlling  percent of the arable land in the country; and the expansion of cotton production in the s and cattle raising in the s. The Depression facilitated the concentration of property, particularly among the elites, effectively winnowing their numbers.5 The rise of cotton and



 

cattle economies required large tracts of land, displacing more small growers than coffee did. Cotton is not as well suited to small-scale production since it is an annual crop, dependent in Nicaragua on use of imported chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and it offers economies of scale. It is easier to graze cattle on extensive landholdings. Despite these changes, which led to more landlessness, the Sandinistas were surprised to find that much of the coffee was cultivated by smaller producers. Much of the debate about Nicaragua’s economic development is mired in traditional, orthodox Marxist definitions, with the emphasis on proletarianization. However, one of Marx’s most important lessons was that an analysis of any particular case depends less on broad models than on the historical specificity of each region. And even in a country as small as Nicaragua there is regional variation. Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes the Sandinistas made was to treat the rural people in a more homogenized way, expecting them all to be landless workers who wanted steady jobs, with no historical memory of and desire for individual proprietorship. As Samper notes, “In history—as in other areas of individual and collective life— excessively simple explications lead, invariably, to errors of interpretation that also have consequences in social practice.”6 The Sandinistas found this out the hard way.

The Sandinistas and Agrarian Reform “Land to whoever works it!” was a Sandinista slogan during the war against Somoza. The Sandinista-organized Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC, farmworkers’ association) seized land and kept food production going in occupied territories. But when agrarian reform began on July , , with decree no.  confiscating all Somocista land, the Sandinistas asked that these properties be turned over to the state. It was a striking sign of the FSLN’s moral authority





that the people complied. In all, nearly two million acres encompassing two thousand farms and ranches became state property, accounting for nearly  percent of the country’s cultivatable land and immediately creating the basis for a state sector without controversial expropriations. In January  the Instituto de Reforma Agraria (INRA, agrarian reform institute) and the Ministerio de Agricultura (agriculture ministry) were merged to form the Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario y Reforma Agraria (MIDINRA, ministry of agricultural development and agrarian reform), headed by Jaime Wheelock, and managing the state sector took top priority. The new leaders decided the land would become state farms for several reasons: there seemed no equitable way to divide the large, technologically advanced estates; it would be easier to revive production immediately; and the Sandinistas feared the small farmers would convert the property to food production rather than the export crops needed for crucial foreign exchange. Beyond those practical considerations was a theoretical one: “The Sandinistas based their initial rural policies on the assumption that what many rural poor want, above all, is year-round work,” notes Joseph Collins. As Wheelock said in , “There have been many agrarian reforms that in one stroke have handed over the land. But this type of land reform destroys the process of proletarianization in the countryside and constitutes a historical regression.”7 Wheelock’s rhetoric is in keeping with the analysis of Nicaragua’s economy that he provides in Imperialismo y dictadura and was in keeping with his leadership role in the Sandinistas’ not accidentally named Proletarian Tendency. Under his guidance, MIDINRA focused on the state sector, while the landless and those with small plots of land demanded redistribution. In February  the ATC led a massive demonstration in Managua demanding that campesino8 land seizures be legalized and that more land be distributed. Instead, the Sandinistas responded with a two-pronged approach: massive amounts of credit and guaranteed



 

land rental, with rents reduced  percent and eviction prohibited. The  “spilling of credit,” as Wheelock called it, stimulated the formation of , credit and service cooperatives and  precooperatives (fewer than ten members) to take advantage of preferential interest terms:  percent interest to production cooperatives,  percent to credit and service cooperatives, and  percent to private producers. But credit did not solve the problems: farmers could not repay loans because of low yields, credit exceeded the potential of the land, no one came to buy the harvests in remote areas, and there was little technical service. According to a report in Envío, “Of the , cooperatives established in the first year of the revolution . . . , , disappeared due to the lack of state attention beyond merely supplying credit.”9 In addition, large landowners simply were refusing to rent lands at the reduced rates. In the spring of  there were more land seizures, some led by the ATC. As Collins notes, “The Sandinistas . . . underestimated the depth and strength of the demand for land.”10 Meanwhile, the rural bourgeoisie was seeking the support of small producers by organizing them under the Unión de Productores Agrícolas de Nicaragua (UPANIC, agricultural producers association). The Sandinistas fought back in April  by authorizing formation of the Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos (UNAG, national union of farmers and ranchers), breaking peasant owners away from the worker-oriented ATC. According to Carmen Deere, Peter Marchetti, and Nola Reinhardt, “This development marked a definitive shift from the original assumption that the semiproletarians could best be organized as a social force with wage workers. The new strategy was accompanied by a change in terminology: semiproletarian was dropped and the phrase small and medium producers began to appear in all official discussions of the peasantry.”11 From  to  the Sandinistas shifted their attention away from the state sector and toward the formation of cooperatives. In , , families received land in cooperatives and only  individually. In , , received cooperative land and only  re



ceived individual parcels.12 The emphasis on cooperatives bypassed much of the rural population. Family farms received credit but little technical assistance or infrastructure. The response in  and  was mostly titling and not transferal of new lands—, families received titles for land they were already working, including tiny parcels insufficient for subsistence. The Sandinistas, however, were promoting selfless communalism on the cooperatives: “The mortal sin was individualism, symbolized by the campesino’s tiny parcel.” They did not realize that “the collective organization of labor was, for the semiwage laborer, the disagreeable price that had to be paid to gain access to land.”13 During this period, the counterrevolutionary war drew dissatisfied campesinos to its cause. And those loyal to the revolution who chose to work on cooperatives found they were contra targets. Throughout  the government became the target of increasing criticism. FSLN members working in Masaya became convinced that national leaders must change their policies. The campesinos of Masaya had been among those marching for land in February , and they had organized two subsequent demonstrations: in August  they marched to demand the agrarian reform law be revised to affect the smaller but inefficient commercial farms in this region, and at the end of  Masaya campesinos demanded the expropriation of SAIMSA (Servicios Agroquímicos Industriales de Masaya SA), a cotton enterprise owned by large landowners. What finally turned the tide was the November  elections. The Sandinistas won  percent of the votes cast in Masaya, compared to  percent nationwide. “Analysis of voting patterns revealed that support for opposition parties had been strongest in areas where under  percent of the peasants had received land.”14 Now the Sandinistas reevaluated their position on individual plots of land. In , , manzanas were redistributed to , families in either individual or cooperative holdings. This represented  percent of the land given to individuals and  percent of individual recipients 

 

from  to .15 In June  Masaya peasants again marched to demand land. This time the Sandinistas turned over , manzanas of state land and expropriated , manzanas from SAIMSA after the company refused to sell or negotiate. A group of private producers agreed to sell , manzanas to the state to redistribute. The impact of campesino organizing for land reform can be seen in several measures: the increased area redistributed, the focus on individual holders, and the passage in January  of new agrarian reform legislation making holdings of any size subject to expropriation for inefficiency—which is what the campesinos of Masaya had demanded back in . And the results could be seen in the war zones: “The supply of peasant foot soldiers for the counterrevolution dried up and the [contras] entered a strategic decline.”16

History, Theory, and Practice Wheelock’s preconceived notions and theoretical biases about the Nicaraguan countryside dictated a set of policies that did not privilege small private property. But smallholders existed in unexpected numbers, and the proletarianized or semiproletarianized workers turned out not to have the theoretical leanings that Wheelock expected. They did not just want a guaranteed wage on state land; they wanted their own plots of land. Studies, primarily in Mexico, indicate that ties to the land are not easily broken. According to Arturo Warman, although more than half of the economically active population owned no land in , the majority of this group had access to land through family ties, sharecropping, or tenant farming and therefore could not be considered rural proletarians. Luisa Paré’s studies of rural Mexico found that while semiproletarians may earn a substantial amount of their wages as proletarians, their outlook may remain that of the “peasantry.” She differentiates between economic and social proletarianization. “What is





relevant is to capture the essence of the relations of production of the peasantry, relations that do not necessarily reflect statistics, such as the amount of land owned, the ownership of certain means of production, or other elements of this type.” In Paré’s view, the essence of the relations of production are proletarian, but the goals are “peasant”: “The importance of the salary in total income is that it permits one to speak of an agricultural proletariat, although it produces part of its goods by subsistence and although, in a spontaneous manner, it fights essentially for land.” She contends that this struggle for land does not indicate a petit bourgeois attitude but stems from the material fact that agricultural wage labor is seasonal and unreliable and the land represents security. Apparently, however, the land represents more than security to the Nicaraguan workforce, demonstrated in their preference for individual plots over guaranteed wage labor or ownership in co-ops.17 Beyond security there is autonomy. The concern surfaces in study after study, across time and around the world, from McCurry’s yeomen farmers in nineteenth-century South Carolina to Nagengast’s late-twentieth-century Poles. McCurry writes that “it seems that they attempted to harness market opportunities to their own ends, making a priority not of cash income but of the production and reproduction of household independence more generally construed.”18 And Nagengast states, “Many identify primarily with farming rather than the fully proletarianized working class because landownership is one of the few available means by which they can at least partially maintain autonomy.”19 The desire for household autonomy, however, is not necessarily in conflict with a recognition of the wisdom of community interdependence, what Leslie Anderson calls “political ecology,” in which small farmers recognize that in helping one another, they guarantee their own survival.20 It is that understanding of community interdependence, coupled with a desire for autonomy, that led small farmers to favor Sandinista social and political reforms while rejecting parts of

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 

the economic plans. The small farmers’ views should not be dismissed as false consciousness or petit bourgeois attitudes. Instead, they were perhaps envisioning a new form of socialized economy, and one that could find a place within the Sandinistas’ mixed economy. If the Sandinistas had a better understanding of the history of Nicaragua’s rural development, they might have avoided some of the problems in the countryside that fueled the contra war. But it is too big a leap to the conclusion that the Sandinistas could have retained state power had they only heeded this history. Misunderstandings can be rectified—the Sandinistas recognized their errors, changed their agrarian reform strategy, and found support for the contras drying up. But in the last analysis, if the U.S. government is determined to put its military, economic, and political muscle against a small, poor country, there is not much that government can do without the countervailing support of another great power. Undoubtedly the Sandinistas aggravated farmers, as well as women and indigenous communities.21 But those problems pale compared to a U.S.-sponsored war that killed  percent of the population while destroying the economy. Had the Sandinistas not made these errors, the cause of their government’s demise would be clearer, but it would be the same.

What Might Have Been It is all too tempting to pose a counterfactual—in essence, a fiction, a dream of what if. What if Somoza had not come to power in the s? Would Carazo have continued to be a region of primarily smaller holders who were able to see their interests reflected in the local polity? Would that pattern have extended to other parts of the country? Could Nicaragua have ended up looking more like Costa Rica than El Salvador? The answer is that there are no inevitable outcomes. Cultivating coffee does not automatically lead to dictatorship or democracy. Fur-





thermore, domestic economic organization does not always drive political organization, particularly in small, peripheral countries that are subject to superpower concerns. The intervention of the United States in Nicaragua’s domestic affairs distorted its political development. The United States had strategic concerns in Nicaragua, which undoubtedly were linked to economic concerns about accessibility of resources and markets in Nicaragua and, perhaps more important, elsewhere around the globe. U.S. policy was based on a complex interplay of political and economic concerns, which are not easily separable. The result, however, was political intervention in Nicaragua, taking the form of putting Somoza in power and keeping the dynasty in power until its dying days. This imposed political system was not a natural outgrowth of the development of Nicaragua’s economy and polity. Nicaragua may well have ended up looking more like Costa Rica. There were internal forces intent on replacing Zelaya’s government and perhaps making Nicaragua more democratic. It is certainly likely that Somoza would have been overthrown much earlier if not for U.S. support. However, perhaps the idealized, mythological Costa Rica that Nicaragua might have been is not quite real, either. One of the ways in which Nicaragua was clearly like Costa Rica was in the dominance of coffee processors and exporters over smaller producers. In both systems there was exploitation. In both countries there was also willing participation in the new coffee economy.

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Notes

Chapter  . Jaime Wheelock Román, Imperialismo y dictadura (Managua: Editorial Nueva Nicaragua, ); Jaime Biderman, “Class Structure, the State and Capitalist Development in Nicaraguan Agriculture” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, ); Biderman, The Development of Capitalism in Nicaragua: Economic Growth, Class Relations and Uneven Development (Stanford: Stanford-Berkeley Joint Center for Latin American Studies, ). For works echoing Wheelock and Biderman see, among others, Carlos Santiago-Rivera, “The Practice of Labor Relations in Nicaragua: Class Struggle, Trade Union Functions, and the Development of Workers’ Organizations, ‒” (Ed.D. diss., Rutgers University, ); Mario Trujillo Bolio, Historia de los trabajadores en el capitalismo nicaragüense (‒) (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, UNAM, ); Laura J. Enríquez, Harvesting Change: Labor and Agrarian Reform in Nicaragua, ‒ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ). The dominant view has found its way into the textbooks as well: “The sudden growth of the world market for coffee created a demand by some members of the elite [in Nicaragua] for land suitable for coffee growing and for a supply of cheap labor. Beginning in , a series of laws required the Indian villages to sell their communal lands; these laws also put the national lands up for sale. These laws effectively drove the Indian and mestizo peasants off their land, gradually transforming them into a class of dependent peons or sharecroppers” (Benjamin Keen, A History of Latin America, th ed. [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ], ). . François Chevalier, Land and Society in Colonial Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, ). . Eduardo Baumeister, “Agrarian Reform,” in Revolution and Counterrevolution in Nicaragua, ed. Thomas W. Walker (Boulder: Westview Press,



    ); David Kaimowitz, “Agrarian Structure in Nicaragua and Its Implications for Policies towards the Rural Poor (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, ); Joseph R. Thome and David Kaimowitz, “Agrarian Reform,” in Nicaragua: The First Five Years, ed. Thomas W. Walker (New York: Praeger, ). . Michael Kearney, Reconceptualizing the Peasantry: Anthropology in Global Perspective (Boulder: Westview Press, ), xv. . Eric R. Wolf, Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, ), . . Lorraine Garkovich, Janet L. Bokemeier, and Barbara Foote, Harvest of Hope: Family Farming/Farming Families (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, ), . . Wolf, Peasants, . . Carole Nagengast, Reluctant Socialists, Rural Entrepreneurs: Class, Culture, and the Polish State (Boulder: Westview Press, ), . . John Finch, “Coffee, Development, and Inequality in the Papua New Guinea Highlands” (Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, ), . . Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, ); Ernesto Laclau, “Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America,” New Left Review : ‒. For an excellent overview of the various theoretical approaches, see David Goodman and Michael Redclift, From Peasant to Proletarian: Capitalist Development and Agrarian Transitions (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ). . Mark Harrison, “Chayanov and the Economics of the Russian Peasantry,” Journal of Peasant Studies  (): ‒. . Henry Bernstein, “Notes on Capital and Peasantry,” Review of African Political Economy : ‒; William Roseberry, “Peasants as Proletarians,” Critique of Anthropology  (): ‒. . Harriet Friedmann, “World Market, State, and Family Farm: Social Bases of Household Production in the Era of Wage Labor,” Comparative Studies in Society and History ,  (): ‒. . Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country (New York: Oxford University Press, ), ‒, ‒. . The manzana was the main measurement of land used in Nicaragua. It was equivalent to . acres or . hectare. . Iván García Marenco, Diagnóstico socio-económico del sector agropecuario, Volumen : Carazo (Managua: Centro de Investigaciones y Estu

    dios para la Reforma Agraria, Ministerio de Desarollo Agropecuario y Reforma Agraria), . . Jeffrey M. Paige, Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), . . I am grateful to Mario Samper for discussions about property categories and his concurrence that my categories are reasonable for Carazo in this time period. . Comisión Económica para América Latina, Organización de la Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación, and Organización Internacional del Trabajo. Tenencia de la tierra y desarollo rural en Centroamérica (San José: EDUCA, ), cited in Enriquez, Harvesting Change, . . Robert G. Williams, States and Social Evolution: Coffee and the Rise of National Governments in Central America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ) ‒n. Williams further divides the capitalist farms, “somewhat arbitrarily,” into small capitalist farms of ,‒, trees, medium capitalist farms of ,‒,, and large capitalist farms of more than , trees. . Kaimowitz, Agrarian Structure, . . Julián N. Guerrero and Lola Soriano, Monografía de Carazo (Managua, ), attribute the introduction of coffee to Dr. Manuel Matus Torres, who founded the finca La Ceiba in Jinotepe shortly after independence in , ‒. Pablo Lévy attributes the first successful cultivation to a Señor Matus in Jinotepe in . Lévy, Notas geográficas y económicas sobre la República de Nicaragua (Paris: Librería Española de E. Denné Schmitz, ). . Registro oficial, no. , , León, March , . . Guerrero and Soriano, Monografía de Carazo, ‒. . David R. Radell, “Historical Geography of Western Nicaragua: The Spheres of Influence of León, Granada, and Managua, ‒” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, ). . Harold Playter, The Coffee Industry in Nicaragua (Corinto: American Consulate, ), . . See Nicaragua, Administration of Customs, Rasgos descriptivos de la República de Nicaragua, ; Censo cafetalero (Managua, ); Gustavo Niederlein, The State of Nicaragua of the Greater Republic of Central America (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Commercial Museum, ). . Jean-Paul Sartre, Sartre on Cuba (New York: Ballantine Books, ), ‒. 

   

Chapter  . E. Bradford Burns idealized indigenous or mestizo folk communities as outside the realm of economics: “In those nonmaterialistic folk societies, economic decisions took second place to social considerations. Community obligations, traditions, and moral dictates, not economic forces, governed transactions” (Burns, Patriarch and Folk: The Emergence of Nicaragua, ‒ [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ], ). Similarly, José Coronel Urtecho, in his classic study of early Nicaragua, characterizes the colonial economy by the stereotype of the Catholic Spaniard, whose religion condemned the accumulation of wealth, and concludes: “The economy, as such, did not exist, and that is what is disconcerting to those who try to judge the colony by economic criteria” (Coronel, Reflexiones sobre la historia de Nicaragua (de Gainza a Somoza) [León: Editorial Hospicio, ], ‒). . Silvia Salgado González, “Social Change in a Region of Granada, Pacific Nicaragua ( B.C.‒ A.D.)” (Ph.D. diss., SUNY, Albany, ), . . Linda Newson, Indian Survival in Colonial Nicaragua (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, ). . Salgado, “Social Change,” . . Burns, Patriarch and Folk, . . Newson, Indian Survival, . . Salgado, “Social Change,” . . Newson, Indian Survival, . . Ibid., ‒. . Coronel, Historia de Nicaragua, ‒; Germán Romero Vargas, Las estructuras sociales de Nicaragua en el siglo dieciocho (Managua: Editorial Vanguardia, ), ‒. . Romero, Estructuras sociales, ‒. . Ibid., ‒. . Coronel, Historia de Nicaragua, ‒. . Newson, Indian Survival, ‒. . Ibid., ‒, , , , . . Murdo J. MacLeod sees the Spaniards turning to semi-subsistence, with cattle, maize, and a little indigo, similar to what Chevalier theorized for Mexico (MacLeod, Spanish Central America: A Socioeconomic History, ‒ [Berkeley: University of California Press, ]). However, Newson notes that the Spaniards responded to an external demand for hides and 

    indigo and that “few estates operated as self-contained economic units with no market orientation” (Newson, Indian Survival, ‒). . Coronel, Historia de Nicaragua, ‒. . Romero, Estructuras sociales, ‒. . Newson, Indian Survival, ‒, ‒. . Ibid., , , ‒. . A real was worth one-eighth of a peso sencillo. The peso sencillo was worth about eighty cents of a peso fuerte, which was supposedly equivalent to the dollar. . Newson, Indian Survival, ‒. . Romero, Estructuras sociales, ‒. . Newson, Indian Survival, . . Ladinos or mestizos refers to people of mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry, or indigenous people who have abandoned traditional indigenous communities and practices and adopted a nonindigenous lifestyle. . Newson, Indian Survival, ‒. . Ibid., ‒. . Romero, Estructuras sociales, , ‒. . Ibid., . . One caballería equals  manzanas, or  acres. . Romero, Estructuras sociales, . . Newson, Indian Survival, ‒, ‒, , ‒. . Romero, Estructuras sociales, . . Guerrero and Soriano, Monografía de Carazo, ‒. . Romero, Estructuras sociales, , ‒. . Newson, Indian Survival, ‒. . Lévy, Notas geográficas, . . David I. Folkman Jr., The Nicaragua Route (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, ), ‒. . Ibid., ‒. . Ibid., , . . John Foster to Frederick Chatfield, Realejo, Dec. , . Foreign Office /, quoted in Burns, Patriarch and Folk, . . Lévy, Notas geográficas, ‒. . Ibid., ‒, . . Julius Fröbel, Seven Years’ Travel in Central America, Northern Mexico, and the Far West of the United States (London: Richard Bentley, ), Book , . . Lévy, Notas geográficas, ‒. 

    . Ibid., ; Belly, cited by Alberto Lanuza Matamoros, Estructuras socioeconómicas, poder, y estado en Nicaragua, de  a  (San José: Programa Centroamericana de Ciencias Sociales, ), . . Lévy, Notas geográficas, . . Williams, States and Social Evolution, ‒. . Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, ‒; Lévy, Notas geográficas, . . Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, . . United States. Production of and trade in coffee: letter from the Department of State transmitting reports from the Consuls of the United States upon the production of and trade in coffee among the Central and South American states (Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office, ), . . Burns, Patriarch and Folk, . . Pablo Edelman, Apuntamientos sobre el beneficio del café y las maquinas en que se ejecuta (Managua: Imprenta del Gobierno, ), . . Ibid., . . Nicaragua, Código de la Lejislación de Nicaragua, ‒, legislative decree, March , , ‒. . Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, . . Registro oficial, Santiago de Managua, no.  (Sept. , ), . . Nicaragua, Código de la lejislación, legis. decree, May , , ‒; executive decree, Nov. , , ‒. . Exec. decree, March , , cited in Nicaragua, Memoria, , ; legis. decree, Feb. , , Nicaragua, Colección de decretos legislativos, , . . Chart , Ministerio de Hacienda Pública, Memoria, Dec. , ; chart , Memoria, . . Ministerio de Hacienda Pública, Memoria, , . . Nicaragua, Memoria del Secretario de Estado en los despachos de Agricultura y Trabajo, presentada al Congreso Nacional (Managua: Tipografía Alemana de Carlos Heuberger, ). . Nicaragua, Ley de las Tierras Incultas, , quoted in Burns, Patriarch and Folk, . . Oscar-René Vargas, “Acumulación, mercado interno, y el desarrollo del capitalismo en Nicaragua, ‒” (Managua: manuscript, n.d.), ‒. . Niederlein, State of Nicaragua, . . Vargas, “Acumulación,” .



    . Benjamin Teplitz, “The Political and Economic Foundations of Modernization in Nicaragua: The Administration of José Santos Zelaya, ‒” (Ph.D. diss., Howard University, ), . . See Biderman, Development of Capitalism and “Class Structure,” as well as Wheelock, Imperialismo y dictadura. For an excellent account of actions by various Conservative governments during the Thirty Years, see Francisco López, “Notas sobre el proceso de acumulación originaria en Nicaragua (‒),” Revista nicaragüense de ciencias sociales ,  (Dec. ): ‒. . Memoirs of Luciano Gómez, Nov. , , , , reprinted in Revista conservadora (Revista del pensamiento centroamericano) (Managua: Publicidad de Nicaragua), ‒. . Juan M. Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba (Guatemala City: Imprenta Electra, ). . For more on the political thought of Liberals and Conservatives in Nicaragua, see Michel Gobat, “Against the Bourgeois Spirit: The Nicaraguan Elite under U.S Imperialism, ‒” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, ). . Nicaragua, Censo cafetalero; Playter, Coffee Industry, . There are two vastly different estimates by the Bureau of American Republics: according to one  publication,  statistics counted . million trees. A second  report counted , acres of land planted in coffee and estimated that four to five hundred trees were planted per acre, which would mean a range of . million to  million trees. Nicaraguan sources indicate that traditionally six hundred trees were planted per acre, and Playter in  concurred: “The amount of coffee land under cultivation is often estimated at , trees to the manzana of . acres, or  trees to the acre. This may have been a fair estimate for some of the old plantations but there has been a tendency for some years to allow more space between the trees, especially where mechanical cultivation may be practiced, as on the Pueblo plateau.  trees to the acre are estimated for that district and  for the other localities” (Playter, Coffee Industry, ). For , then, calculating  trees per acre would put the total for , acres at  million. Another set of statistics reported . million trees in . Yet Niederlein puts the number at  million in ; Niederlein was aware of the higher figure quoted in  and discounted it, calling the figures an exaggeration. But, he noted, “As in the coffee region almost everybody has some trees under tillage; their real number is very difficult to ascertain.” Niederlein, collecting his data in



    ‒, cautioned, “While the disorganized condition of affairs in Nicaragua makes the presentation of accurate statistics almost an impossibility, still these figures may be accepted as fairly representative of the commerce of the country” (Niederlein, State of Nicaragua, , ). Playter echoed his sentiments, contending in  that no reliable data for Nicaragua existed before . . Data taken from Memoria de Hacienda, and compiled by Hamlet Danilo García, professor of history, Universidad Nacional Autónima de Nicaragua. These data are consistent with statistics compiled by U.S. Consul Harold Playter, who put average exports for ‒ at  million pounds. Playter, Coffee Industry, . . Ward Brian Schinke, “The Political Economy of Coffee and Socialism in Nicaragua” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Riverside, ), ; Bureau of the American Republics, Nicaragua, bulletin no.  (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the American Republics, ), . . Playter, Coffee Industry, . . C. H. Schöffer, The Coffee Trade, trans. H. E. Moring (New York: Emil Sauer, ), , , . . International Institute of Agriculture, Bureau of FAO, The World’s Coffee (Rome: Villa Borghese, ), ‒. In the United States, which would become the largest market for coffee in the world, consumption rose from , tons in  to , tons in , with imports rising from , tons in  to , tons in  and , tons in . However, European buyers, particularly British, German, and French, were Nicaragua’s main customers. Although there were a few years in which U.S. imports exceeded European (, , ‒), the United States did not permanently supercede European buyers until World War II. See United States, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to , bicentennial ed., pt.  (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, ), ; Playter, Coffee Industry, ‒. . Alex Brown, The Coffee Planter’s Manual (Colombo: Ceylon Observer Press, ), ‒. . Edelman, Beneficio del café, . . Bureau of the American Republics, Coffee in America: Methods of Production and Facilities for Successful Cultivation in Mexico, the Central American States, Brazil and other South American Countries, and the West Indies, special bulletin (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the American Republics, ), B. . Marco Palacios, El café en Colombia: Una historia económica, social, 

    y política, ‒ (Bogotá: Editorial Presencia, ), ; International Institute of Agriculture, World’s Coffee. . Burns, Patriarch and Folk, .

Chapter  . Registro Público de la Propiedad de Carazo (RPPC), Jinotepe, Registro de propiedad (Registro del Conservatorio) no.  (Jan. , ), fol. ‒. . Burns, Patriarch and Folk, . . Ibid., , . . Ibid., . See also  n. . . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Ibid., . . Lévy, Notas geográficas, . . Burns, Patriarch and Folk, . . Nicaragua, Código de la lejislación, book , title , law , legislative decree of July , , “para que haya tierras comunes o ejidos en los pueblos del Estado,” ‒. . Ibid. . Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, ‒, . . Ibid., . . Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, , . . Wheelock, Imperialismo y dictadura, . . Decree of May  on the sale of ejidal lands, Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, , ‒. . Decree of May  authorizing the municipality of Jinotepe to sell a plot of land, Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, , . The decree relieved Jinotepe of the obligation to pay for the land called Las Cañas, which it acquired at auction from the state authorities based in Granada. The decree extended the amount of land to ten caballerías for agricultural land and twenty-five for cattle, and gave the town the right to sell the land. . Decree of March  on the sale of ejidal lands and indigenous communities, Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, , ‒. . Registro de la Propiedad de Granada (RPPG), Libro de propiedad, Feb. , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPG, Libro de propiedad, Sept. , , no. , fol. ‒. 

    . RPPG, Libro de propiedad, Feb. , , no. , fol. ‒; Apr. , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, May , ; Apr. , , no. , fol. ‒; Dec. , , no. , fol. ‒. . Managua, June , , issued as a clarification of the Agricultural Law of . . There was a total of  plots distributed in the ejidos. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad (Registro del conservatorio), Jan. , , no. , fol. ‒; no. , fol. ‒; RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, Sept. , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, Apr. , , no. , fol. ‒. . Nicaragua, Censo general de  (Managua: Tipografía Nacional, ). . This point contrasts with Elizabeth Dore, who contends that in Diriomo the people “being illiterate . . . found it almost impossible to negotiate the maze of bureaucratic steps involved in registering their claims or contesting those of others.” See Dore, “Land Privatization and the Differentiation of the Peasantry: Nicaragua’s Coffee Revolution, ‒,” Journal of Historical Sociology ,  (Sept. ): ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Dec. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Apr. , , vol. , fol. ; Feb. , , vol. , fol. ; Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Aug. , , vol. , fol. . . RPPC, Libro de Propiedad, Aug. , , vol. , fol. ‒; June , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ; April , , vol. , fol. ‒; Nov. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de Propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ; March , , vol. , fol. ; May , , vol. , fol. ; Oct. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Archivo de la Municipalidad de la Prefectura de Granada (AMPG), Miguel Gregorio Arana to departmental prefect, Jinotepe, Feb. , , caja , no. , Telegramas y escritos varios. . RPPG, Libro de Propiedad, Oct. , , no. , fol. ‒; Aug. , , no. , fol. ‒a; Apr. , , no. , fol. ‒; July , , no. , fol. a; Jan. , , no. , fol. ; Aug. , , no. , fol. ‒; RPPC, Libro de Propiedad, June , , no. , fol. ‒; Apr. , , no. , fol. ‒; Nov. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de Propiedad, June , , vol. , fol. ‒, , ; vol. , fol. ‒; vol. , fol. ‒, , ; vol. , fol. ‒. . AMPG, Eulogio Gutierrez to dept. prefect, Rosario, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Notas de varios alcaldes. 

    . Article  stated, “Los poseedores ó arrendatarios de terrenos de ejidos, que los tengan acotados ó cultivados, tendrán derecho á que la respectiva Municipalidad les dé en venta la propiedad de ellos, pagando no menos de cincuenta centavos por cada manzana” (Decree of March  on the rent of ejidal land and indigenous communities, Decretos legislativos, ‒, ). . AMPG, Navas to departmental prefect, Managua, Feb. , , box , sheaf , Notas Ministeriales; AMPG, Bartolo Jiménes to dept. prefect, La Paz, Feb. , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, Claudio Pavón to depart. prefect, Rosario, Oct. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios; AMPG, Juan M. Salazar to depart. prefect, Rosario, Nov. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . This confusion has carried over into scholarship. Burns contends, “Tierras comunales implied municipally owned lands, rented out at a nominal fee to the inhabitants of the pueblo. Ejidos could signify landholding communities or, possibly, lands used by the entire community together, as for grazing cattle. Confusion exists whether these two corporations were in fact separate, or were always separate, or were synonymous in nineteenthcentury Nicaragua. Clarification of the confusion awaits further research” (Burns, Patriarch and Folk, ). According to Romero, ejidos were given in accord with royal law, while tierras del común were either purchased by communities or donated by the king (Romero, Estructuras sociales, ‒). In El Salvador, Williams defines ejidos as municipal land and tierras comunales as Indian lands (Williams, States and Social Evolution, ). According to Yamileth González García, in Costa Rica, the ejidos were primarily for grazing cattle, and the tierras del común were for farming (González García, Continuidad y cambio en la historia agraria de Costa Rica [San José: Editorial Costa Rica, ], ‒). In Guatemala, according to David McCreery, the terms ejidos, tierras comunales, and común were used interchangeably. “All these terms applied broadly to all the lands that a village and its inhabitants possessed or claimed or made use of ” (McCreery, Rural Guatemala, ‒ [Stanford: Stanford University Press, ], , ). . AMPG, book , Copiador de notas, . “De las informes de las municipalidades de este distrito se viene en conocimiento que en sus respectivas juridicciones no existen terrenos pertencientes a comunidades de indígenas.” . Justin Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes: Community, Ethnicity, and Nation-State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Nicaragua” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, ), . 

    . AMPG, M. Bravo, Dirección General de Estadísticas (bureau of statistics), Managua, circular no. , May , . . Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes,” ; Romero, Estructuras sociales, ‒. . Dore, “Nicaragua’s Coffee Revolution,” . . Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes,” ‒. . Ibid., ‒. . Ibid., ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Dec. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Executive accord, March , , approving the jurisdictional boundaries of the new town of El Rosario. Código de la lejislación, law , . . Nicaragua, Decreto legislativo sobre comunidades indígenas y terrenos ejidales (Managua: Tipografía y Encuadernación Nacional, ). . “Respecto del siglo XVII, Gage (:) afirma categóricamente que no había ‘en las Indias un pueblo, grande o chico, aunque no sea más de veinte casas, que no esté dedicado a la Virgen o a algún santo.’” Cited by Flavio Rojas Lima, La cofradía: Reducción cultural indígena (Guatemala: Seminario de Integración Social, ), . . Adriaan C. van Oss, Catholic Colonialism: A Parish History of Guatemala, ‒ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), . . Ibid., ‒. Yamileth González García found similar differences between ladino and indigenous cofradías in Costa Rica. See González García, Continuidad y Cambio, . . McCreery, Rural Guatemala, . . Ibid., ‒. . Ibid., . . Nicaragua, Código de la lejislación, book , title , laws ‒, ‒. Ligia Peña and Luisa Amelia Castillo also see a church-state conflict in legislation regarding cofradías. Peña and Castillo, “Estado-iglesia y cofradías, Nicaragua siglo diecinueve,” in Nicaragua en busca de su identidad, ed. Frances Kinloch Tijerino (Managua: Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua, Universidad Centroamericana, ). . Nicaragua, Código de la lejislación, book , title , law , ‒. . Ibid., law , . . RPPG, Libro de propiedad, July , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPG, Libro de propiedad, Jan. , , no. , fol. . . RPPG, Libro de propiedad, Jan. , , no. , fol. ‒; legis. decree of March , , Gaceta oficial, Apr. , , .



    . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒; July , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Auguste Myonnet Dupuy, Deux ans de séjour dans l’état de Nicaragua (Amérique Centrale) , , , Projet de fondation sur le Lac de Nicaragua, transit des deux oceans, d’un hospice riquieux a l’instar du Saint Bernard: Colonisation, commerce, exploitation de mines, etc., etc. (Paris: Imprimerie Paussielgue Masson et Cie., ), ; cited in Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, . . Gaceta nacional, June , , ‒; cited in Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, . . Nicaragua, Código de la lejislación, ‒. . Ibid., ‒; Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, , ‒; , ‒; , ‒. An “agricultural establishment” might include coffee processing plants or sugar mills. La República de Nicaragua (Managua: Tipografía y Encuadernación, ), ‒. . “[L]as sacará al pregón por treinta días, dando uno por cada nueve” (Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, ). . Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, , ‒. . An amendment was passed on July , , noting that while the  law established the hectare as the official measurement, the prices were given as though they referred to manzanas, a measurement smaller than the hectare by more than two-fifths. The prices were then set at three pesos per hectare for cattle land, . for farm land, . for irrigated farm land, and an extra peso for land with usable woods. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Jan. , , no. , fol. ‒. . Alain De Janvry, The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ). . Burns, Patriarch and Folk, . . AMPG, Catalogo de la propiedad territorial de la Paz (occidente), ; Catastro de la propiedad territorial del pueblo de Diriamba, .

Chapter  . Nicaragua, Código de la lejislación, book , title , law , ; emphasis added.



    . Registries recording births, deaths, marriages, and civil status were not instituted until two years later. Decree of Feb. , regulating the civil registry, Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, ‒, ‒. . Norma María Tapia Cerda, Sistema jurídico registral adoptado en Nicaragua (thesis, Universidad Centroamericana, Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales, Escuela de Derecho, Managua, ). . Wolfe used a combination of the  property census and land registry records in Granada, Masaya, and Carazo for the period from  to  and found that the land registry provided a fairly accurate description of distribution of landholdings in Carazo, although registration patterns in the other two departments underestimated landholding and skewed size upward. Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes,” ‒. As Marc Edelman and Mitchell A. Seligson note, each source privileges particular kinds of landholders, with the census favoring smaller farmers and the registry larger. They reasoned that in late-twentieth-century Costa Rica, large owners feared the census put them at risk for appropriation through land reform schemes, while smaller farmers could get tacit recognition via the census without the cost of registering their properties, which was less necessary for those who did not intend to seek loans. However, in Nicaragua in  land confiscation was certainly not an issue; neither, for that matter, was taxes. And smaller growers appear throughout the registries as borrowers and even lenders in the financial markets. Edelman and Seligson, “Land Inequality: A Comparison of Census Data and Property Records in TwentiethCentury Southern Costa Rica,” Hispanic American Historical Review ,  (Aug. ): . . Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes,” . . Salvador Mendieta, La enfermedad de Centro-América, vol. , Descripción del sujeto y síntomas de la enfermedad (Barcelona: Tipografía Maucci, ), . . AMPG, Alejo Mendiata to dept. prefect, Oct. , , box , sheaf , Informaciones varias, . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒. The initial  ruling was upheld through a series of appeals that eventually reached the Supreme Court in . . The available  surveys show  coffee farms in Diriamba,  in Jinotepe,  each in La Paz and Rosario, and  in Santa Teresa. The survey for San Marcos, which became an important coffee growing area, was not available. . The  census lists production at , fanegas, and the  cen

    sus shows production of , quintales. The fanega was a measure of volume that differed depending on which product was measured. Lanuza lists a fanega of coffee as  pounds. The quintal is a measure of weight equivalent to  pounds. For annual exports see table .. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Nov. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, June , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, June , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPG, Registro de propiedad, Apr. , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPG, Registro de propiedad, Dec. , , no. , fol. . . RPPG, Registro de propiedad, June , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPG, Registro de propiedad, Jan. , , no. , fol. ; July , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒, fol. . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Aug. , , vol. , fol. ‒, ‒, ‒, . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, June , , vol. , fol. ‒, vol. , fol. ‒, vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒, margin; June , , vol. , fol. ‒; and Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Jan. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Feb. , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ; Dec. , , vol. , fol. . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒; July , , vol. , fol. ‒; Oct. . , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ‒. A suerte, the common measurement for sugar plantations, was about two manzanas. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, June , , vol. , fol. ‒; Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Apr. , , vol. , fol. , margin note; Oct. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Aug. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ‒; May , , vol. , fol. ‒, margin; Dec. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Nov. , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ; July , , vol. , fol. , , vol. , fol. ‒; July , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒, fol. ‒. 

    . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, June , , vol. , fol. ; June , , vol. , fol. , . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, March , , vol. , fol. ‒; May , , vol. , fol. , . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, March , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Aug. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Apr. , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ; Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Aug. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Here it is important to point out that these people may own other property that was never registered, or property that was registered but gave no indication of having coffee and therefore was not included in the data here. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Nov. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de Propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒; , vol. , fol. , , vol. , fol. ; Dec. , , vol. , fol. ; Oct. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Nov. , , vol. , fol. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Dec. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Oct. , , vol. , fol. ‒.

Chapter  . Arthur R. W. Lascelles, A Treatise on the Nature and Cultivation of Coffee; with some remarks on the management and purchase of coffee estates (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, ), . . Helen Louise Hearst, “The Coffee Industry of Central America” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, ), ‒. . Ibid., . . Lévy, Notas geográficas, ‒. . Bureau of the American Republics, Coffee in America, ‒; Emiliano Martínez, Memoria sobre el café (New Orleans: M. F. Dunn and Bro., ), ‒. . William H. Ukers, The Romance of Coffee: An Outline History of Coffee and Coffee-Drinking through a Thousand Years (New York: Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Co., ), , . . Hearst, “Coffee Industry,” . Most secondary literature on coffee refers to the shade trees as banana. Most of the documents in the Nicaraguan property registries use the word plátano, which is translated in SpanishEnglish dictionaries variously as banana or plantain. In Nicaragua, one rarely hears the word banana, unless it is in relation to the large banana plantations owned by U.S. companies in the Atlantic region. In the Pacific zone, 

    Nicaraguans usually refer to bananas by names that speak directly to the variety of banana in question, such as guineo or cuadrado. Though related, plantains and bananas are quite distinct. The banana (guinea, cuadrado, etc.) is smaller and sweeter than the plantain, and is usually eaten raw or used in desserts. The plantain is a larger, starchy fruit that is usually served cooked, most commonly either in boiled chunks or fried in one of three different ways: flattened disks (tostones), soft strips of mature plantains (maduros), or crispy strips of immature plantains (verdes). Either plantains or bananas could serve as shade trees for coffee, and could simultaneously provide fruit for subsistence or the local market. . Ibid., ‒. . AMPG, Delgadillo, representing the federal government, to dept. prefect, Managua, May , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas ministeriales; editorial, El Diario de Nicaragua, year , series a, no. , p. , Granada, Aug. , ; Francisco Dávila, Selestino Rodríguez, Eusebio Rodríguez, José Angel Aguirre, Jerónimo López, Máximo Jiménez, Ambrocio Cárdenas, Vicente Pérez, Doroteo García, Sesario Díaz, Jacobo Pérez, Tiburcio Monjes, Concepción Ramas, Máximo Ortis, Bibiano Velasques, Pedro Ramos, T. Ramón Quintania, to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Feb. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas ministeriales de alcaldes; Agripito Ortega to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, March , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades; Agripito Ortega to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, Aug. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas varias, ; Pedro S. Villavicencio to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Nov. , , and Nov. , , box , unnum., Notas ministeriales de alcaldes; complaint and investigation about Las Posas del Carrisal, Diriamba, , box , sheaf , Faltas de policia; B. Porras to Ministro de Governación, Jinotepe, Nov. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas varias. . Bureau of the American Republics, Coffee in America, ‒. . Edwin Lester Arnold, Coffee: Its Cultivation and Profit (London: W. B. Whittingham & Co., ), ‒. . Hearst, “Coffee Industry,” . . Ibid., . By native Hearst did not mean indigenous peoples but rather that most farmers were Central Americans, not foreigners. . Playter, Coffee Industry, . . Managua cafetalero Alberto Navas, interview with author, Managua, March , . Well into the twentieth century, most Nicaraguan coffee farmers did not provide a higher level of care in cultivation. Alicia Gariazzo, in her  report on coffee in Nicaragua, notes that coffee cultivation requires little mechanization and indeed poses limits to mechanization: 

    “technological advance in cultivation is measured fundamentally by the use of agrochemicals, the quality of the coffee trees, and the better manual care applied in the tasks of cultivation. In []‒, only . percent of the fincas surveyed used agrochemicals, showing the slow development of this aspect” (Gariazzo, El café en Nicaragua: Los pequeños productores de Matagalpa y Carazo [Managua: Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales, Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales, ], ). . Hearst, “Coffee Industry,” . . Playter, Coffee Industry, . . Cafetalero Alfredo Mendieta, interview with author, Diriamba, June , . . Hearst, “Coffee Industry,” . . Playter, Coffee Industry, ; Alfredo Mendieta interview; also see Félix Choussy, Notas de viaje a traves de Nicaragua: Apuntes de cartera sobre asuntos relativos al café (Managua, ). . Bureau of the American Republics, Nicaragua, . . Playter, Coffee Industry, . . Arnold, Coffee, . . Topik, “Coffee: Stimulating or Addictive?” paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, Washington, D.C., , , . . Bureau of the American Republics, El Café, Su Historia, Cultivo, Beneficio, Variedades, Producción, Exportación, Importación, Consumo, etc. etc. (Washington, D.C.: La Oficina Internacional de las Repúblicas Americanas, ), . . See World Bank, The Economic Development of Nicaragua (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ). . Williams, States and Social Evolution,  n. . . Alfredo Mendieta, interview with author, Diriamba, June , . . Alberto Navas, interview with author, Managua, March , . . Mario Zequeira Sánchez and Isabel Valdivia Fernández, “El papel del cultivo del café para la sociedad y la economía cubana,” Cahiers du monde hispanique et luso-brésilien Caravelle (Toulouse)  (): . On U.S. farm families, see Garkovich, Bokemeier, and Foote, Harvest of Hope, . . Lowell Gudmundson, “Peasant, Farmer, Proletarian: Class Formation in a Smallholder Coffee Economy, ‒,” Hispanic American Historical Review ,  (May ): ‒. 

    . Salvador Mendieta, Enfermedad de Centro-América, :. . Bureau of American Republics, Coffee in America, . . Playter, Coffee Industry, . . Ibid., ; Lévy, Notas geográficas, . . Newson, Indian Survival, . . A second maize planting could be made after September but yielded only green stalks, used for forage. . Lévy, Notas geográficas, ; Nicaragua, Rasgos descriptivos, . . Gobat, “Against the Bourgeois Spirit,” ‒. . Lévy, Notas geográficas, ‒. . Ibid., . . Nicaragua, Rasgos descriptivos, ‒. . Lévy, Notas geográficas, ‒. . Ibid., . . Ibid., ‒, ‒. . Ibid., ‒. . Ibid., ‒. . Memoria de hacienda, . . Williams reports that in El Salvador, larger growers bought and processed the indigo produced by smaller farmers. Williams, States and Social Evolution, . . Romero, Estructuras sociales, ‒, . . Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, ‒. . Lévy, Notas geográficas, ‒; Memoria de Hacienda, . . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Brown, Coffee Planter’s Manual, ‒. . Alfredo Mendieta, interview with author, Diriamba, June , . . Edelman, Beneficio del café, . . Gabriel Gómez, Cultivation and Preparation of Coffee, trans. W. Thompson (Mexico: Department of Fomento [sic], Colonization, and Industry, ), . . Playter, Coffee Industry, . . Edelman, Beneficio del café, . . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Alfredo Mendieta, interview with author, Diriamba, June , ; Gariazzo, Café en Nicaragua, ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Nov. , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPG, Libro de propiedad, March , , no. , fol. ‒; RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Dec. , , no. , fol. ‒. 

    . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ; Sept. , , vol. , margin, fol. ‒ and vol. , fol. ; May , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Dec. , , vol. , fol. ‒, vol. , fol. ; Aug. , , vol. , fol. ‒, ‒, vol. , fol. . . Alberto Navas, interview with author, Managua, March , . . Fernando Briceño, jefe político de Jinotepe, in Nicaragua, Memoria de Hacienda (Managua: Tipografía Nacional, ), ‒. . Hearst, “Coffee Industry,” ‒. Much has been made of whether Latin American farmers truly operated like “capitalists,” trying to maximize profits. It is worthwhile to note that even in the late twentieth century in the United States, farming is characterized with concerns other than profit maximization. As Garkovich, Bokemeier, and Foote note, “The fact that farmers produce a product that is sold on a commercial market makes farming a business. But it is a business both similar to and different from most others in our economy. The characteristics of farming as a business create an economic activity that often is beyond the logic and rational dynamics of most other firms in the marketplace” (Garkovich, Bokemeier, and Foote, Harvest of Hope, ). Furthermore, even unquestionably capitalist big businesses have a tendency to satisfice. As a New York Times writer once commented, “Big business executives don’t really try to maximize profits but ‘satisfice,’ that is, they try to make enough profit to keep stockholders and boards of directors happy without bringing the wrath of government regulators, consumer groups or business competitors down on them” (New York Times, Feb. , , Section , p. , cited in the Oxford English Dictionary online, d ed., ).

Chapter  . Joseph Collins, Nicaragua: What Difference Could a Revolution Make? Food and Farming in the New Nicaragua, d ed. (San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy, ), . . Alfredo Mendieta, interview with author, Diriamba, June , . . See Austin and Sugihara’s introduction to their edited volume Local Suppliers of Credit in the Third World, ‒ (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ), ‒, . Indigenous in this context tends to mean local, nonEuropean, and not necessarily Indian.



    . The pacto de retroventa can be found under different names in other countries. In Zanzibar there were three forms of mortgages known collectively as beikhiar, which included the conditional sale of the property and the usufructory mortgage; in both of these arrangements the sale became absolute only upon default. Also included in beikhiar was the “English mortgage,” which transferred absolute dominion over the property, to be returned at the time of payment of the debt. All three were categorized as loans. But there also existed a disguised mortgage known as the bei kataa (lit., fictitious sale). “This was a form of absolute sale, on condition that the property be returned when repayment was received” (Chizuko Tominaga, “British Colonial Policy and Agricultural Credit in Zanzibar, ‒,” in Austin and Sugihara, ‒). A similar arrangement existed in nineteenthcentury Portugal, where records show farmers selling their land with the option to retrieve it upon repayment (Caroline B. Brettell, “Moral Economy or Political Economy? Property and Credit Markets in Nineteenth-Century Rural Portugal,” Journal of Historical Sociology ,  [March ]: ). . Of those who sold their property in pactos,  percent also received more traditional hipoteca financing. . Tomás Guevara, interview with author, Jinotepe, . . The statistics are based on  pactos de retroventa that provided information on the size of the properties sold. . RPPC, Registro de hipotecas i gravámenes, Dec. , , no. , fol. ‒; July , , no. , fol. d‒h; RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, Aug. , , no. , fol. ‒; Dec. , , no. , fol. ‒; Aug. , , no. , fol. ‒; RPPC, Registro de hipotecas i gravámenes, May , , no. , fol. ‒. . This finding contrasts with Williams’s contention that “[t]he most regular source of finance followed the colonial pattern of short-term loans, using future crops, not improved land, as security” (Williams, States and Social Evolution, ). . Odile Hoffman found a similar situation with hipotecas in the coffee zone of Veracruz, Mexico, where she found loans typically repaid one to two years late. “In this case, the hipoteca is not a direct means of access to ownership of the land but a supplemental financial resource for the lenders” (Hoffman, “Crédito y préstamo hipotecario en una zona cafetalera de Veracruz, durante el Porfiriato,” in Prestar y pedir prestado: Relaciones sociales y crédito en México del siglo dieciséis al veinte, ed. Marie-Noëlle Chamoux, Danièle Dehouve, Cécile Gouy-Gilbert, and Mariell Pepin



    Lehalleur [Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social/Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, ], ). . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, June , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ‒; March , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. . . Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, . . John Parke Young, Central American Currency and Finance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), . . A  hipoteca called for the exchange rate difference to be paid if it exceeded  percent. A  hipoteca specified  percent, a  debt listed  percent, while a  loan wanted a difference of  percent compensated. RPPC, Libro de propieded, July , , vol. , fol. ‒; July , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ; May , , vol. , fol. ‒; July , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Wheelock, Imperialismo y dictadura, . . RPPC, Registro de hipotecas y gravámenes, June , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de hipotecas y gravámenes, Aug. , , no. , fol. . . RPPC, Registro de hipotecas i gravámenes, Apr. , , no. , fol. h‒d. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ‒, vol. , fol. ‒, . . In an earlier study, concentrating on the period from  to , I found that medium farmers were most likely to default on hipotecas. However, with more complete data from  to , the medium sector no longer appears as most at risk. See Julie A. Charlip, “At Their Own Risk: Coffee Farmers and Debt in Nicaragua, ‒” in Aviva Chomsky and Aldo Lauria-Santiago, eds., Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, ). . “Another element that limited the wider reproduction of social capital was the lack of bank credit to small and medium production. This lack of bank credit limited the possibilities of broadening small- and medium-scale capital, which ensured that those sectors could not reinvest their profits because they were appropriated by usurious capital, which absorbed it, transferred it abroad, or spent it on sumptuary or unproductive goods” (Vargas, “Acumulación,” ‒, ). . Hoffman, “Crédito y préstamo,” ‒. 

    . Hereditary rights could be bought and sold and used in the same way as the property itself: as collateral for mortgages, and to sell in pactos de retroventa, with the right to buy back. Abelardo Espinosa sold his paternal inheritance rights to Napoleon Espinosa for  pesos in , with the right to buy them back at the same price, plus . percent interest per month. In , María Trinidad Mercado mortgaged the hereditary rights that she had purchased from Jesús Mercado to guarantee her debt of  pesos to Francisco Sánchez Espinosa. RPPC, Registro de propiedad, March , , vol. , fol. ‒. People also sold their litigation rights in court disputes. The purchaser gambled on a favorable court decision. For example, in , Juan José Cruz bought José de Jesús Sánchez’s litigation rights in a dispute that they both were pursuing against José Coronado. The purchase price for the rights was  pesos, paid with two cows, and Cruz was to continue the litigation, pending before the local courts of the district, at his own expense. Cruz apparently won the suit and the property, which he sold to Servando Vado for , pesos in . In other cases, the litigation rights were sold to someone who had nothing to do with the original suit. RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Jan. , , vol. , fol. , . . Luís Cuadra Cea, Aspectos históricos de la moneda en Nicaragua (Managua: Banco Central de Nicaragua, ), . . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . “Reseña historia de las instituciones bancarias que funcionan en Nicaragua,” Economía y finanzas (Órgano de la Superintendencia de Bancos y de la Dirección General de Estadística, bimonthly journal, Managua), no.  (Aug. ): ‒. . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, Feb. , , no. , fol. . Records do not indicate the size of Santa Cecilia circa , but the  coffee census lists it as  manzanas. The hipoteca documents do not indicate whether the  pesos represents the entire cost of the harvest or whether the loan supplemented Rodríguez’s own funds. . RPPC, Registro de hipotecas i gravámenes, Dec. , , no. , fol. ‒. . Wheelock, Imperialismo y dictadura, ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ‒, vol. , fol. ; Nov. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Dec. , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ‒; Jan. , , vol. , fol. . 

    . Wheelock, Imperialismo y dictadura, . . Registro records show the Banco de Nicaragua represented by a Neil Herbert Lawder. RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Sept. , , book , fol. ‒. . Hernán Robleto, Los estrangulados: El imperialismo yanqui en Nicaragua (Madrid: Editorial Cenit, ), ‒. . Lévy, Notas geográficas, ‒. . Pabellón nacional ,  (Feb. , ): . . Kinship, however, did not appear to play a role in lending—of , loans, only  (. percent) involved people with the same surname. . Wheelock, Imperialismo y dictadura, . Naomi Lamoreaux also found that early New England banks were dominated by members of the same families who used bank resources primarily to finance each other. “All of this evidence of continuing family domination of banks runs counter to the claims of modernization theorists, who argue that kinship connections lost much of their economic significance during the first half of the nineteenth century because the spread of banks and other types of corporations enabled businessmen to raise investment funds without turning to their relatives for help” (Lamoreaux, Insider Lending: Banks, Personal Connections, and Economic Development in Industrial New England [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ], ). . Winifred B. Rothenberg, “The Emergence of a Capital Market in Rural Massachusetts, ‒,” Journal of Economic History ,  (Dec. ): . . Winifred B. Rothenberg, “Mortgage Credit at the Origins of a Rural Capital Market: Middlesex County, Massachusetts, ‒,” paper presented at the Economic History Association meeting, Sept. .

Chapter  . Quoted in Burns, Patriarch and Folk, . . Lévy, Notas geográficas, , . . Among those offering the traditional interpretation are Robert G. Williams, Oscar-René Vargas, and Amaru Barahona. . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Nicaragua, Código de la lejislación, . . Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, ‒. . Nicaragua, Código de la Repúblic de Nicaragua, ‒, vol. , book , 

    title , law , , . The references are to the Enlightenment thinkers Montesquieu [Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, (‒)], author of the The Spirit of Laws (), and to the lesser known Emeric (Emer) de Wattel (‒), a Swiss jurist whose major work was The law of nations, or, Principles of the law of nature, applied to the conduct and affairs of nations and sovereigns (). . Decree of March , removing fines for working on holidays. Decretos legislativos, , ‒. . Labor laws were passed in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . . Raul Castro, interview with author, Diriamba, June , . . Census data from  show in Santa Teresa  day laborers and  farmers, in San Marcos  day laborers and  farmers, in Diriamba  day laborers and  farmers, in La Paz  laborers and  farmers, and in Rosario  laborers and  farmers. In the  census the Department of Carazo had , day laborers and , farmers. Censo de Diriamba, ; Censo del pueblo de San Marcos, ; Censo de San Marcos, ; Censo del pueblo del Rosario, ; Nicaragua, Censo del pueblo de La Paz, ; Nicaragua, Censo general de . . Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, ‒. . Ibid., ‒. . Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, ‒, ‒. . Decree of March , ratifying a government agreement to import Chinese workers, Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, ‒, ‒. . Sara Haydée Granados Doña, “Nicaragua, ‒: Labor Relations and Workers’ Resistance” (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, Austin, ), . . Ley de Agricultura, Decretos legislativos, ‒, ‒; Granados Doña, “Nicaragua,” ‒. . Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, , ‒. . Granados Doña, “Nicaragua,” . . Nicaragua, Memoria de fomento, ‒, xxx. . Granados Doña, “Nicaragua,” . . Ibid., . Madriz went on to serve as president from  to , when Zelaya was forced out of office. . Granados Doña, “Nicaragua,” . . Ibid., . . Jeffrey L. Gould, To Die in This Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje, ‒ (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, ), . 

    . Nicaragua, Decretos legislativos, , ‒. . Gould, To Die, , . . Lanuza, Estructuras socioeconómicas, . . AMPG, Libro de matrículas de operarios, , . . AMPG, Apolonio Quiróz contract sworn before agriculture judge, Granada, April , , book , Copiador de notas de , . . Contract between Juan Gonzales and Celedonio Morales, April , . Ibid., ‒. Coffee workers were not the only ones who signed such contracts. José de los Santos Cortez, another Jinotepe laborer, signed a contract to work for Pedro Cuadra at his sugar mill as a miller and baker while he worked off the  pesos sencillos that he was advanced. He was to receive  pesos per week if he was milling and  reales if he was in another class of work (AMPG, Libro de Matriculas de Operarios, , ). Similar work contracts were signed by those employed as masons, bakers, carpenters, housekeepers, tent makers, tailors, ox drivers, and shoemakers. Given the skill involved in many of these occupations, it is likely that these employees were actually apprentices. . AMPG, Diego Miranda to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Sept. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Diego Miranda to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Aug. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas varias,  folios. . AMPG, agriculture judge of Diriamba to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Feb. , , Copiador de notas, book , ‒. . AMPG, book , Copiador de notas, . . AMPG, ruling by agriculture judge, Granada, Jan. , , and July , , book , Agricultura sentencias. . AMPG, Benito Rivera to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Aug. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas varias. . AMPG, agriculture judge to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Sept. , , and Diriamba ag. judge to Jinotepe ag. judge, Diriamba, Sept. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Justo Garcia to dept. prefect, Dec. , , box , Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, S. Mejia to Diriamba agricultural judge, Jan. , , book , Copiador de notas, ‒. . AMPG, sentence by agriculture judge, Granada, Sept. , , book , Agricultura sentencias. Gould found a similar situation in Matagalpa, where the indigenous clearly played one cafetalero off against another. See Gould, To Die, . 

    . AMPG, Filiberto Cruz to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Jan. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . Sebastián Aragón to dept. prefect, San Marcos, March , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, Pedro S. Villavicencio to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Jan. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Filiberto Cruz to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Jan. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, D. Vargas to Santa Teresa agriculture judge, Jan. , , book , Copiador de notas, ‒. D. Vargas to Jinotepe police chief, Sept. , , ibid., n.p. In another letter, Vargas said it was his third request for another worker, ibid., . . AMPG, S. Mejia to Diriamba agricultural judge, Jan. , , ibid., ‒. . AMPG, Sebastián Aragón to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Nov. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Telesforo Arguello to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Aug. , , box , sheaf no. , Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, Cecilio Rocha to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Feb. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, Chamorro to dept. prefect, Managua, Dec. , , Circular No. , box , sheaf , Notas ministeriales. . AMPG, Ministry of Development, Managua, Circular to the agricultural judges, Jan. , , book , Copiador de notas de la prefectura departamental, . . AMPG, Ministry of Development, Managua, Circular no. , Oct. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas varias. . AMPG, Diego Miranda to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Jan. , , box , Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Telesforo Arguello to dept. prefect, Diriamba, April , , box , sheaf , Coleccion de notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, Ministry of Government to dept. prefect, Managua, June , , box , sheaf x, Decretos y acuerdos. . AMPG, dept. prefect to Ministry of Government, Managua, June , , book , Copiador de notas de la prefectura, ‒. . AMPG, Benito Rivera to dept. prefect, Diriamba, March , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, Benito Rivera to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Apr. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Telegramas. 

    . AMPG, Diego Miranda to dept. prefect, Diriamba, July , , box , unnum. sheaf, Telegramas. . AMPG, dept. prefect to Ministry of Government, Granada, , book , Copiador de notas de la prefectura, . . AMPG, Chamorro to dept. prefect, Circular No. , Managua, June , , box , sheaf x, Decretos y acuerdos. . AMPG, D. Vargas to Santa Teresa agricultural judge, Jan. , , book , Copiador de notas, ‒; D. Vargas to Jinotepe police chief, Sept. , , book , ibid., n.p. Another letter from Vargas said it was his third request for another worker. Dolores Vargas to Santa Teresa agricultural judge, Jan. , , ibid., . . AMPG, Lanislao Castrillo to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, March , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, dept. prefect to mayor of Diriamba, Granada, Feb. , , Circular no. , book , Copiador de notas de la prefectura, . . AMPG, Eduardo Urtecho to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, Jan. , , box , Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Enrique Baltodano to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Telegramas y escritos varios. . AMPG, dept. prefect to rural guard commander, Granada, Sept. , , Juzgado, book , Copiador de notas de varias autoridades, ‒. . AMPG, Osorno, Ministry of War, to dept. prefect, Managua, Dec. , , box , Notas ministeriales. . AMPG, Juan Mora to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Feb. , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, Sebastián Aragón to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Jan. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Felipe Ibarra to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, April , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, March , , Juzgado, book , Copiador de notas de varias autoridades, . . AMPG, Osorno to dept. prefect, Managua, Dec. , , box , Notas ministeriales. . AMPG, letter to dept. prefect, Masaya, Jan. , , box , Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . See Arnold J. Bauer, “Rural Workers in Spanish America: Problems of Peonage and Oppression,” Hispanic American Historical Review  (Feb. ): ‒; Laird W. Bergad, “On Comparative History: A Reply to Tom Brass,” Journal of Latin American Studies ,  (May ): ‒; 

    Tom Brass, “Coffee and Rural Proletarianization: A Comment on Bergad,” Journal of Latin American Studies ,  (May ): ‒; Tom Brass, “The Latin American Enganche System: Some Revisionist Interpretations Revisited,” Slavery and Abolition ,  (May ): ‒; and Alan Knight, “Debt Bondage in Latin America,” in Slavery and Other Forms of Unfree Labour, ed. Leonie J. Archer (London: Routledge, ). . Lévy, Notas geográficas, , . . Gould, To Die, ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Oct. , , no. , fol. ‒, ; Oct. , , no. , fol. h–d; Oct. , , no. , fol. h‒ h; RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, July , , no. , fol. ‒; July , , no. , fol. ‒; RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Nov. , , vol. , no. , fol. ‒; Aug. , , vol. , fol. ‒. The debts were also included in sales of properties. When Estaquio Soto, a priest from Santa Teresa, sold his coffee hacienda El Carmen to Sebastián Arévalo in , the price tag of , pesos sencillos bought a property described as “a sugarcane hacienda in Diriamba with its mill buildings, tools, oxen, and  pesos in workers.” Originally in RPPG Libro de propiedad, , transferred to RPPC Libro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. . . AMPG, Narciso Arévalo to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, March , , and documents regarding the investigation, box , sheaf , Recursos de quejas, ‒. . AMPG, appeal by Francisco Sandino and Antolín Pineda, January , caja , unnum. sheaf, Faltas de policia,  pp. . Juzgado de Distrito de Jinotepe, Libro Copiador Civil, ‒, no. , , ‒. AMPG, Juan Pacheco to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Sept. , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades, . . Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes,” . . On the failure of Zelaya’s labor laws, see Teplitz, “Political and Economic Foundations,” ‒. . Lévy, Notas geográficas, , ‒. . Ibid., .

Chapter  . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, Oct. , , no. , fol. ‒. . Fórmula undécima. Fianza que otorga el marido acusado de malversación de los bienes de su mujer, para continuar en la administración de 

    ellos. Código de Procedimientos Civiles (Managua: ), Formulario de Cartulación, . . Mendieta, Enfermedad de Centro-América, vol. , Diagnóstico y orígenes de la dolencia (Barcelona, Spain: Tipografía Maucci, ), ‒, quoting from his Páginas de unión, published in . . Garkovich, Bokemeier, and Foote, Harvest of Hope, . . Verena Stolcke, “The Labors of Coffee in Latin America: The Hidden Charm of Family Labor and Self-Provisioning,” in Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America, ed. William Roseberry, Lowell Gudmundson, and Mario Samper Kutschbach (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ), . . Chayanov saw the self-exploitation of the so-called peasant as indicative of the difference between those focusing on subsistence or household production and commercial farmers focused on the market, hence the view of the “peasantry” as a separate mode of production. However, any small business, especially a family-run enterprise, depends on self-exploitation, even within such fully market-oriented and commercialized systems as latetwentieth-century U.S. capitalism. See Julie A. Charlip, “A Real Class Act: Searching for Identity in the Classless Society,” in This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class, ed. C. L. Barney Dews and Carolyn Law (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, ). . AMPG, Honorato Molina to departmental inspector, May , , box , sheaf , Notas de alcaldes; Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes,” . . John Tutino, “Family Economies in Agrarian Mexico, ‒,” Journal of Family History, Fall , ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Nov. , , vol. , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de hipotecas y gravámenes, June , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Mendieta, Enfermedad de Centro-América, :‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Feb. , , vol. , fol. ; vol. , fol. ‒; May , , vol. , fol. ‒; June , , vol. , fol. , ; March , , vol. , fol. ‒; Jan. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒; Oct. , , vol. , fol. ‒; Oct. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Apr. , , refiled March , , vol.



    , fol. . This is the same property that later became the subject of legal dispute, with Sánchez selling his litigation rights. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒; May , , vol. , fol. ‒, . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒; June , , vol. , fol. ‒, vol. , fol. ; Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒; July , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. ; June , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Jan. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, May , , no. , fol. . . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, June , , no. , fol. . . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, May , , no. , fol. ‒; Registro de propiedad, May , , vol. , fol. ‒; June , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de la propiedad y derechos reales, May , , no. , fol. . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, March , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒, ‒; vol. , fol. . . Maurice Zeitlin and Richard Earl Ratcliff, Landlords and Capitalists: The Dominant Class of Chile (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), . . Mendieta, Enfermedad de Centro-América, . . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Ibid., . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Oct. , , no. , fol. h‒d. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, July , , vol. , fol. ‒; Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, ‒; RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Apr. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Feb. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, March , , vol. , fol. . . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Apr. , , vol. , fol. , vol. , fol. . . Asunción Lavrín, “The Colonial Woman in Mexico,” in Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives, ed. Asunción Lavrín (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, ), .



    . This would have been under the caballería antigua, which measured . manzanas; in , the measure was changed to the caballería moderna of  manzanas. One manzana equals . hectare or . acres. See Cristina María van der Gulden, Vocabulario nicaragüense (Editorial UCA, Colección Alternativa, Serie Habla Nicaragüense), no.  (): . . Elizabeth Dore, “Property, Households, and Public Regulation of Domestic Life: Diriomo, Nicaragua, ‒,” Journal of Latin American Studies  (Oct. ): . . Silvia Marina Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, ‒ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, ), . . See Código Civil de la República de Nicaragua (Managua: Imprenta de “El Centro-Americano,” ), articles , , , , , and ; emphasis added. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, Oct. , , no. , fol. h–d. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Nov. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro del conservatorio, March , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Dec. , , vol. , fol. ‒; vol. , fol. , , , , . . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Dec. , , vol. , fol. ‒; vol. , fol. , , , , . . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, July , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de personas, Sept. , , vol. , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, Jan. , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de propiedad, March , , vol. , fol. ‒; vol. , fol. ‒; May , , vol. , fol. ; vol. , fol. ‒, . . RPPC, Registro de propiedad y derechos reales, June , , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, Sept. , , vol. , fol. ‒; May , , vol. ‒. It is unclear whether such vague remonstrances against “vice” and “bad habits” could be enforced, but the will clearly demonstrates the father’s intent. . RPPC, Registro de inmuebles, Apr. , , no. , fol. ‒. . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Gobat, “Against the Bourgeois Spirit,” . . Ibid., ‒. . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, ‒. . Jorge A. Blanco G., Diriamba (Managua: Editorial Atlántida, ), . . Guerrero and Soriano, Monografía de Carazo, . 

    . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Ibid., ‒, , ‒. . Guerrero and Soriano, Monografía de Carazo, . . RPPC, Libro de personas, Oct. , , vol. , no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Libro de propiedad, June , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Mendieta, Enfermedad, ‒. . Diriamba cafetalero Raul Castro, interview with author, Diriamba, June , . Castro is the grandson of Ignacio Baltodano.

Chapter  . There was also a report that Campos had once been arrested, but no one seemed to have any details, and the claim was not pursued in the rest of the documents. AMPG, complaint by Rudolfo Campos to alcalde constitucional, San Marcos, May , , and subsequent investigation in the Juzgado Constitucional of San Marcos, all in box , unnum. sheaf, Certificaciones y asuntos electorales. . Constitución política, chapter V, article , reproduced in Lévy, . . Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes,” . . AMPG, Catálogo de Ciudadanos Calificados de Diriamba, , box , estadísticas. . AMPG, Censo de Diriamba, , box , unnum. sheaf, Estadísticas, ‒. AMPG, Catálogo de Ciudadanos de la Villa de Diriamba, September , , box , sheaf x, Estadísticas. It should be noted, however, that  percent of the people on the voting list do not appear in the census. As a Santa Teresa official explained to the prefect in , the census was incomplete “due to causes that are not in my hands to avoid, because . . . there is a strong inclination to resist this operation, denying their names and hiding part of their families, for reasons that it is shameful to express and that reveal the lack of civilization of the masses” (AMPG, Sandino to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades). . Constitución política, ch. , art. , in Lévy, Notas geográficas, . . AMPG, José Robleto to dept. prefect, , box , unnum. sheaf, Asuntos electorales. . Wolfe, “Rising from the Ashes,” . . AMPG, Sabino Ramos, Luciano Gonzales, Pedro García, and Luis 

    Hernandez to dept. prefect; Ramón Sanchez to dept. prefect. Both in box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades. . AMPG, Franciso Gutierrez to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Oct. , , box , sheaf , Notas varias. AMPG, Manuel Castro to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Apr. , , box , sheaf , Notas varias. . AMPG, Timoteo García, Ricardo Sánchez, Francisco Cerda, Silvestre Mendez, Olayo García, and Fruto García to Nicaraguan president Evaristo Carazo, San Marcos, May , . The original complaint was followed by documents collected by Santiago Antonio Moncada and presented to the Juzgado Constitucional, San Marcos, May , , all in box , sheaf , Solicitudes, quejas, y otros. . AMPG, Censo de Diriamba, , box , unnum. sheaf, Estadisticas, ‒. AMPG, Catálogo de Ciudadanos de la Villa de Diriamba, Sept. , , box , sheaf x, Estadisticas. . AMPG, Catálogo de Ciudadanos del Pueblo del Rosario Certificado por la Respectiva Junta, , box , sheaf x, Estadísticas; Copia del Censo Estadístico del Pueblo del Rosario perteneciente al año de , box , sheaf x, Estadísticas. . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, ‒. . Ibid., . . Enrique Guzmán Selva, Huellas de su pensamiento política, literatura, historia, religión (Granada: Tipografía el Centro-Americano, ), cited in Teplitz, “Political and Economic Foundations,” . . Teplitz, “Political and Economic Foundations,” ; Arturo Taracena Arriola, “Historia política de Centroamérica, ‒,” in Encuentros con la Historia, ed. Margarita Vannini (Managua: Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua, Universidad Centroamericano, ), . . Lévy, Notas geográficas, , . . AMPG, box , sheaf ,  and , Cargos consejiles. . AMPG, Enrique Granja to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Correspondencia oficial, . . AMPG, Salvador Parrales testimony to district police chief Feliz Vallecillo, Diriamba, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Quejas varias. . Ibid. . AMPG, Eleuterio Guadamúz to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Dec. , , box , sheaf , Correspondencia oficial. . AMPG, Ignacio Conrado to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Dec. , , box , sheaf , Correspondencia oficial.



    . AMPG, Pascual Guido to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Nov. , ; Leandro Paramo to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Nov. , ; Urbano Guadamuz and Ignacio Conrado to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Nov. , . All in box , sheaf , Elección de senadores, ‒. . AMPG, Antonio Navarro to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, Jan. , ; Concepción Acevedo to dept. prefect, Jan. , ; Isidro Urtecho to dept. prefect, Jan. , . All in box , unnum. sheaf, Telegramas. Antonio Navarro to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, Jan. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Mariano Sánchez, Julian Villavicencio, Felipe Campos, and Felicito Cerda to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades, . Ignacio Conrado to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades, . Ramón Matus to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Notas de varias autoridades, . . AMPG, Ascencion P. Rivas to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Dec. , , and subsequent investigation, box , sheaf , Documentos electorales. . AMPG, Ignacio Zuniga, Rafael Doña, Ramón Avilez, Gil Arevalo, and Francisco Navarro to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, Nov. , , and subsequent investigation, box , unnum. sheaf, Diligencias electorales. . AMPG, Camilo Zuniga and Pedro Arevalo to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, Dec. , , and subsequent investigation, box , sheaf , Asuntos electorales. . AMPG, Julian Bendaña to dept. prefect, Diriamba,  P.M., Nov. , ; Hipólito Gutierrez and A. Fernandez to dept. prefect, Jinotepe,  P.M., Nov. , ; Delgadillo to dept. prefect, Managua, : P.M., Nov. , . All in box , sheaf , Telegramas y escritos varios. . AMPG, Cecilio Rocha to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Oct. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de alcaldes. Office of the President to dept. prefect, Managua, Nov. , , box , Notas ministeriales. Barrios, Ministry of Government, to dept. prefect, Managua, Nov. , , box , Notas ministeriales,  folios. . AMPG, Inocente Chavarria to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Nov. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas ministeriales de alcaldes. . AMPG, José Maria Alegría and T. Lino Jirón to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Jan. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de varias autoridades,  folios.



    . AMPG, José María Martínez to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Sept. , , box , Notas de varias autoridades,  folios. . AMPG, Juan Aragón to dept. prefect, San Marcos, Jan. , , box , Notas de alcaldes,  folios. . AMPG, Office of the president to dept. prefect, Managua, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Notas varias. . AMPG, Office of the President to dept. prefect, Managua, June , , box , sheaf , Correspondencia official,  folios, . . AMPG, Carlos Castillo to dept. prefect, Jinotepe, Jan. , , box , sheaf , Inventarios y telegramas. . AMPG, Cruz Ortega to municipal treasurer, Jinotepe, March , , box , sheaf , Cuentas de Jinotepe. . AMPG, Camilo Zuniga to municipal treasurer, Jinotepe, May , , box , sheaf , Cuentas de Jinotepe, . Cruz Ortega to municipal treasurer, Jinotepe, Aug. , , box , sheaf , Cuentas de Jinotepe, ‒. . La Prensa, no. , July , , in Enrique Guzmán Selva, Las Gacetillas ‒ (Managua: Fondo de Promoción Cultural, Banco de America, ), . . Guerrero and Soriano, . . AMPG, Honorato Molina to departmental inspector, May , , box , sheaf , Notas de alcaldes. . AMPG, Cleto Fonseca to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, Sept. , , box , leg. , Notas de alcaldes y demás autoridades, . Fonseca uses the term huerta, which was the label given most minifundios in the property registries. Lévy defines a huerta as “a small plantation destined for the cultivation of products of usual consumption. It would be difficult to describe because on a huerta there’s a little of everything.” He describes a typical huerta as including maize, bananas, fruit trees, yucca, vegetables, and sometimes a little coffee or cacao, chili for cooking, a house, and some hens and pigs (Lévy, ). . Ibid. . AMPG, Sebastián Vanegas to dept. prefect, Santa Teresa, May , , box , sheaf , Notas de alcaldes, . . AMPG, Feb. , , box , sheaf , Notas ministeriales. Wolfe interprets the incarceration of women in hospitals in the s as gender discourse that cast female criminality as illness: “Deviant behavior became an illness suited to medical attention, rather than a crime subject to punitive incarceration” (Wolfe, ). The Jinotepe efforts in  would suggest, how

    ever, that the use of hospitals was driven not by ideology but by practical necessity—increasing crime meant the jails were full, and with inadequate funds to build more jails, it was easier to put the women in hospitals. . Lévy, Notas geográficas, . . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . AMPG, Enrique Granja, memorandum of taxes collected in Diriamba, September , box , unnum. sheaf, Cuentas de Diriamba y Victoria; Lasaro García, memorandum of taxes, San Marcos, Feb. , , box , sheaf , Cuentas de San Marcos. . AMPG, Camilo Zuniga to municipal treasurer, Jinotepe, Jan. , , box , sheaf , Cuentas de Jinotepe, ; Camilo Zuniga to municipal treasurer, Jinotepe, Jan. , , box , sheaf , Cuentas de Jinotepe, n.p.; Cruz Ortega to municipal treasurer, Jinotepe, April , , box , sheaf , Cuentas de Jinotepe, . . AMPG, Enrique Granja, memorandum of taxes for Diriamba, September , box , unnum. sheaf, Cuentas de Diriamba y Victoria; Antonio Navarro to dept. prefect, annual budget, Jinotepe, Jan. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas de alcaldes, . . AMPG, Garcia to dept. prefect, Managua, Nov. , , box , sheaf , Notas ministeriales, . . Wolfe reports a similar incident in Diriamba in , when the indigenous of Diriamba complained that their tax burden was too heavy and that they were being harassed by the ladino alcalde. Government Minister Buenaventura Selva intervened to order the drafting of a new and more fair tax plan, . . AMPG, presidential and congressional decree, Managua, March , , box , sheaf , Notas ministeriales. . AMPG, Felipe Runí, Report of public works, Rosario, Dec. , , box , sheaf , Documentos electorales y cosas varias, Relación de los trabajos públicos; Jiménez to dept. prefect, La Paz, Dec. , , box , sheaf , Documentos electorales y cosas varias; Gregorio Arcemio de la Rocha to dept. prefect, Diriamba, Dec. , , box , unnum. sheaf, Notas varias,  folios. . Guerrero and Soriano, Monografía de Carazo, . . Ibid., . . Niederlein, State of Nicaragua, , ‒. . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Guerrero and Soriano, Monografía de Carazo, . 

    . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, ‒. . Juzgado de Distrito de Jinotepe, May , , Libro Copiador de Sentencias Civiles, ‒, no. , fol. ‒. . RPPC, Registro de Propiedad, Dec. , , vol. , fol. ‒. . Juzgado de Distrito de Jinotepe, March , , Libro Copiador de Sentencias Criminales, ‒, no. , fol. ‒. . Juzgado de Distrito de Jinotepe, July , , Libro Copiador Civíl, ‒, no. , fol. ‒. . AMPG, congressional decree, Managua, Feb. , , box , sheaf , Notas ministeriales. . Guerrero and Soriano, Monografía de Carazo, . . Ibid., ‒. . Mendoza, Historia de Diriamba, . . Ibid., ‒.

Chapter  . See Fernando Picó, Amargo café: Los pequeños y medianos caficultores de Utuado en la segunda mitad del siglo diecinueve (Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huaracán, ); Picó, Libertad y servidumbre en el Puerto Rico del siglo diecinueve: Los jornaleros uruadeños en vísperas del auge del café (Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huaracán, ); Laird W. Bergad, Coffee and the Growth of Agrarian Capitalism in NineteenthCentury Puerto Rico (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ); Palacios, Café en Colombia; William Roseberry, Coffee and Capitalism in the Venezuelan Andes (Austin: University of Texas Press, ); Thomas H. Holloway, Immigrants on the Land: Coffee and Society in São Paulo, ‒ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ); Franz J. Schryer, The Rancheros of Pisaflores: The History of a Peasant Bourgeoisie in TwentiethCentury Mexico (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ); the essays collected in Roseberry, Gudmundson, and Samper, Coffee, Society, and Power (and the extensive bibliography of works by Samper on Costa Rica); McCreery, Rural Guatemala; and Doug Yarrington, A Coffee Frontier: Land, Society, and Politics in Duaca, Venezuela, ‒ (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, ). . McCreery, Rural Guatemala, . . Mario Samper K., “El significado social de la caficultura costarricense 

    y salvadoreña: Análisis histórico comparado a partir de los censos cafetaleros,” in Tierra, café, y sociedad: Ensayos sobre la historia agraria centroamericana, ed. Héctor Pérez Brignoli and Mario Samper (San José: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales/Programa Costa Rica, ), . . Elizabeth Dore, “La produccíon cafetalera Nicaragüense, ‒: Transformaciones estructurales,” ; Jeffrey L. Gould, “El café, el trabajo, y la comunidad indígena de Matagalpa, ‒,” both in Pérez and Samper, Tierra, café, y sociedad. . Gobat, “Against the Bourgeois Spirit,” ‒. . Samper, “Significado social,” . . Collins, Nicaragua, , . . The term campesino, though frequently translated as peasant, generally in Latin America refers to rural people, whether they have land or work as proletarians or semiproletarians. . “Rural Cooperatives Breaking New Ground?” Envío ,  (June ): . . Collins, Nicaragua, . . Carmen Diana Deere, Peter Marchetti, S.J., and Nola Reinhardt, “The Peasantry and the Development of Sandinista Policy, ‒,” Latin American Research Review ,  (): . . “The Nicaraguan Peasantry Gives New Direction to Agrarian Reform,” Envío ,  (Aug. ): c. . Envío ,  (June ): . . Nola Reinhardt, “Agro-Exports and the Peasantry in the Agrarian Reforms of El Salvador and Nicaragua,” World Development ,  (July ): ‒. . Ibid., . . Envío ,  (June ): . . Arturo Warman, Los campesinos, hijos predilectos del régimen (Mexico City: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, ); Luisa Paré, El proletariado agrícola en México: Campesinos sin tierra o proletarios agrícolas? (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, ), , . . McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds, . . Nagengast, Reluctant Socialists, . . Leslie Anderson, The Political Ecology of the Modern Peasant: Calculation and Community (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ). . Margaret Randall argues that the Sandinistas could have retained power if they included a feminist agenda (Randall, Gathering Rage: The 

    Failure of Twentieth-Century Revolutions to Develop a Feminist Agenda [New York: Monthly Review Foundation, ]). On the indigenous question, Gould writes, “I believe that the FSLN paid at the polls in  for their myopia, for their participation in the reproduction of the myth of mestizaje” (Gould, To Die, ).



Selected Bibliography

Archival Sources Archivo de la Municipalidad de la Prefectura de Granada (AMPG) Juzgado de Distrito de Jinotepe Registro Público de la Propiedad de Carazo (RPPC) Registro Público de la Propiedad de Granada (RPPG)

Published Primary Sources  Economía y finanzas (Managua). Gaceta. Diario oficial. Pabellón nacional (Carazo). Registro oficial (León).

 Arnold, Edwin Lester. Coffee: Its Cultivation and Profit. London: W. B. Whittingham and Co., . Brown, Alex. The Coffee Planter’s Manual. Colombo: Ceylon Observer Press, . Bureau of the American Republics. El café: Su historia, cultivo, beneficio, variedades, producción, exportación, importación, consumo, etc., etc. Washington, D.C.: Oficina Internacional de las Repúblicas Americanas, .



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 Nagengast, Carole. Reluctant Socialists, Rural Entrepreneurs: Class, Culture, and the Polish State. Boulder: Westview Press, . Neira, Oscar. “La reforma agraria nicaragüense: Balance de ocho años.” Nicaragua: Cambios estructurales y políticas económicas. Managua: Instituto Nicaragüense de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales, . Newson, Linda A. Indian Survival in Colonial Nicaragua. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, . “The Nicaraguan Peasantry Gives New Direction to Agrarian Reform,” Envío ,  (August ): c‒c. Oss, Adriaan C. van. Catholic Colonialism: A Parish History of Guatemala, ‒. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . Paige, Jeffrey M. “Coffee and Politics in Central America.” In Crises in the Caribbean Basin, ed. Richard Tardanico. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, . ______. Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, . Palacios, Marco. El café en Colombia: Una historia económica, social y política, ‒. Bogotá: Editorial Presencia, . Paré, Luisa. El proletariado agrícola en México: Campesinos sin tierra o proletarios agrícolas? Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, . Pérez Brignoli, Héctor, and Mario Samper, eds. Tierra, café, y sociedad: Ensayos sobre la historia agraria centroamericana. San José: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO)/Programa Costa Rica, . Picó, Fernando. Amargo café: Los pequeños y medianos caficultores de Utuado en la segunda mitad del siglo diecinueve. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán, . Real Espinales, Blas A., and Marco A. Valle Martínez. “Consideraciones sobre la producción del café y sus incidencias en la estructura agraria en Nicaragua, ‒.” Paper presented in San José, Costa Rica, September . Reinhardt, Nola. “Agro-Exports and the Peasantry in the Agrarian Reforms of El Salvador and Nicaragua.” World Development ,  (July ): ‒. 

 “Reseña historia de las instituciones bancarias que funcionan en Nicaragua.” Economía y finanzas (Organo de la Superintendencia de Bancos y de la Dirección General de Estadística, bimonthly journal, Managua), no.  (August ). Revels, Craig Stephen. “Coffee in Nicaragua: Regional Development and Change in the Nineteenth Century.” Master’s thesis, Portland State University, . Rice, Paul. “Growing from Experience: Eight Years of Agrarian Reform.” Nicaraguan Perspectives  (Fall ): ‒. Rojas Lima, Flavio. La cofradía: Reduction cultural indígena. Guatemala: Seminario de Integración Social, . Romero Vargas, Germán. Las estructuras sociales de Nicaragua en el siglo dieciocho. Managua: Editorial Vanguardia, . Roseberry, William. Coffee and Capitalism in the Venezuelan Andes. Austin: University of Texas Press, . ______. “Peasants as Proletarians.” Critique of Anthropology  (): ‒. Roseberry, William, Lowell Gudmundson, and Mario Samper Kutschbach, eds. Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . Rothenberg, Winifred B. “The Emergence of a Capital Market in Rural Massachusetts, ‒.” Journal of Economic History ,  (December ): ‒. ______. “Mortgage Credit at the Origins of a Rural Capital Market: Middlesex County, Massachusetts, ‒.” Paper presented at a meeting of the Economic History Association, September . “Rural Cooperatives Breaking New Ground?” Envío ,  (June ): ‒. Salgado González, Silvia. “Social Change in a Region of Granada, Pacific Nicaragua,  B.C.‒ A.D.” Ph.D. diss., State University of New York, Albany, . Samper, Mario. Generations of Settlers: Rural Households and Their Markets on the Costa Rican Frontier. Boulder: Westview Press, . Santiago-Rivera, Carlos. “The Practice of Labor Relations in Nicaragua: Class Struggle, Trade Union Functions, and the Development of Workers’ Organizations, ‒.” Ed.D. diss., Rutgers University, . 

 Sartre, Jean-Paul. Sartre on Cuba. New York: Ballantine Books, . Schinke, Ward Brian. “The Political Economy of Coffee and Socialism in Nicaragua.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Riverside, . Schryer, Frans J. The Rancheros of Pisaflores: The History of a Peasant Bourgeoisie in Twentieth-Century Mexico. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, . Tapia Cerda, Norma Maria. “Sistema jurídico registral adoptado en Nicaragua.” Thesis, Universidad Centroamericana, Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales, Escuela de Derecho, Managua, . Teplitz, Benjamin. “The Political and Economic Foundations of Modernization in Nicaragua: The Administration of José Santos Zelaya, ‒.” Ph.D. diss., Howard University, . Thome, Joseph R., and David Kaimowitz. “Agrarian Reform.” In Nicaragua: The First Five Years, ed. Thomas W. Walker. New York: Praeger, . Topik, Steven C. “Coffee: Stimulating or Addictive?” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, Washington, D.C., . Topik, Steven C., and Allen Wells, ed. The Second Conquest of Latin America: Coffee, Henequen, and Oil during the Export Boom, ‒. Austin: University of Texas Press, . Trujillo Bolio, Mario. Historia de los trabajadores en el capitalismo nicaragüense, ‒. Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, UNAM, . Ukers, William H. The Romance of Coffee: An Outline History of Coffee and Coffee-Drinking through a Thousand Years. New York: Tea and Coffee Trade Journal, . Vargas, Oscar-René. “Accumulación, mercado interno, y el desarrollo del capitalismo en Nicaragua, ‒.” Manuscript, Managua, n.d. ______. La revolución que inició el progreso: Nicaragua, ‒. Managua: Centro de Investigación y Desarollo ECOTEXTURA, . Warman, Arturo. Los campesinos, hijos predilectos del régimen. Mexico City: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, . Wheelock Román, Jaime. Entre la crisis y la agresión: La reforma agraria sandinista. Managua: Editorial Nueva Nicaragua, . 

 ______. Imperialismo y dictadura. Managua: Editorial Nueva Nicaragua, . ______. La reforma agraria sandinista: Diez años de revolución en el campo. Managua: Editorial Vanguardia, . Wheelock Román, Jaime, and Luis Carrión. Apuntes sobre el desarollo económico y social de Nicaragua. Managua: Secretaria Nacional de Propaganda y Educación Político del FSLN, . Williams, Robert G. States and Social Evolution: Coffee and the Rise of National Governments in Central America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Winson, Anthony. “Class Structure and Agrarian Transition in Central America.” Latin American Perspectives ,  (fall ): ‒. ______. Coffee and Democracy in Modern Costa Rica. New York: St. Martin’s Press, . Wolf, Eric R. Peasants. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, . Wolfe, Justin. “Rising from the Ashes: Community, Ethnicity, and NationState Formation in Nineteenth-Century Nicaragua.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, . Yarrington, Doug. A Coffee Frontier: Land, Society, and Politics in Duaca, Venezuela, ‒. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, . Young, John Parke. Central American Currency and Finance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, . Zequeira Sánchez, Mario, and Isabel Valdivia Fernández. “El papel del cultivo del café para la sociedad y la economía cubana.” Cahiers du monde hispanique et luso-brésilien Caravelle (Toulouse)  (): ‒.



Index

cacao, , , , , , , , , , ‒, , ,  Calley, Arthur Henry, ‒ Calley, Dagnall and Company, ‒ capital, , , , , , ‒; markets, , , , ; shortages, , , , , , , , . See also lending capitalism and capitalists, , ‒, ‒, ‒, , n. , n. ; small farmers as capitalists,  Carazo, department of, , ‒, , ‒, ,  Carazo, Evaristo, , ,  Castro, Raul, ,  cattle, , , , ‒, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ‒ censo cafetalero, ‒, , , , , , , ,  Chamorro family, , , ‒; Alberto, ‒, , , , , ; Amanda, ; Diego, ; Fernando, , , , , , ; Pablo Emilio, ; Pablo Emilio hijo, ; Pedro Joaquin, , , ; Rosa Delfina Lacayo de C., ; Rosendo, , , ,  Chayanov, A. V., , , , n.  Chevalier, François,  Chibcha,  Chorotega,  church, , ‒,  cochineal, , ‒,  coffee census. See censo cafetalero coffee exports, , , , ‒, , , n. ; exporting countries, , ‒, ; importing countries, , , , n. 

agrarian reform, ‒, , ‒,  agriculture judges, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Anderson, Leslie,  armed forces, , ‒, ; military and soldiers, , , , , , , ; police, , , , , , , , , , ‒, , , , , , , , , ; rural guard, ‒, , , , ,  Arrom, Silvia Marina,  autonomy, , ‒ baldíos. See terrenos baldíos Baltodano family, , , , , ‒, , ‒, ; Enrique, , , ‒, , ‒; Gertrudis, ; Gregoria, , ; Ignacio, , , , ; Ireneo, , ; Isabel, ; Josefa, , ; Maria, ; Moisés, , , , , , ; Oresteles Montiel B., ; Román, , , , ; Saba Solórzano B.; Teodelinda Montiel B., ; Teresa Garcia B., ; Viviana, ‒ bananas, , , , , , , ‒, , , , , ‒n.  banks, , , , , , , , ‒, , , ‒, n. , n.  Baumeister, Eduardo,  Benard, Adolfo, , , , ‒ beneficios, , ‒, , ; Beneficio de Café Calley-Dagnall,  Biderman, Jaime, ‒, ,  Burns, E. Bradford, , ‒, , , ‒, n. 



 coffee farms, number of, ‒, ,  coffee market, , ‒, ,  coffee prices, ‒; ‒, , , ,  coffee production, ‒; costs, ‒, , , , , , , ; cultivation, , ‒, ‒n. ; and ejidos, , , ; government incentives, ‒, ; harvest, , ; introduction in Nicaragua, , , , , ‒, n. ; maintenance, ‒; processing, ‒; profits, , , , , ‒, ; regions in Nicaragua, , ‒, , , ; statistics, ‒, , , , , ‒n. , n. , ‒n. ; and terrenos baldíos, ‒; water needs, , ,  cofradías, , , ‒, , , n. , ; Imagen de Dolores, ,  Collins, Joseph,  Compañía Mercantil del Ultramar, , , ‒ Conservative Party, , ‒, , ‒, , , ‒, , n.  corn. See maize Coronel Urtecho, José, , , n.  Costa Rica, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n.  cotton, , , , , , , ‒,  currency, , , , , , ‒, , , , n. , n. ; bank drafts, , , 

; modernization, , ‒; politics and elections, ‒, , , , ; and sugar, ; taxes, ‒, , ; wealth, ,  Dolores, , , ‒ Dore, Elizabeth, , , ‒, n.  economic organization: coffee, , ‒, ‒, ‒, ‒; colonial, ‒, n. ; early national, ‒; Gold Rush, ‒; pre-Columbian, ‒ Edelman, Pablo, , , ‒, ,  education, , , , , , , , ‒ ejidos, , , , ‒, ‒, , , , , , , , , , n. , n. , ; and coffee, ‒, ‒, ; colonial, ‒; conflicts, ‒, ; distribution in Carazo, ‒; donations, , ‒, , , ; and laws, ‒, n. ; rentals, , , ‒, ‒, , , ; sales, ‒, , , , ,  elections, ‒, ‒, ; and Sandinistas, ,  El Salvador, , , , , , , , , n. , n.  family, ‒, , , ; and concentric homes, , ‒, ; divorce, ‒, , , ; feuds, ‒, ; illegitimacy, ‒, , ; and labor, , , , ‒, , , ‒, , ; laws, ; and lending, , , , n. ; marriage, ‒, , ; size, ,  farms, size of, ‒, Finch, John,  foreign trade, ‒ Frank, Andre Gunder,  Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), ‒, , , , ‒, ‒ Friedmann, Harriet, 

Dagnall, David James, ‒ Deere, Carmen Diana, Peter Marchetti, S. J., and Nola Reinhardt,  De Janvry, Alain, ‒ Diriamba: agricultural production, ; agriculture judges, , , , , , , ; armed forces and police, , , , , , ; beneficios, , ‒, ; business, ; census, n. ; climate, ; and coffee, , ; cofradías, ; description, ; ejidos, , , ; encomienda, ; government officials, , , ; Historia de Diriamba, ; indigenous population, , , , , n. ; individuals from, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; land distribution, , ; and lending, ,

Gobat, Michel,  González family, , , , , ‒, ‒, ; Bernabela, ; Francisco, , ; José Dolores, ; José Esteban, , , , ‒, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; heirs of José Esteban, , , , , , , ‒; José Ignacio, , , , ,



 , , ‒; José Mercedes, ; José Ramón, ; María de Jesús, ; Ramón Ernesto, ; Román,  Gould, Jeffrey L., , , ‒, n.  Granada, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; individuals from, ‒, , , , ‒; prefect, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; Registro de Propiedad, , ; society, ‒, ‒, ‒ Granados Doña, Sara Haydée,  Guatemala, , , , , , , , , , , ,  Gudmundson, Lowell, ,  Guerrero, Julian, and Lola Soriano,  Guzmán, Enrique, 

, , ; indigenous population, , , , , , ; individuals from, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; jails, , , ; land distribution, ; and lending, , ; modernization, , , , ; plaza for coffee delivery, ; politics, , , , ; and railroad, ; Registro de Propiedad, ; and sugar production, , ; taxes, , , ; terreno baldío, , ; wealth, ,  Kaimowitz, David,  Kearney, Michael,  labor, ‒, , ‒, n. ; advances, , , , , , , , , , , , ; and cacao, ; and coffee production, ‒, , , ; community, ‒; competition to hire, , , ‒, , ; contracts, , , , , ‒, , n. ; day laborers, , , n. ; and debt, , , , ‒, , ‒, , , ‒, ‒, n. ; definitions, ‒, ; encomienda, , ‒; and family, ‒, , ; farmers as laborers, , , , ; flight, , , , , , , ‒, ‒, , ‒; and indigo, ‒; as definition of landholdings, ‒; legislation, ‒, , n. ; to repay loans, , , , ‒; matricula, , ; and morality, ‒, , ; peonage, ‒, , ; shortage, , ‒, , , , , ; and smallholding, ‒, , ‒, ; and sugar, ; vagrancy, , , , , ‒; wages, , , , , , , ,  Lacayo family, , ‒; Amanda, ; Angela, ; Berta, ; Blanca Rappaccioli de L., ; Cora, ; David, ; Emilia Rappaccioli de L., ; Gabriel e hijos, ; Graciela, ; José Maria, , , ; Manuel, , , , ; Matilda Rapaccioli de L., ; Narciso hijo, ; Rosa, ; Rosa Delfina, ; Salvador, , ; Sofia, ; Victor Manuel, 

Hearst, Helen Louise, , ,  Herrera, Rafaela, ‒ hipoteca. See lending Hoffman, Odile,  illiteracy, , , , n. . improvements to land, , , , ,  indigenous: coffee production, , ; cofradías, ‒; communities, ‒, ‒, , , , , ‒, ‒, ‒, ‒, ‒, , ‒, , , , , n. , n. ; landholding, , ‒, , , , , , ‒, , , , n. ; markets, , ; political roles, , ‒, n. ; population, , , , , ‒; rights, ; slaves, ‒; sugar production, , ,  indigo, , , , , , ‒, , n.  infrastructure,  inheritance, ‒, , , , , , , , , ‒, ‒ inheritance rights, , , ‒, n.  Jinotepe: agricultural production, ; agriculture judge, , , ; armed forces and police, , , , ‒, , , ; beneficios, , ; business, ; climate, ; and coffee, ; cofradías, ; district court, ; ejidos, , , , ‒, ; encomienda, ; government officials,



 Laclau, Ernesto,  La Conquista, , ,  land: colonial patterns, ‒, ; concentration, ‒, ‒, ; concentric homes, ‒, ; cultural meaning, ‒, ; dismemberment, , , ‒, ‒, ; disputes, ; distribution by size, ‒; and family, ‒, ; market, , ‒; mergers, ‒, ; possession, ; preColumbian patterns, ; prices, , , , ‒, ‒, ‒, , , , , , , ‒, , , , , , ; private, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; registry, ‒, , , ; rental, ‒; sales, ‒; size categories, ‒; sublets, ‒; surveys, , , n. , n. ; transactions, , ; units of measurement, , n. , n. , n. , n. , n. ; and voting rights, ‒. See also ejidos, terrenos baldíos Lanuza, Alberto, ,  La Paz (de Oriente), , , , , ‒, , , , , ,  Lauria-Santiago, Aldo,  Lavrín, Asunción,  lending, , , , ‒, ‒, , ‒, n. ; banks, , , , , , ‒, , , , n. , n. ; borrowers, , , ‒; collateral, , , , , , , , , , , , n. , n. ; colonial period, ‒; commercial houses, ‒; defaults, ‒, , ; hipoteca, , ‒, , , n. , n. , n. , ; interest rates, , , ‒, ‒, , , , , , , , , ; lenders, , , , ‒, , , , ; pacto de retroventa, ‒, , , , n. , , n. , n. , n. ; profits, , , , ; repayment in coffee, , , ‒, , , , , , , , ‒, ,  Lenin, V. I.,  León, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Lévy, Pablo (Paul), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

, , , , , , ‒, ,  Liberal Party, , ‒, ‒, ‒, ,  literacy, , , , , n.  litigation, , ‒, , ‒, , ‒, , , , , ‒, , ,  litigation rights, , , n.  MacLeod, Murdo J., n.  maize (or corn), , , , , , , , , , ‒, ,  Managua, , , , , , ‒, , , ‒, , , , , ,  Martínez, Dámaso, ‒ Matagalpa, , , ‒ Matus Torres, Manuel, , n.  McCreery, David, , ,  McCurry, Stephanie, , ,  Medal, Juan Pío, , , , , ,  Mendieta, Alfredo, , ,  Mendieta, Salvador, , , , , , ,  Mendoza, Juan M., , , , , , , ‒, , ‒, ‒, ‒ Mexico, , , , , , , , , ‒, n.  mining,  modernization, , ‒, ‒ money. See currency, lending Nagengast, Carole, ‒,  Nahua,  Navas, Alberto, , ,  Newson, Linda, , ‒, , ‒n. . Nicarao,  Oss, Adriann C. van, ‒ pacto de retroventa. See lending Paige, Jeffrey M.,  Paré, Luisa, ‒ patriarchy, ‒, , , ‒, , ,  peasants, peasantry, ‒, n.  plantains, , , , , , ‒n.  Playter, Harold, , , , , , , , , ‒, ,  progress. See modernization proletariat, proletarianization, , , , ‒, , , , , , , , , , ‒, n. 



 public works, , , , , , , , , , , ‒, ‒

Somoza family, ‒; Anastasio, , , , , ; Anastasio Somoza Debayle, , , , ; Anastasio Somoza García, , , , , , , ; Filadelfo,  Spaniards, ‒,  Squier, Ephraim George, , ,  sugar, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 

race, ‒, , , ‒, n. , n.  Rappaccioli family, , , ‒, , , ; Blanca, ; Buenaventura, , , ‒, , , , , , , ; Emilia, ; Haydée, , ; Juan, ; Matilda, ; Rappaccioli y Hermanos, , ; Rosaura Moya de R., ; Vicente, , , ‒, , , , , , , , ,  Registro Conservatoria de Bienes Raíces,  Registro de Propiedad, , , , ‒, , , , , , , , n.  roads. See transportation Rodriguez, Vicente, , , , , , , , n.  Romero Vargas, Germán, ,  Rosario, , , , , , ‒, , , ‒, , , , , ,  Rothenberg, Winifred B., 

Taracena Arriola, Arturo,  taxes, , , , , ‒, , , n. ; colonial, ; exemptions for coffee, ,  Teffel, Teodoro, , , , , ,  telegraph, ‒, terrenos baldíos, , , , ‒, , , , , , n. ; and coffee, ‒; distribution in Carazo, ‒; laws, ‒; rental, , , ; sales, ‒,  título supletario, ‒,  Topik, Steven C., ‒ transportation, , , , , ; railroad, , ; roads, ‒, , ‒, ; shipping, ‒, ,  Tutino, John, 

Salgado González, Silvia,  Samper, Mario, , , n.  Sandinistas. See Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional San Marcos: agriculture judge, , , , , ; armed forces and police, ‒, ; beneficios, , , , ; climate, ; and coffee, ; education, , ‒; ejidos, , , ; elections, , , , ; government officials, ; indigenous population, , ‒, ; individuals from, , , , , , , , , ‒, , , , , ; land transactions, ; and lending, ; taxes, ; wealth, ,  Santa Teresa, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Sartre, Jean-Paul,  Scott, James C.,  Siero Gutierrez, José Maria, , , , , ; Juan Manuel,  slavery, , , ; African slaves, , ; Nicaraguan slave trade, ‒; in U.S., ,  social mobility, ‒, ‒

Ultramar. See Compañía Mercantil del Ultramar United States, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ‒, , , , , , , , n. , n.  usufruct, , , ‒, , , , , , ,  Vanderbilt, Cornelius,  Vaughan, Arturo, , , , ,  Walker, William, ,  Warman, Arturo,  Wheelock Román, Jaime, ‒, , , , ‒, , , , , ‒, , n.  Williams, Robert G., , ‒, n. , n.  Wolf, Eric R.,  Wolfe, Justin, , , , , , n. , ‒n. , n. 



 women: and borrowing, , ; and crime, , ‒n. ; and ejidos, ; expanding roles, ‒, ‒, , ; family roles, , ‒, ; and labor, , , , , ‒, , , ; and landowning, ‒; and legal rights, ‒, ‒; and lending, , , , ; limits on roles, ‒, ‒, ; occupations, ,

, ‒, ; and Sandinistas, , n.  W. R. Grace and Co., ,  Zeitlin, Maurice, and Richard Earl Ratcliff,  Zelaya, José Santos, ‒, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 

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