Land reform – The Pull Of The Land

Ranchitos VI — Land Reform and Ranchitos

March 5, 2020March 5, 2020 Richard Barnes

The first 5 posts in this series on ranchitos, looked at the centuries-old history of land ownership in Venezuela (and in much of Spanish colonial America, including parts of what became the United States). One aspect of landholding, consistent throughout the centuries, up to the late 1950s, was a respect for private property, whether it belonged to small landholders or large.

This changed dramatically with the first democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Rómulo Betancourt. (For more on Betancourt, see here and here.)

In 1958, Venezuela had the 4th highest per capita GDP in the world, despite being governed by military governments since the turn of the century. Its monetary policy was stable and property rights were respected and honored.

Marcos Pérez Jiménez went into exile in early 1958, and a new democratic regime was installed under Mr. Betancourt. His government, and that of his successors, completely overthrew the mostly non-interventionist political order that, with fits and starts, had ruled the day for over a century. This is not the place to discuss the Punto Fijo Pact, which, in effect, ultimately centralized political control in two major parties. But it is necessary to note that both parties were socialistic and interventionist.

To quote a Venezuelan writer: “In 1958, Venezuela became a democracy when the dictatorship was overthrown. With that came all the usual benefits of democracy such as freedom of the press, universal suffrage, and other civil rights. Unfortunately, these reforms came along with … destruction of our economic freedom.”

In the matter of landholdings, the land reform launched by Betancourt, with the support of the Punto Fijo Pact signatories, redistributed property holdings. Although the state compensated the owners for the expropriations, it was a “taking” nonetheless. The recipients of the parceled out land did not have actual title to their land, but only the right to work it. Or, in those cases where they were given title, they lacked the expertise, technical know-how, and the necessary infrastructure to make a go of it. In fact, 90% of distributed lands were transferred without title. It was actually a transfer of tenancy, not ownership. In other words, from being working tenants of large, productive haciendas, the peasants became failing tenants of small parcels owned by the state.

To put it simply: in most cases, ownership of land was transferred from private citizens to the state.

To get an idea of the radical nature of these actions in Venezuela’s history, consider: no tax had ever been imposed on land until the latter half of the 20th century.

As we have seen in earlier posts on ranchitos, historically, land was often ceded, or sold for nominal price, by hacendados to men, or families, or widows, who had lived and worked it. These cessions or sales were duly notarized and recorded in municipal or city records. In many other cases, records reflected men who claimed ownership on the basis of decades having lived and worked on sections of land whose original owners and families had been killed or dispossessed during the great bloodlettings of the 19th century.

Excerpts of one such record reads, “….Carlos Durán, citizen of the State and neighbor of the San Juan Parish, I direct myself to you [governor of the state] to justify my right to title: I have lived and worked a small part of the land called “La Angosturita” in my Parish where, with great effort and sacrifice, I have built an inheritance on which I depend for the sustenance of my family. I am now aged and infirm as a result of the vicissitudes and desolation of the federal revolution [one of many 19th century uprisings] to which I contributed with my insignificant personal efforts in the army….”

The excerpt goes on to describe and delineate the parcel, including its boundaries, “[bordered to the east by land owned] by Juan Manuel Durán, to the north and west by Carlos Herrera, to the south by Mrs. Carmen Betancourt de Otero….” On this basis, which, however pitiful, is very detailed and straightforward, title was granted.

In the case of land reform, as with any socialistic endeavor, the impulse was not only to “take”, but also to somehow modify behavior. For example, to quote an Acción Democrática (Betancourt’s political party) technician who, thirteen years later, analyzed land reform’s unkept promises, wrote with a measure of despondency: “It was necessary to create technicians who would understand [agricultural] processes, it was necessary to prepare administrative and managerial personnel, and to educate and equip the laborer in new disciplines with which he had never had any experience. These are some of the elements that hindered the success of our agrarian reform.”

Necessary to create…necessary to prepare…. How? Ex nihilo? Wasn’t this what the former landholders hacendados had been doing for centuries? What gargantuan conceit made the Socialists think they’d do a better job of this than the prior owners? The state rails against the evil landowners. But is the state composed of heavenly angels? Fifty years later, land reform had become a weapon with which to punish the state’s enemies and reward its acolytes. Hacendados were not known to do that.

Part of the problem is that the state (any state) does not like competition. In its view, the greatest Competition, of course, is God. Hence the state’s animosity. However, large landowners are also a form of competition and so must be opposed as well.

What typical “land reform” fails to take into account are the eternal verities. If the state would merely begin with a half-serious consideration of the Ten Commandments, it would hesitate before taking anyone’s land. Naboth’s vineyard comes to mind.

Almost overnight, Venezuela’s agriculture went from 22% of GDP to 5% and its agricultural labor force went from 60% to less than 10%. Only 4% of the land in Venezuela is under cultivation and food must be imported.

Peasants had been given the right to farm land when they knew not how. Or they had been given land they knew little about. They had also been given loans to buy equipment and infrastructure, much of which was defaulted. Knowing there was food and patronage in Caracas, they did what most folks who are averse to starving would do: they abandoned the land and fled to the capital. And not having housing there, they built their own ranchitos.

And they are there still.

Signatories of the Punto Fijo Pact, 1958. From left to right: Rómulo Betancourt, Jóvito Villalba, and Rafael Caldera

The reality of land reform which disregards eternal verities: *ranchitos* near Caracas

Ranchitos III

February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 Richard Barnes

We have considered the encomienda and the hacienda systems and how the former did not grant title to the land, whereas the latter did. We have also seen that in both cases the intent was to help, protect, and instruct the native populations in the Spanish colonies of the Americas, including Venezuela.

That point is important and we will have more to say about it in other posts. For now, let us simply state that the Spanish crown, for all its failures, desired the best for its colonies in the Americas and did what they could in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries to realize that desire. I’ve added emphasis in the prior sentence in order to point out that their concern and their efforts were progressive (in the good sense) and humanitarian at a time when life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” and many did not think it important to care for “savages” in other lands.

In both systems, the character of the “owner”, whether the encomendado or the hacendado, in large measure determined the actual treatment of the Indians (or indigenous peoples). There were many cases where encomendados just ignored the temporary nature of their trusts and outright kept the lands entrusted to them. In some of these cases, but by no means all, the land remained with these after transition to the hacendado system where title was granted by the throne.

An important point to remember is that with both systems, although monetary consideration may not have been given, some service to the crown had been rendered, whereby it was demonstrated that the owners had earned their lands, and the lands had legal title. And, in turn, in many cases, under both systems, the Spaniards and their descendants granted lands to faithful or industrious laborers on their haciendas.

(As to the legal aspects of lands owned by colonists and not by the Indians, that is beyond the scope of the posts on ranchitos, but will be addressed in the future.)

Fast forward with me to very recent times. My Puerto Rican father-in-law owned land which he farmed. During his active years he hired a number of men who remained with him and whose children also eventually worked the land. In at least one case that I’m aware of, he, in effect, granted (very low price) a portion of the farm to a faithful foreman who had served him for years. That foreman is now gone but his descendants continue on the land, holding legal title. None live in ranchitos.

Multiply that example by thousands and you get an idea of the evolution of land ownership in Venezuela and throughout the former American Spanish colonial empire up to the 20th century.

And throughout these centuries, there were no ranchitos and no evidence of death by famine, although too much evidence of hundreds of thousands of deaths by revolutions and upheavals in the 19th century. That’s been covered in other posts (for example, see here and here and here) and will be addressed further in future posts, because Venezuela (and her neighbors) cannot be understood otherwise.

Before arriving to the 20th century in our narrative on Venezuelan ranchitos, it is necessary to note that the era following the blood-soaked revolutionary wars was one of decades of convulsive rebellions and multiple, and at times simultaneously competing governments, led by strongmen (caudillos) of varying ideological persuasions.

One persistent whisper, coursing like a wily salamander throughout speeches, pronouncements, declarations, proclamations, and publications was the attack on “large landowners”. With authoritative conviction, the “tragedy”, the “injustice”, the “offense”, or the “scandal” of a few men owning so much land was condemned and denounced.

This was sheer demagoguery and it had little impact in moving large numbers of people to take whatever action was urged. However, it did move these men’s armies or their armed forces and their political fellow travelers.

As to the “post-independence” epoch of the 19th century, following are generalities and a brief mention of some of the more critical personages; deeper analysis and discussion will have to await other posts in the future given that our concern at present is how we got to the ranchitos.

José Antonio Paez – 1830-1848

Having betrayed Simón Bolivar, he led the separation movement from Gran Colombia in 1829 and in 1830 called a constitutional convention for Venezuela as a country, separate from Bolivar’s Gran Colombia. He (Paez) dominated Venezuelan politics until 1848.

He led the Conservatives, who espoused property rights and property qualifications for voting. He also promoted exports, in particular cacao and coffee.

Most historians agree that his years in power were characterized by stability and economic growth.

José Tadeo Monagas – 1848-1858

He was elected in 1846 as a conservative, successor to José Antonio Paez. However, as Paez had betrayed Bolivar, Monagas, in turn, betrayed Paez by abandoning and actively opposing the Conservative party, including attacking land ownership and, in 1848, he exiled the former president (Paez).

His period in power, shared with his brother, was characterized by turmoil. By 1857 the Monagas brothers attempted to extend his rule, which prompted a rebellion wherein he was deposed. But 5 years of terrible bloodletting, known as the Federal Wars, followed, wherein control of the reins of civil government swung from one party to another or were mired in utter confusion.

By 1863, the “Liberals” were in control and power was assumed by:

Antonio Guzmán Blanco – 1863-1888

More rebellions ensued along with more bloodletting. Guzmán consolidated his power in 1870, having swung from Conservative to Liberal to Conservative and finally back to Liberal. He was in power, off and on, through 1888 and was succeeded, after more turmoil, in 1890 by:

Joaquín Crespo – 1890-1899

Following a now all-too-familiar pattern, Crespo’s rule was more turmoil, confusion, and nastiness. But he still found time and energy to pick a fight with England over a vast wilderness in the East where gold had been discovered. We need to leave that adventure for future posts.

The period from 1830 to 1899 confirmed Simón Bolivar’s exasperated complaint in 1829:

“From one end to the other, the New World is an abyss of abomination; there is no good faith in [Spanish] America; treaties are mere paper; constitutions, books; elections, combat; liberty, anarchy; life, a torment. We’ve never been so disgraced as we are now. Before, we enjoyed good things; illusion is fed by chimera…. we are tormented by bitter realities.”

This, from a man who was largely responsible for the chaos he now bitterly laments. A man who proclaimed the glorious unity of the continent, saw it irredeemably fractured and destroyed. He died, embittered (“I have plowed the sea!”), a mere year later.

The Andinos – 1899-1958

At the threshold of the 20th century, Venezuela was about to embark on a period of dramatic progress, peace, and prosperity. In a few years, her foreign debt would be completely and honorably paid off, a vast network of roads constructed, and the foundations laid for “democratic” government.

In general, land ownership and respect for private property continued as it had since colonial days.

Yet the undercurrent of envy in the mouths and hearts of an energetic minority persisted.

José Antonio Paez, one of the most remarkable figures in Venezuelan and South American history. More on him in future posts. He died in exile in New York City.

José Tadeo Monagas. Betrayed José Antonio Paez and the Conservative Party. His perfidy was rewarded with rebellions, bloodletting, and instability.

Antonio Guzmán Blanco. His name is still mentioned in Venezuela. His time in power (or the power behind the throne) was uneven, but included periods of tranquility and peace. However, overall, turmoil reigned.

Joaquín Crespo, in power at the end of Venezuela’s turbulent and blood-soaked 19th century. He managed to appeal to United States President Grover Cleveland to arbitrate a territorial dispute with Great Britain. The arbitration did not please him nor the Venezuelan elite. He was deposed shortly thereafter.

My late father-in-law (right) with his foreman circa 1960

My late father-in-law (right) accompanying my son harvesting plantains. My father-in-law’s example was a microcosm of the *hacenderos* with good character and their treatment of laborers and their descendants.

Ranchitos II

February 10, 2020February 10, 2020 Richard Barnes

This is the second in a series of posts on the Venezuelan ranchitos.

In “Venezuela, ranchitos (or barrios) are like Brazil’s favelas, the shanty towns which grew around Rio de Janeiro and now are ubiquitous in metropolitan areas throughout country. Argentina has Villa Miseria or asentamientos; Chile has campamentos; Colombia, tugurios; and so on.

“To generalize, these are ‘informal settlements.’ Man-on-the-street terms range from slums to shacks to squatter settlements, etc.”

The approach of politicians to this phenomenon is to assume “they’ve always been there” and then to figure out how to get rid of them or how to induce the millions of people living in them to leave for other, more conventional housing.

However, politicians have been “attacking” the ranchitos for generations now, and all with no success. I believe the lack of success is at least partly due to the modern affliction that causes folks to believe that history began with yesterday’s newspapers. In the case of the ranchitos, it might be helpful to look at the background and approaches to land ownership throughout the American Spanish colonies and subsequent generations.

Our prior post dealt with the encomienda system, whose intention was to protect, catechize, and instruct the native population. This system did not include a transfer of land ownership to the Spanish encomendero, but was rather a trust of limited duration, at the end of which formal, legal title to the land would be granted to the Indians (read here for more Ranchitos I).

Seeing its limitations and perverse incentives, the Spanish crown, after several unsuccessful attempts to abolish it, finally succeeded in ending the encomienda system by royal decree in 1717. However, it continued in use till the early 19th century.

What followed the encomienda system was the equally-maligned hacienda system, which was an improvement, and whose success, including the treatment of laborers and native population, depended much on the character of the hacendados. When researching this system, the student will often come across charged and provocative terms like, oligarchs, feudal lords, and absolute power. Such terms deserve to be accompanied by a couple boulders of salt.

In some cases, but by no means all, the encomenderos under the encomienda system became hacendados under the hacienda system.

Hacienda often refers to a vast landholding producing agricultural products for export. That’s a concise, but too limited definition, as haciendas could also refer to mining areas and even factories. In many cases haciendas included several commercial activities.

The principal distinction between an hacienda and an encomienda is the fact of land ownership. The hacendero was granted title to the land by the crown (land grant). In addition, the natives on an hacienda were considered free labor and many haciendas had families who had worked faithfully for the hacendero family for generations.

The origin of the hacienda concept goes back to the latifundium of ancient Rome. In fact, large landholdings in Venezuela are (were!) known as latifundios, whereas small ones are called minifundios. These range from vast cattle ranches or commercial agricultural concerns, to small, family, subsistence farms, also called conucos. But, generally, the Roman latifundium is known as hacienda in Spanish.

The administration of haciendas or latifundios in Venezuela depended on the character of the hacendero. Depending on your sources, you’ll read that the holdings were run based on slave labor where the hacendero had the power of life and death over the laborers, a wholly negative view. However, you’ll also hear of great men of business whose character commanded unflinching loyalty by his laborers, who were paid their daily wages, and who remained with their employers for generations, a wholly positive view. Could it be that, like much in life, the truth is somewhere in the middle?

As with ancient Rome, latifundios were considered “spoils of war” or great grants which recognized some achievement or service to the king or to the realm. These reflected great private power and in many cases were also the backbone, or part of the backbone, of the region or area in which they operated. They created wealth, stability, and continuity, not to mention the projection of the area’s production to other parts of the country and to foreign lands. In sum, these were large, successful business enterprises. For example, the Puerto Rico haciendas were known for their sugar cane and coffee and whose crops were exported.

What is usually heard about the land grants system is that it eventually resulted in 2% of landholders owning 80% of the land (figures vary, but not by much). Such government statistics are notoriously unreliable, but let us stipulate them as correct for now. Their own figures also tell us, in the case of Venezuela, that as late as the 1930’s agriculture accounted for 22% of GDP and 60% of labor, including exports of crops. After “democratic” land reforms, agriculture accounts for about 5% of GDP and 10% of employment and all food is imported.

We can debate the impact of “modernization” on those figures, but our debates must not ignore the effects of “land reform”, which also coincided with the rise of the ranchitos.

Was this coincidental or is there a causal conjunction?

Painting of a late 19th century Puerto Rico hacienda, Hacienda Aurora, near the southern city of Ponce, Puerto Rico

Hacienda La Aída, near Colonia Tovar, north central Venezuela

Hacienda La Victoria, Mérida, in western Venezuela.

Hacienda Santa Teresa, rum factory between Caracas and Maracay. In operation over 200 years.

Ranchitos I

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 Richard Barnes

In Venezuela, ranchitos (or barrios) are like Brazil’s favelas, the shanty towns which grew around Rio de Janeiro and now are ubiquitous in metropolitan areas throughout Brazil. Argentina has Villa Miseria or asentamientos; Chile has campamentos; Colombia, tugurios; and so on.

To generalize, these are “informal settlements.” Man-on-the-street terms range from slums to shacks to squatter settlements, etc.

They are a sight to behold.

A visitor to the once dynamic, modern, enterprising city of Caracas is amazed as he emerges from one of the last tunnels leading from the international airport in Maiquetía, and, before getting a glimpse of the capital city’s shiny skyscrapers, he is slapped with a view of colorful, makeshift, paper shacks, stacked sky-high, side by side, grasping the massive mountainsides for miles.

“Who lives here?! Who can live here?”

By latest estimates, about 700,000 in Argentina, 48,000 in Chile, 300,000 in Colombia, and 12,000,000 in Brazil. About 1,000,000 Venezuelans make their homes in ranchitos, 800,000 of which are in Caracas. But the Venezuela figures are old and suspect. Meaning, the numbers now are likely higher.

What caused these to begin with?

In the case of Venezuela, a few sources says the “oil boom” was to blame. However, that boom began in the early 20th century, whereas the ranchitos exploded in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Other sources simply presuppose the ranchitos and just report the headache these are to different politicians in different eras. One source actually said that Hugo Chavez was the first politician to declare “war” on the ranchitos, which is laughable propaganda. Hearing about governments’ plans to attack the ranchitos takes me back to my childhood, which long preceeded Chavez.

I recently asked my dear 89-year-old mother what she could recall regarding the origins of the ranchitos.

“I remember when they began appearing. The usual commentary was that they were poor people leaving the conucos [small family farms] and coming to the capital city on the basis of promises of high-paying jobs, which did not materialize for them.”

But why did they come in the mid-twentieth century and not before?

This is not a mere academic matter. As I’ve written in other posts, most recently in the post on Spain and the Reformation (Spain and the Reformation), “…North, Central, and South America have more in common with one another than is usually assumed….” Perhaps by understanding at least some of the causes behind the ranchitos of Venezuela, we would not only better understand our neighbor(s), but we might even avoid some of the pitfalls that have bedeviled them.

First, we’ll review the encomienda system brought to the New World during the Spanish discovery and conquest. Future posts will look at the hacienda system and subsequent “land reforms”, which have been the bane of peoples around the globe and yet continue to function as a siren call to many.

The much-maligned encomienda system was intended to protect and instruct the native population. In general, the system “granted” areas or regions to the Spanish Conquistadores, soldiers, and other pioneers with the encomienda — the trust, the charge, the responsibility — to protect, evangelize, and catechize all the peoples in their areas, their encomendados.

Significantly, this did not include a transfer of land ownership. The Crown insisted the land revert to the native population. The encomendero — the receiver of the grant — could exact tribute from the peoples in their encomienda in the form of minerals, produce, or labor.

In addition, the encomenderos were required to pay tribute to the crown and, as if that weren’t disincentive enough, the grants’ durations were limited to no more than two successive generations.

Had the Crown or its ministers somehow have been able to travel to the future century and read William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Colony they would have anticipated the deadly flaw in such an arrangement. Without ownership, incentives for industry and production were disfigured. Good men did their best but also had to look out for their own interests, including, in the case of many, outright confiscations of the lands, albeit with kind treatment of the natives, in many cases also granting them small parcels of land outright. Others, in effect, mistreated and enslaved the Indians. These are the ones who ended up incentivizing Bartolomé de las Casas to produce his dangerous broad-brush propaganda, which caused havoc in subsequent centuries and which is so much with us to this very day. For more on the monk and his writings, refer to the post, Simón Bolivar (Simon Bolivar).

The encomienda system produced gratifying results early on, including decent education and learning of the Spanish language, something that genuinely impressed the anti-Spaniard, Alexander Humboldt. But overall it did not render good fruit and was officially ended in the late 18th century, although historical records reflect no new conferments of encomiendas after 1721.

It is instructive to note that the encomienda system was in effect in Spain itself, but with one critical difference: in Spain, unlike in the New World, the encomenderos were actually granted title to the lands.

To her credit, Spain believed that once the Indios had been catechized and educated they would become good subjects of the Spanish crown and would be treated as such, ownership of land. This helps explain why the Latin American wars for independence required so much malignment of Spain, including resurrecting Bartolomé de las Casas to once again preach his hatred. And despite the relentless propaganda, many 19th-century Latin Americans disbelieved their betters and resisted the wars. Hence, the unbelievable bloodletting, especially in Venezuela with 33% of its population eradicated. It’s been persuasively argued that those wars were actually civil wars as opposed to wars for independence.

What followed the encomienda system was the equally-maligned hacienda system, which was an improvement, and which depended much on the character of the hacendados.

This “ancient history” is important and is with us still. For example, many of the original land holdings in Texas originated from Spanish land grants which were honored by the Texas Republic after independence. The beginnings of the world-renowned King Ranch are marked by Captain King’s purchase of a 15,500-acre Mexican land grant in the mid-19th century.

What’s more, Captain King himself established a sort of encomienda wherein, during a devastating drought where the people of Cruillas in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, in order to survive, sold him all their cattle. As he and his men rode the herd back to his ranch in Texas, he suddenly realized the people of Cruillas would not survive. He turned his horse and he and his men rode back and offered the people protection and pay if they came with him and worked in his ranch along with his men. The people agreed and became known as LosKiñenos, whose descendants still work at the ranch.

And do not live in ranchitos.

We will look at the hacienda system in a future post.