Wool trade and commercial networks in buenos aires, 1840s to 1880s 1

Journal of Latin American Studies

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 1983, Pages 49-81

  Sabato, Hilda ^a  

^a NONE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 0021075699     PISSN: 0022216X     EISSN: 1469767X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X00009561     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. This article includes part of the findings contained in chapter vi of my Ph.D. thesis entitled 'Wool Production and Agrarian Structure in the Province of Buenos Aires, North of the Salado, 1840s-1880s' (University of London, 1980). I am indebted to John Lynch, Samuel Amaral and Juan Carlos Korol for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article. I also wish to express my thanks to the University of London Central Research Fund and to the Ford Foundation for granting me funds to carry on the research work of which this article is a partial result, and to all those who in one way or another helped me in the difficult task of spotting private archives or gave me information on the history of wool trading firms. My particular gratitude to Georges Cormouls-Houlès, of Mazamet; Claude Fohlen, of Paris; Stuart Wright, of Liverpool; Karel Veraghtert, of Brussels; Emilio Roux and Alfredo Montoya, of Buenos Aires and Charles Jones, of Warwick.
2. See Hilda Sabato, op. cit.
3. General references to the pastoral era are to be found in most books devoted to the economic history of Argentina. More detailed analysis on particular aspects of the history of that period are found in J. C. Chiaramonte, Nacionalismoy liberalismo económicos en Argentina, 1860–1880 (Buenos Aires, 1971); H. Giberti, Historia económica de la ganadería argentina (Buenos Aires, 1966); and J. Brown, A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776-1860 (Cambridge, 1979).
4. Jacques Tôulemonde, Naissance d'une métropole. Historic économique et sociale de Roubaix et Tourcoing an XIXe siècle (Tourcoing, 1966), p. 14.
5. See Alan Barnard, The Australian Wool Market 1840-1900 (Melbourne, 1958), p. 24, and Claude Fohlen, L'industrie textile au temps du Second Empire (Paris, 1956), p. 331.
6. While, by 1840, foreign wools accounted for only 22% of the raw material consumed by French manufacture, by 1885 they covered almost 80% of that consumption, Paul Bairoch, Revolución industrial y subdesarrollo, (México, 1967), p. 537.
7. Archives Nationales, Paris, Douanes, Produits et dépouilles d'animaux (laines), 1890, F/12/6843.
8. Fohlen, op. cit., pp. 132-7; Toulemonde, op. cit., pp. 9-74; J. Blockhuys, 'Le marché de laines à Anvers', in Rapports Commerciaux, vol. 1 (1881), pp. 181-93; Félix Faure, Le Havre en 1878 (Le Havre, 1879); Bulletin de la Société de Géographic Commercial de Bordeaux (1884-90); Archives des Affaires Etrangères (France), Correspondence commerciale, Buenos Aires (consular), vols. 3–15 (1838-90); E. de Harven, Le marché de laines à Anvers (Antwerp 1879).
9. Fohlen, op. cit., p. 331; G. Polain, Le délainage et sa capitale Mazamet (Castres, 1951).
10. Barnard, op. cit., pp. 25-33; De Harven, op. cit.; Blockhuys, op. cit.; Le Courier de la Plata, 19 March 1868; Recueil Consulaire (R. Belgique), vol. 12 (1866), pp. 109-17; vol. 16 (1870), pp. 203-12; vol. 18 (1872), p. 175; vol. 20 (1874), pp. 450–5 5; vol. 21, 1875.
11. Blockhuys, op. cit., p. 182.
12. Globus, vol. 20, 1871, p. 126; Handels' Archiv, vol. 56, pt. 1 (1856), pp. 281-82; vol. 57, pt. 1 (1857), p. 616; vol. 58, pt. 1 (1858), p. 697; Henkel, 'Die Wolleproduktion der La Plata-Staaten' in Die Welthandel, vol. 2 (1870), pp. 573–75.
13. 'Report on wool imported to the United Kingdom', published every year in Parliamentary Papers, Accounts and Papers; Barnard, op. cit., p. 24; 'Commercial History and Review', published yearly by The Economist, 1875–90.
14. Barnard, op. cit., p. 39.
15. G. Abbot, The Pastoral Age: A Re-examination (Melbourne and Sidney, 1971), pp. 55-8; Barnard, op. cit., pp. 25–33. Blockhuys, op. cit; De Harven, op. cit.
16. The Economist, vol. 47, 20 July 1889, p. 927.
17. Barnard, op. cit., p. 43.
18. Abbot, op. cit., pp. 58–88, and N. G. Butlin, Investment in Australian Economic Development, 1861-1900 (Cambridge, 1964), pp. 60–1.
19. Archives des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, Correspondance Commerciale, Anvers (consular), vol. 14(1862-6), pp. 396-97, 5 July 1866, and Buenos Aires (consular), vol. 10(1873-8), pp. 94–95, 30 January 1874; The South American Journal, 11 November 1880, p. 18; The Economist, Supplement, Commercial History and Review of 1886, vol. 45, 19 February 1887, p. 27.
20. For tallow, see Tulio Halperín Donghi, 'La expansión ganadera en la campaña de Buenos Aires', in T. Di Tella y T. Halperín Donghi, Los fragmentos de poder (Buenos Aires, 1968), p. 27; for wheat, Héctor Perez Brignoli, 'Agriculture capitaliste et commerce des grains en Argentine (1880–1955)' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Paris, 1975; mimeo), p. 171.
21. L'Economiste Français, vol. 1, no. 3 (1873), p. 73, and vol. 1, no 15, (1873), p. 411; The Brazil and River Plate Mail, vol. x, 7 January and 8 March 1873; C. F. Woodgate, Sheep and Cattle Farming in Buenos Aires (London, 1876), p. 14. For a similar situation in 1881, see Blockhuys, op cit.
22. The Economist, Supplement, Commercial History and Review of 1883, vol. 42, 23 February 1884, p. 25.
23. Vera Reber, 'British Mercantile Houses in Buenos Aires, 1810 to 1880' (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1972) (although this dissertation was published in 1979, my citations are from the original text); Charles Jones, 'British Financial Institutions in Argentina, 1860-1914' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1973); Jonathan Brown, op. cit.
24. Archives of the Foreign Office, Public Record Office, London. Argentina (F.O. 6) Vol. 153. Consul Hood to Viscount Palmerston, Memorandum annexed to letter no. 10, Buenos Aires, 2 March 1850; Recueil consulaire (Royaume Belgique), vol. 9 (1863), pp. 238-241; Gran Guía de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires 1886 (Buenos Aires, 1886), p. 895.
25. Cf. Brown, op. cit., pp. 105-8; Emile Daireaux, Vida y costumbres en el Plata (2 vols., Buenos Aires, 1881), vol. 11, pp. 288–9, 304-9; Estanislao Zeballos, Descripción amena de la Kepublica Argentina (3 vols., Buenos Aires, 1881–8), vol, in, p. 236; Gibson, op. cit., pp. 112-15; Carlos Lix-Klett, Estudios sobre producción, comertio y finanzas de la República (Buenos Aires, 1900), pp. 268, 12 5 7; Etienne de Rancourt, Fazendas et estancias, Notes de voyage sur la République Argentine (Paris, 1901), pp. 251-3; De Harven, op. cit.; Blockhuys, op. cit.
26. Recueil Consulaire (Royaume Belgique), vol. 9 (1863), pp. 238–41.
27. In 1866 the first of these agents from northern France, M. Adam, arrived in Buenos Aires, sent by the house Jules Desurmont et fils, of Tourcoing (Fohlen, op. cit., pp. 137-8; Toulemonde, op. cit. p. 49). He had been preceded in 1856 by a representative of Maison Perie of Mazamet and in 1863 by Messieurs Daure, Guiraud and Armengaud, also from Mazamet, who had opened a local office in Buenos Aires to sell woollens and buy sheepskins on account of M. Cormouls-Houles.
28. Archives of the Bank of London and South America (BOLSA), University College, London. Letter Book D 35–4, Buenos Aires Branch to Head Office. Confidential, 13 November 1879. Extensive reference to these wool buyers and the houses which sent them is found in the correspondence of BOLSA.
29. The history of these houses and their agents in Argentina has yet to be written. Their business in Buenos Aires soon exceeded that of exporting produce of sheep for their own manufacturing concerns or on behalf of others. In the late 1880s, when speculation became the most profitable activity in the River Plate, we find several of them investing in land, mortgage cédulas, government bonds, and shares of private and public companies. Emilio Delpech, Una vida en la Gran Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1944), p. 133; Ets. Cormouls-Houlés, père et fils, Private archives: Correspondence, Livre Particular, 1884–7 and 1887–91.
30. Delpech, op. cit., pp. 63–4 (my translation).
31. Anales de la Soeiedad Rural Argentina, vol. 20, p. 584.
32. Brown, op. cit., pp. 105-8; Daireaux, op. cit., vol. 11, pp. 304–9, 321; Zeballos, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 236-7; Gibson, op. cit., pp. 170-8; Lix-Klett, op. cit., pp. 268-9; Tribunates de Comercio de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), Legajo P/274 'D. J. Perez contra Dn. Ildefonso Torres y Gervasio Orozco', 1857.
33. The South American Journal, vol. 22, 24 January 1885, p. 39.
34. In the 1880s we have detected almost 200 names of brokers and consignment agents working in Buenos Aires. Lists of existing consignment houses are available in the different guias published throughout the period.
35. J. A. Martin de Moussy, Déscription géographique et statistique de la Confederation Argentine (Paris, 1860/73), pp. 124-5; Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna, La Argentina en el año 1855 (Buenos Aires, 1936), pp. 124-6; William MacCann, Two Thousand Miles' Ride through the Argentine Provinces, Being an Account of the Natural Products of the Country and the Habits of the People (2 vols., London, 1853), vol. 1, pp. 216–17, Delpech, op. cit, pp. 34–6, 64–9.
36. 37The Brazil and River Plate Mail, 7 July 1866, p. 296.
37. Data on the amount of wool sent to Buenos Aires from the different stations by the Western Railway is to be found in Ferrocarril del Oeste, Memorias del Directorio (Buenos Aires, 1880–1884).
38. Tribunales de Comercio de Buenos Aires, AGN, Legajo G/109, 'Don Cruz Giles contra Don Pedro Arana' and 'Jose Gonzalez Molina contra Gil Cabrera', 1852–4.
39. Delpech, op. cit.
40. Anales de la Sociedad Rural Argentina, vol. xi (1877), p. 132 (my translation); see also Martin de Moussy, op. cit., p. 18.
41. Zeballos, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 236–7.
42. Between the 1850s and the 1880s, those costs dropped over 30%. See Hilda Sabato, op. cit., pp. 242–50.