THE INVISIBLE WORLD OF THE MULETEERS

Little has been written about muleteers and the transportation network of the

nineteenth century. The world of the muleteer has remained invisible because the focus

on transportation in Latin America, as in much of the rest of the world, has been on the

changes the railroad brought. Not only that, but the mostly illiterate muleteers, llama

herders, and cart drivers rarely entered the historical record because, unlike the railroad

companies, they generated little paper. Despite the invisibility of these people and what I

call the “pack animal transportation network” is in fact essential for understanding Latin

American economic history up to the 1920s. Muleteers with their pack animals

constituted the only means of transportation for the south-central Andes. There were no

significant navigable rivers and only the Pacific coast, home to the lightly populated

Atacama, the driest desert in the world, used maritime transport. Muleteers and their

animals were essential for the moving of all goods for import-export merchants, mining

companies, haciendas, cities and peasant communities. Only when the railroads entered

in the late nineteenth century did the pack animal transportation complex change.

Railroads changed the complex, but did not eliminate it.

The south-central Andean region was affected by the muleteers economically,

socially and in power relations. The transportation complex implied a different

distribution of income among various sectors of society, a different organization of

resources, as well as different lines of power. Although these aspects have remained

largely invisible to economic history, the pack animal transportation complex had a

significant effect on many aspects of life in Latin America before the advent of the

railroad. These effects included the transfer of wealth to the transportation sector because

1

of high cost, the economic power that peasant muleteers and llama drivers maintained,

and the ties of mutual dependence between miners, import/export merchants, hacendados,

and peasant teamsters.

One reason why the pack animal transportation complex has been largely

invisible is because it has been hard to quantify the number of individuals involved in the

sector or even the number of animals involved to transport goods. José María Dalence

estimated that in Bolivia in 1846 there were 13,311 mules, 47,383 donkeys, and 836,845

llamas. The vast majority of the mules and donkeys were imported from Argentina,

though a few were bred in Bolivia.1 There are no figures for nineteenth-century northern

Argentina, but the numbers there were even greater. The mules and donkeys in that

region were mostly fattened and transported from the Calchaquí Valley, high valleys on

the eastern side of the Andes in Argentina, in Tucumán and Salta provinces. Many mule

drivers from the Calchaquí Valley also provided their services to the rest of the region.

Be that as it may, the overwhelming majority of pack animals in the south-central Andes

were llamas, which belonged almost exclusively to the indigenous communities of the

Bolivian altiplano. Indigenous peoples were associated with domestic commerce, which

was not taxed by the Bolivian state since 1837. As such, the state was not interested in

this type of trade since it did not receive any income. The Bolivian state cared about the

Indian head tax and certain labor obligations to officials and the Church, but little else.2 1 José María Dalence, Bosquejo estadístico de Bolivia (La Paz: Universidad Mayor de Andrés, 1975 [1848], 246, 244, 277-8. Of those, 600,708 llamas existed in Bolivia exclusive of the department of La Paz, which is outside of this study. Unfortunately, Dalence does not break down the number of mules and donkeys by department, so we do not know how many must be substracted for La Paz. Given the almost exclusive reliance on llamas (other than in the Yungas) in La Paz, it is likely that virtually all donkeys and llamas Dalence noted were from the region under consideration in this study.2 Colección oficial de leyes, decretos, órdenes y resoluciones supremas que se han expedido para el régimen de la Republica Boliviana vol. 5 (Sucre: Imprenta de López, 1837), 212-214. By 1834 officials were urging the governmeent not to tax Indian commerce, since they supposed it to be on a minor scale. See for example “Libro de Actas de la Diputacn de Comercio dela Capital de este Departamtode Oruro, erigido en 1˚ de Febo del año de 1830,” f. 15v, Archivo de la Corte Superior de Oruro. Only silver, gold,

2

In Argentina, trade within the Argentine Confederation also was not taxed. The only tax

on trade where Indians from the extreme north (Salta and Jujuy) might have been

involved, the trade in mules, was suppressed in 1822. Since there were relatively few

Andean Indians proportionally in the Argentine Confederation, they were not taken much

into account and did not have to pay tribute, unlike Bolivia.3 The vast majority of

citizens of northern Argentina engaged in transport in any case did not claim indigenous

heritage.

The transport sector involved a range of activities that often used different types

of drivers, different animals, required different contracts, and had different costs

associated with it. In the case of the south-central Andes, there were four kinds of

transport: First, long-distance trade involved mostly imported goods (primarily textiles),

but also products from within the region, such metals for export to coast, coca leaf, and

alcoholic beverages. Some of this long-distance trade was carried not just on the backs of

pack animals, but in the southern and eastern portions of the region (mainly Argentina

and Tupiza, Bolivia and the lowlands up to Santa Cruz, Bolivia) large carts pulled by

teams of oxen also were used. The second category was short-distance trade – mainly

foodstuffs, fuel, wood, and some rougher textiles, which were produced within the

region. The third type of transport activity constituted hauling ore from the mine to the

refinery. The fourth was herding cattle, donkeys, and mules from Argentina and the

Bolivian lowlands either west to the Pacific coast or north to the Andean highlands.4

coca, sugar, and wine, and brandy remained taxable. The best recent work on elite attitudes towasrds Andeans in Bolivia is Brooke Larson, Trials of Nation Making: Liberalism, Race, and Ethnicity in the Andes, 1810-1910 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 202-245.3 For Argentine trade legislation, see Viviana Conti XXXX. For attitudes and treatment of Andeans in Argentina, see for example Gustavo L. Paz, “Encomienda, hacienda y orden rural en el norte argentino: Jujuy 1850-1900,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos, 61:2 (2004), 551-570. The indigenous peoples of the Argentine Chaco were largely outside the state’s purview except as laborers on the sugar estates of Jujuy.4 SIMILAR TO WHAT VIVIANA & I WROTE IN DE

3

Carts, mule and llama caravans, and the herding of livestock were largely

invisible to contemporary observers in the south-central Andes because these modes of

transport were ubiquitous, both in the towns and villages as well as on the well-worn

trails connecting the urban centers. Travelers rarely noted the llameros or the muleteers

who traveled along the trails, because they themselves were using the same mode of

transportation. It is odd that European travelers left few descriptions of their fellow

travelers, the muleteers and llameros, but understandable because interactions with them

was so common as not to be noteworthy in their travelogues. Indian peasants, unless they

were dressed in bright and exotic clothes often were invisible to these travelers, as

peasant subalterns have been throughout the world.

Economic Impact

The economic history of nineteenth-century transportation has focused mainly on

the advent of the railroads and its impact. The railroad revolutionized transportation in

the south-central Andes, as it did in Latin America and the world. However, the focus on

the transformations the iron horse brought in economic history slights the previous

scheme based on human and animal power. The pack animal transportation system had

important economic implications that need to be explored to understand economic

development of most of the nineteenth century. The impact was concentrated in

transportation costs and the distribution of income, regional specialization in transport

infrastructure, the role of transportation on merchant activities, the effect on peasant

communities (whose members constituted the vast majority of transportation specialists),

and the land tenure system that supported both the raising of pack animals and the

production of forage for the animals to eat.

4

Pack animals were ubiquitous in the south-central Andes; in the countryside all

but the poorest villagers had at least one or two donkeys or a few llamas. In the towns

and cities, mules, donkeys, and llamas jostled for space with pedestrians in the streets.

Most hacienda peons also maintained a few pack animals for their own use or for hauling

goods from the hacienda to town.

Despite the presence of pack animals throughout the region, certain areas within

the south-central Andes specialized in the transportation of goods. The areas specializing

in transport changed over time, as the south-central Andean economy waxed and waned.

Indeed, analysis of the pack animal transportation complex shows that Andean peasants

responded throughout the period to economic stimuli, taking advantage of opportunities

as conditions warranted. The inhabitants of three regions dedicated themselves to

transporting goods across the countryside during the whole period under discussion.

They did so in the nineteenth century across the whole region, without regard to national

boundaries. Around Challapata to northern Potosí, on the central altiplano of Bolivia, the

indigenous communities concentrated on transporting goods with their llamas. They

were specialists in hauling minerals from the mines to the ingenio and to the coast,

foodstuffs, fuel and other goods for the mining camps and the cities, and coca leaf. They

also engaged in commerce with the southern Peruvian coastal communities, taking

foodstuffs and returning with cotton and brandy.

As mentioned above, the muleteers of the Calchaquí valley in the western

portions of Salta and Tucumán provinces in Argentina provided services throughout the

south-central Andes. The Calchaquí valley, with its barley and alfalfa fields, was a prime

location for the fattening of mules and donkeys as well as cattle, before they made their

5

trip either across the Andes to the Pacific coast or north, to Bolivian and Peruvian

markets. The muleteers hauled goods throughout the region, from imports up the Andes

from the coast, to foodstuffs between Bolivian towns.

Lastly, wagon train owners came mainly from the Argentine city of Tucumán and

environs, the major manufacturing center for these wagons (called carretas) since the

colonial period. Most of the oxen for the wagons were bred in northern Argentina, in

Salta province. The wagons came as far as southern Bolivia, though most were used for

transport between northern Argentina and points south, such as Córdoba and Buenos

Aires. The use of wagons decreased transport costs into the south-central Andes,

especially from Rosario and Buenos Aires and the other outlets to the Atlantic Coast.

Wagons were the major means of transportation for bulk goods across the pampas and

points north until the advent of the railroad in the late nineteenth century.5 Carretas were

also used for the north-south trade along the eastern plains hugging the Andean foothills.

The city of Santa Cruz was the manufacturing center for the oxcarts used along the

eastern Andean spine. (See map.) For a short period, during the boom of the Caracoles

silver mines in the Atacama from 1872 to 1874, miners and merchants also used carretas

to transport goods and minerals back and forth from the Pacific coast.6

Ebbs and Flows in the Pack Animal Transportation Complex

5 See for example Esteban Nicolini, “El comercio en Tucumán, 1810-1815: flujos de mercancías y dinero y balanzas comerciales,” Población y Sociedad, 2 (1994), 47-79; V. Martin de Moussy, Description geographique el statistique de la Confédération Argentine, v. 2 (Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot Frères, Fils et Cie, 1860), 565- Granillo, Provincia de Tucumán, 106-107, 125.6 See for example Legajo 177:17, Archivo Judicial de Antofagasta, Archivo Nacional de Chile; also see Manuel Othon Jofré, to Hilarión Daza, Antofagasta, July 22, 1877, Copiador de cartas del Gen. Manuel Othon Jofré, p. 4, Archivo de Jorge Vito Blacud, Tarija. Also see Carmen Gloria Beravo Quesada, La flor del desierto: El mineral de Caracoles y su impacto en la economía chilena (Santiago: DIBAM, 2000), 50-53.

6

The growth of the transportation network in the south-central Andes isdifficult to

trace. However, triangulating between different sources makes possible delineating shifts

in the number and type of animals. This triangulation provides clues when different

regions specialized in transportation, with their attendant benefits and problems.

As the British commercial agent Joseph Pentland made clear in 1826, the wars for

independence had wreaked havoc on the mule and donkey trade throughout the region.

That year, according to Pentland, only 2,000 mules and donkeys were imported from

Argentina.7 CONTI - FILL IN DATA FROM 1825-1853 For the rest of the decade, the

numbers increased, but fell again in the 1830s, recuperating somewhat in the 1840s. In

the 1850s and 1873, the numbers increased to a level of around 8,000 mules a year,

reflecting the mining boom of the period. Afterwards, the numbers dropped rapidly,

declining to less than half the amount in the late 1870s. The War of the Pacific (1879-

1883) virtually stopped the mule and donkey trade and when the war was over, the

number of mules and donkeys exported to Bolivia remained between 1,321 mules to

almost 800 from 1886 to 1887 and 2,152 donkeys to slightly over a thousand for the same

years.

LIVESTOCK EXPORTS FROM SALTA AND JUJUY

Year Mules Donkeys Horses

1869 6634 3248 221

1871 7951 5266 541

1872 6044 5031 96

1873 7932 4875 73

1874 5633 5012 159

7 Pentland, 103.

7

1875 4691 3936 84

1876 2764 4067 118

1877 3275 2168 124

1879 1564 364 23

1886 1321 2152 187

1887 795 1011 45

Source: Memorias de Hacienda, República Argentina, AGN. AGREGAR CONTI

In addition to the dramatic changes in numbers of animals imported from

Argentina to Bolivia and Peru, within the Andes the regions that specialized in

transporting goods changed over time. One of the best examples of the regional shifts in

the pack animal transportation complex is that of southern Potosí, (Porco, Chichas, and

Lípez provinces). Initially, there was little transport capacity in the region. This was the

case because little trade or mining activity occurred in the first years after independence

in the south-central Andes. In the 1830s there were few individuals and few animals to

transport goods. During that decade, the major transport need was that of quicksilver for

processing silver ore that the Bolivian government desired to have taken from the port of

Cobija to the silver mining city of Potosí. The lack of pack animals and infrastructure in

the region was notable. In December 1834 the prefect of Potosí ordered the subprefects

in the department to find muleteers to carry 300 bottles of mercury from the port to the

mines. First, the subprefect of Litoral province claimed that although he ordered the

governor of Atacama to collect all the pack animals of the province to haul the mercury,

this was impossible “because of the scarcity of the beasts that has been felt this year

because of the absolute lack of pasture.”8 Likewise, the subprefect of Porco complained

8 Jose G. Herboso de Potosí Prefect, Lamar, December 8, 1834, PD 194, AHP.

8

that the Indians did not have donkeys to take the shipment of mercury to Potosí either;

according to him, “the pack animals [arrias] are not know in this Province because this

[kind of] traffic has never belonged here.” He asserted that the animals the Indians

possessed were used only for short-distance hauling of goods to local towns and even

then the animals “arrive at their destinations poorly treated and destroyed despite the

small weight of their loads.” The Indians close to the port of Cobija “do not know this

type of animal [burros or mules], and for their trafficking use llamas that are the only

livestock that they have.” The cantonal authority in Caiza seconded the subprefect’s

note, writing that “the Indians of this canton do not have animal trains, but just one or

two donkeys and the one who has the most five or six.” The subprefect suggested that

only Chichas province farther south “is the one that has solely and abundantly donkeys

and mule trains that have embraced the commerce with the port [of Cobija].” 9 The

problem only got worse, since even Chichas had few animals. In 1837, the governor of

Chichas asserted that “it was impossible to obtain the beasts that you asked for the

transport of the artillery and other means of war.” The reason was that “there is not one

mule driver in this [province] with a mule team.” At best, his officials could gather some

donkeys for the government.10

One reason why pack animals were not available for transporting the mercury was

that the state previously had not paid the mule drivers on time. In 1833, the governor of

Lípez, Mariano Zenteno, wrote a letter to the Potosí prefect, complaining that one

teamster had lost “four burros and just as many mules” waiting for payment for hauling

9 Pedro Celest. Moreira to Potosí Prefect, Puna, December 22, 1834 and Camilo de Argandoña Echeverria to the Governor of Porco, Caiza, December 16, 1834, both PD 184, AHP.10 Gregorio Mendivil to Potosi Prefect, Cotagaita, April 19, 1837; Nicolas Machicado to Governor of Chichas, Cotagaita, Abril 13, 1837; and José de Peredo to Governor of Chichas, Tupiza, April 13, 1837, all PD 263, AHP.

9

mercury. Indeed, Zenteno had to borrow the money to pay the hauling charges when it

was not forthcoming. The governor argued he had to take out loans and pay at the rates

merchants were paying “because mule drivers [arrias] are very scarce in this Province.”11

The following year, the Indians of Lípez refused to transport armaments from Calama to

Potosí, even though the penniless governor tried to bargain an exchange of an exemption

of tribute payments for transporting the arms.12 The muleteers and llama drivers were

unwilling to haul goods without receiving cash at market rates.

The state tried to solve these problems in various ways. One of its major concerns

was to provide transportation infrastructure between the Pacific coast and the highland

interior. It recognized that Indians were key to the hauling of goods through the

extremely high and desert-like conditions. In 1827, the Bolivian Congress passed a law

that provided the payment of double freight costs, two mules, two burros, two cows, ten

llamas, tools, and four topos of land for any Indian who was willing to settle at a posta (a

lodging that provided shelter for travelers and their animals) along the road from either

Potosí or Oruro to the port of Cobija. Other laws in 1830 and 1832 provided incentives

for anyone to establish postas on these routes, but without success. In 1833, the

government improved its offer to providing six topos to each settler and promises to

distribute the ciénegas (boggy depressions usually covered with grasses) in Calama and

Chiuchiu.13 In 1839, the state finally provided an independent revenue stream for the

payment of postas – up to 1000 pesos of Indian tribute. As a result, the gobernadores

were able to set up some of the postas on routes to Cobija.14 In addition, the Potosí

11 P. Mno Zenteno to Prefect of Potosí, San Cristobal, January 1,1833 and Zenteno to Prefect, San Cristobal, January 24, 1833, PD 155, AHP. 12 Zenteno to Potosí Prefect, San Cristobal, May 30, 1835, PD 200, AHP.13 Sept. 10, 1827, Feb 18, 1830, Dec 29, 1832, Jan 6, 1833 PUT IN COMPLETE CITATIONS14 February 8, 1833, December 16, 1839. PUT IN FULL CITATIONS

10

prefect provided mules for the postas and rehabilitated them in Chichas. The prefect also

established new postas in Atocha, San Vicente, and Portugalete for the trail between

Cotagaita and the port of Cobija. However, that was not enough. Seven years later the

government imported camels for transporting goods across the Atacama desert; in

February of that year 27 animals arrived in Calama.15 The camel experiment did not

work out, since no one knew how to take of the beasts. The same year, the largest

merchant of Cobija, José María Artola, imported some 400 mules, but there were not

enough muleteers to use them. According to the Intendant of Cobija, there were already

7000 donkeys in the district for transportation needs.16

Other regions had more than enough pack animals to transport during the same

period. In 1834, Indian community members from the altiplano of Oruro around Lake

Poopó and even as far away as Chayanta, in northern Potosí, participated intensively in

the cotton trade between the Peruvian coast and the textile producers in Cochabamba,

Bolivia. The many tons of cotton that they brought up from Tacna or the coast attest to

the capacity these community members had to transport goods over long distances. In

addition, non-Indian traders from Cochabamba also transported large quantities of cotton

to the mills in their region.17 Other places, such as the Cinti valley southeast of Potosí,

because of its thriving alcohol trade, had enough muleteers and animals. The region was

15 Mar° Morales, Inspector de Postas y Caminos, to Prefect, Calama, February 28, 1846, Archivo Boliviano {hereinafter AB] 1846 v. 22, Archivo Nacional de Chile [hereinafter ANCh].16 Wenceslao Moyano, Intendente del Puerto La Mar, to the Prefect, La Mar, [Cobija], January 12, 1847, AB 1847 v. 25, ANCh.17 “Libro Duplicado, donde se copian la Guias de Estracciones de Efectos de la Republica que se dirijen ala del Perú y Estados Limitrofes del cargo del Comisario de Pichagas Ciudno Jorje Martinez. Para el Año de 1834,” BMO. The mule drivers who passed the Pisaga customs post were classed as “ciudadanos” and “indígenas.” It is for this reason that it is possible to make ethnic distinctions. Also see Pentland, 103.

11

economically dynamic enough that the landlords were able to arrange for their goods to

be hauled to Potosí or other towns.18

Postas, also called tambos, remained a constant problem throughout the

nineteenth century. Indian communities, as part of their obligations to the state, had to

provide members to render service as servants at the tambos and also serve as mail

carriers and guides for travelers. The labor obligations appeared to work relatively well,

but other components did not. Travelers were supposed to pay for lodging and any pack

animals they used, but often did not pay. From the 1850s onward, the government gave

contracts to individual entrepreneurs to provide for postas, but this often did not work.

The combination of a private individual as maestro de posta, Indian community members

doing their labor duty as postillones (postal carriers but also travel guides), and

government workers (especially members of the military) who insisted (illegally) on free

service, did not work well. There are hints that the best-run postas were those managed

by “Indian empresarios,” who appeared to be in the majority.19 They were better able to

negotiate community labor obligations and provide appropriate service. However, in

areas where there were no nearby Andean Indian villages obligated to provide labor, such

as on the roads descending into the valleys and lowlands, there simply were no tambos.

This isolated the eastern part of the country and communication between the eastern

lowlands and the western highlands as a consequence remained even more rudimentary

than the transportation infrastructure in the mountains. In May 1874, the government

attempted to double the rates the maestros de posta could charge for accommodations and

for the animals, but within months the law was abrogated “por no surtir efecto

18 See Erick D. Langer, Economic Change and Rural Resistance in Southern Bolivia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 101-102.19 For indígenas empresarios, see Nov 28, 1862, Jun 17, 1874, Anuario.

12

esperado.”20 A later attempt in 1878 also was quickly retracted, making the

administration of most postas not very profitable and thus they remained largely in the

hands of Indians.21

Transportation Costs

The cost of transport was an important aspect of the pack animal transportation

complex. The use of Indian community members as forced labor and paid relatively low

rates cheapened some costs. However, there were structural problems that hindered the

lowering of transport costs. The south-central Andean landscape is for the most part

extremely rugged terrain, in which the steep Andean mountains dominate. Only the arid

altiplano between Lake Titicaca and to Aullagas is relatively flat, interspersed with low

hills and surrounded by high, snow-peaked mountains. In most areas, thin mule or llama

trails connected villages with towns; even the most transited roads between major cities

were not well kept. As the José María Dalence, who provided the most acute description

of mid-nineteenth century Bolivia, pointed out, “[i]t can’t be denied that our roads are for

the most part impassable.”22 In northern Argentina, the roads tended to be somewhat

better since the geography was not quite as rough, except in the high Andes to the west.

Bridges were lacking throughout, whether in Bolivia, Argentina, Peru, or Chile. Alcides

d’Orbigny, on his way from Sucre to Potosí, one of the most transited roads, had a

difficult time crossing the small Cachimayo River in 1833 at the tail end of the rainy

season. He asserted that since there was no bridge, some travelers often had to wait a few

days to ford the river. Along the same route, the much wider Pilcomayo River had no

20 May 14, 1874, December 7, 1874 FILL OUT FULL REFERENCE21 May 10, 1878, June 19, 1878 FILL OUT FULL REFERENCES22 Dalence, 283.

13

bridge, since the last one had fallen into the river.23 The rivers in the Andes were

hindrances to transport rather than means of transportation. There were no navigable

rivers in the region, nor did the great seasonal variation in rainfall permit the construction

of canals.

The poor roads and lack of infrastructure meant that travel times were great. Two

principle routes connected the south-central Andes with the outside world. The shorter

route was from the Pacific coast, from the coastal port of Cobija. According to the

Bolivian miner from Tupiza, Avelino Aramayo, it took a muleteer about six weeks to

travel from the port of Cobija to the capital of Sucre in Bolivia, a distance of about 220

leagues.24 A trip from Sucre to Potosí, twenty-eight leagues, took at least three days. The

longer route was from Buenos Aires north. It took three months for products from

Buenos Aires to reach Tucumán by oxcart and 40 days from there to reach the important

commercial center of Tupiza, located next to the mining towns of Chichas. The trip from

Tupiza to Oruro added another 22 days.25 ADD TUCUMAN TO SALTA, SANTA

CRUZ TO COCHABAMBA.

Despite the variations in transport time, costs between the Pacific and Atlantic

routes were similar. The British commercial agent Joseph Pentland in 1826 calculated

that the cost per 100 kilos from the Atlantic port of Buenos Aires to Potosí of 540 leagues

were equal to that of transporting the same goods from the Pacific port of Arica, only 150

23 Alcides d’Orbigny, Viaje a la América meridional, v. 4, 2. ed. (La Paz: Plural, 2002), 1626, 1627. This problem continued into the twentieth century. For example, in 1982, I was once stuck for various days in the town of Pescado (Villa Serrrano) because the river had risen and there was not bridge. 24 Avelino Aramayo, Ferro-carriles en Bolivia (Paris: Tipografía Augusto Marc, 1867), 73. The distance is calculated from Fernando Cajías La Provincia de Atacama (1825-1842) (La Paz: Instituto Boliviano de Cultura. 1975), 73 and Francis de Castelnau, En el corazón de América del Sur (1843-1847) (La Paz: Los Amigos del Libro, 2001), 143. 25 Bejamín Villafañe, Orán y Bolivia a la marjen del Bermejo (Salta: Imprenta del Comercio, 1857), 115; Arsenio Granillo, Provincia de Tucumán (Tucumán: Imprenta de la Razón, 1872), 76-77. SOURCE FOR BS AS?

14

leagues away. The difference resided in the fact that the Buenos Aires merchant could

transport his goods 420 leagues to Jujuy in wagons, whereas the Arica merchant had to

haul his wares all the way by llama or mule. The oxcarts, while much slower, could haul

much greater weight than the speedier mules, donkeys, or llamas. This kept costs down

for the former mode of transportation. For example in 1880, the trip from Tupiza to

Tarija cost the same amount by burro (between 20-22 reales) than the threefold distance

by oxcart from Tucumán to Tupiza.26 By the 1870s, the use of the inland port of Rosario

and the Central Argentine Railroad diminished costs radically for the Argentine route.27

By the 1890s, the Chileans permitted a British company to build a railroad from the

Pacific port of Antofagasta to Oruro, Bolivia. It arrived in Oruro in 1892.28 This also

diminished costs significantly.

The comparison between transport by sea and land was even more extreme. In

1857, Francisca O’Connor had a bronze bedstead transported from Valparaíso, Chile to

her home in Tarija, Bolivia. The trip from Chile to the port of Cobija cost 1 peso 7

reales, whereas the haul from the Bolivian port to Tarija cost 31 pesos, fifteen times more

than the sea transport that was three times as far. Indeed, the transport overland added a

third to the total cost of the bed.29

26 Joseph Barclay Pentland, Informe sobre Bolivia (Potosí: Editorial Potosí, 1975), 112. For the 1880 statistics, see J. J Aramayo to Juan Escalier (Mojo), Tupiza, May 13, 1880 and J. J. Aramayo to Eusebio Esteves (Tucumán), Tupiza, July 7, 1880; Aramayo to Esteves, August 10, 1880, “Cpoiador General desde Marzo 12 de 1880 hasta,” Fondo Compañía Aramayo, COMIBOL Tupiza.27 See George Earl Church, The Route to Bolivia via the Amazon River: A Report to the Governments of Bolivia and Brazil (London: Waterlow and Sons, 1877), 153.28 Thomas F.O'Brien, “The Antofagasta Company: A Case Study of Peripheral Capitalism,” HAHR, 60:1 (1980), 1-31.29 “La Sa Francisca R. de OConor por un Catre de bronce á Pacheco y Ramires,” February 17, 1857, Tomo 3 1857. Enero 3 á Diciembre 30, 52, GP-BUMSA.

15

What did these high prices mean for the economic system that existed in the

south-central Andes? For one, as Antonio Mitre and I discussed, high transport costs put

up a de facto tariff barrier that made imports relatively expensive.30 The region was

protected from the Pacific side by high mountains and the Atacama, the driest desert in

the world, and on the other, by huge distances from Atlantic ports. The difficulty and

expense of access through ocean ports protected goods produced in the population centers

inland of the south-central Andes unlike most of the rest of nineteenth-century Latin

America.

The high transport costs meant that the transportation sector, the muleteers and

llama drivers, captured much of the increase in the value of the goods transported over

the mountains to the villages, mining towns, and cities where the products were sold.

The transport sector’s take from the total price of all goods even within the local area,

because transport prices were high, was relatively great. Since most muleteers and

llameros were peasants, it meant that there was a significant flow of resources from the

cities and merchants to the countryside.

How did these prices change over time? It is difficult to calculate prices over the

nineteenth century, since prices changed depending on the season and the availability of

the muleteers. For example, in 1857 one Tupiza merchant trading with the Pacific coast

asserted that it was necessary “to take advantage here the decline in the price of freight

charges and the abundance of muleteers next month [July]. Later, the former will go up

30 Antonio Mitre, El monedero de los Andes: Región económica y moneda boliviana en el siglo XIX (La Paz: HISBOL, 1986) and Erick D. Langer, “Espacios coloniales y economías nacionales: Bolivia y el norte argentino 1810-1930,” Siglo XIX: Revista de Historia, 2:4 (1987), 135-160.

16

and the latter will be scarce…”31 Also, as discussed above, prices varied according to

mode of transportation.

Prices went up over the century, as evidenced by the Bolivian state’s failed

attempts in the 1870s to double prices for hauling mail, goods, and guiding passengers

from posta to posta.32 The contracts found in merchant records give a rough idea of

changes in transportation charges over the nineteenth century. One of the few

comparative samples comes from the route from Tupiza to Tarija, which did not have

state tambos at any time and which was not affected by railroads. As Table 1 shows,

process remained relatively stable for two decades after 1857, but rose precipitously by

the end of the century. THIS AGREES WITH INFLATION???

TABLE 1

Transportation Rates Between Tupiza and Tarija, 1857-1900

(Rates of carga per burro)

Year Price (in Bs) Product1857 2.00 Merchandise1858 2.00 Merchandise1874 1.80 Sugar1899 8.00 Coins 1900 8.00 Coins

Source: For 1857 and 1858, “1857 Enero 3 á Diciembre 30,” 488, 498, “1853 á Enero 4 ’59,” 226, GP-BUMSA; for 1874, see “Correspondencia Reyes y Eguia 1873 a 1875,” 165, EBAAD; for 1899 and 1900, see “1891-1902 Conocimientos Julio 22 1891- Junio 21 190: Uyuni, Tarija, Diversos,” FA.

Be that as it may, merchants attempted to minimize transport costs, since it

represented a large part of the total expenses. Merchants and miners preferred llamas

31 Pacheco a dn Ramírez to San Martín y Cía (Valparaiso), Tupiza, June 4, 1857, Tomo 3 1857. Enero 3 á Diciembre 30, 194 Colección Gregorio Pacheco, Biblioteca de la Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz [hereinafter GP-BUMSA]. 32 May 14, 1874, December 7, 1874 GET FULL CITATION

17

because their rates were lower than that of mules or donkeys. However, llamas could

only be used for small and light goods, since the animals refused to carry anything

heavier than about 100 pounds altogether. In 1889, a Potosí merchant, Lucio Leiton,

explained that “all merchants have warned me that it is not advisable that packets

weighing less than 50 lbs. come in mules.”33 As a result, llamas remained in demand and

were used extensively, especially for transporting minerals since usually they could be

placed in rough wool sacs the weight of which could be kept below the llamas’

maximum. To take into account these restrictions, Leiton requested his agents to gather

Indians who herded between 1,500 and 2,000 llamas to take tin from the mines in the

Yura and Tomave region in Potosí to the train station in Uyuni.34

Other tactics to decrease transport costs included some merchants purchasing

mule trains. They then hired muleteers – often peasants who wanted to become teamsters

– rather than contracting with independent muleteers. This had advantages, such as

obligating muleteers to travel when the owner demanded and at the pace he wanted than

on the muleteer’s schedule. It was most important when a merchant needed teamsters

who transported sensitive, illegal, or very valuable materials. The traders who dealt in

smuggling silver and gold out of Bolivia, for example, had to use people who enjoyed

their full confidence. This was the case with Gregorio Pacheco in his days as Tupiza

import-export merchant and major silver smuggler. Having exclusive muleteers had

other advantages as well. Thus, Gregorio Pacheco in 1849 ordered his muleteers (whom

33 Lucio Leiton to Justino H. Balderrama, Potosí, December 1, 1889, “Copiador Cartas Abel Vacaflores 1889” Libro No. 2, 113, Fondo Vacaflores – Correspondencia, Archivo de la Sociedad Agrícola, Ganadera é Industrial de Cinti (La Paz) [hereinafter ASAGIC-FV]. The reason why Leiton used 50 lbs as his cutoff was because llamas and mules usually carried two more-or-less equally weighted packets or boxes, one on each flank of the animal.34 Leiton to Balderrama, Potosí, November 5, 1889, Leiton to Manuel G. Medinaceli, Potosí, November 5, 1889, Leiton to José Santos Gutierrez, Potosí, November 5, 1889, 30-33, Ibid.

18

he called peons) to travel day and night with three mules and one donkey and reach the

Argentine town of Salta in ten days. The rush jobs were more expensive, but it did get

the job done when others were unavailable. In this case, they received 10 pesos for

expenses, half a month’s salary for the principal muleteer.35 In 1858, Pacheco again

forced his “courageous peons and…splendid donkeys” to transport money and foodstuffs

during carnival, when virtually all other countryfolk were celebrating.36

Most customers of transportation services did not own their own mule train. It

was a major investment that tied up capital that most preferred to keep in mercantile,

mining, or agrarian activities. Gregorio Pacheco’s mule train was exceptional. Only in

the eastern foothills of the Andes did merchants keep significant numbers of pack

animals. They were able to do so because grazing land was cheap, so the costs of

maintaining pack animals were small. This was the case of Francisco Tapia, a native of

Cochabamba, who lived in town of Lagunillas in Santa Cruz department (Bolivia), the

principal commercial center on the road between the Argentine border and the city of

Santa Cruz. Lagunillas was nestled in the foothills of the Andes, in a lush subtropical

valley surrounded by cattle ranches. In 1862 Tapia owned 80 head of cattle and other

livestock, but his main activity was his store full of efectos de ultramar (imported goods).

He also owned 37 mules, three stallions, and ten mares.37 Merchants up in the Andes,

where grazing land was scarcer and growing conditions more difficult, did not find it

35 Gregorio Pacheco to Vicente Anzoátegui, Tupiza, Sept. 15, 1849,” Tomo I: Dic. 26, 1846-Dic 14, 1857, 295v, GP-BUMSA.36 Pacheco to Manuel I. Ramírez, Tupiza, February 9, 1858, Tomo 4: 1853 á 1859 Enero 4 á Enero 4 ’59 y Diciembre 31/59, 85, GP-BUMSA.37 “Testamento de Francisco Tapia,” Paquete No 4 Año 1862, fs. 68-72, Archivo Judicial de Lagunillas, Instituto de Documentación y Apoyo Campesino, Camiri, Bolivia [hereinafter IDAC]. My thanks to Franz Michel for providing me acces to this archive.

19

profitable to maintain pack animals. Instead, they left this to peasants who lived in the

high valleys where little other than forage crops, such as alfalfa, grew.

In another common arrangement, wealthy landlords from the grape-growing Cinti

Valley purchased mule trains for taking their brandy to Potosí and other towns.

However, they did not keep the mules for long. Landlords usually purchased the pack

animals and put them in the hands of an independent muleteer, who in return paid for the

mule train by taking the Cinti hacendados’ produce to market for free until they were

paid off.38 Many hacendados used their own peons to haul goods, but had them provide

their own animals at a discounted rate. Similarly, some mining companies had haciendas

attached to them. Mine owners used the peons and their pack animals from the attached

estates to haul minerals for the mines, especially for the short stretches between the mine

entrance and the nearby refinery. This was the case for the Oploca Mining Company,

one of the most successful silver mining firms in the Chichas district of southern Potosí.

Oploca paid their hacienda peons for this work at what appears to have been standard

haulage rates.39

Another reason for hiring mule trains was that most consumers of transportation

services needed more pack animals than they could reasonably purchase. As seen above,

miners used thousands of llamas to haul their minerals down to the refinery or to more

distant destinations. Likewise, merchants contracted mule or llama trains to move their

goods from the coast or town to their stores and often needed to hire more than one train.

Even small merchants houses, such as the Reyes and Eguia firm (dwarfed in Tupiza by

the mining and merchant house of J.A. Aramayo and Company), in the 1870s received 38 See Langer, Economic Change, 101-102.39 For an analysis of this relationship, see Erick D. Langer, “The Barriers to Proletarianization: Bolivian Mine Labour, 1826-1918,” “Peripheral” Labour?” Studies in the History of Partial Proletarianization , eds. Shahid Amin and Marcel van der Linden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 25-49.

20

foodstuffs and leather from Tarija in return for cloth, and sent foodstuffs to the towns of

Cotagaita, Esmoraca, and Portugalete, minerals to Cobija in return for imported

merchandise, and silver bars to Salta.40 The back and forth was simply too much for a

few personal mule trains to handle, given the distances and the time it took to travel over

the mountains.

Landlords, merchants or miners also refused to engage in this activity because it

was inherently risky. They preferred that the muleteers or the llama drivers take the risks

of crossing turbulent rivers, the rain that could damage the merchandise, army deserters

resorting to banditry, etc. At times, muleteering led to bankruptcy. Guillermo Herrera, a

muleteer from the eastern frontier town of Lagunillas, for example, by 1863 had in his

possession only one old horse and an old donkey, but owed 175 pesos and 4 reales to

various creditors. He blamed his poverty on the lack of rain over the prior two years and

“because of the death of my animals in the trade that I made between the cities of Sucre

and Santa Cruz.”41

Contracts between muleteers and merchants appear to give the latter the upper

hand and all the risk to the former. Agreements between the two parties specified the

consequences of any faults the teamster might commit in the transport of goods. They

asserted that the goods were given to the muleteer in good condition and that he deliver

them in the same condition to the recipients. Usually muleteers were given a portion of

their fee in advance and the rest when they delivered the merchandise, thus assuring

delivery. If they did not deliver the packages in good shape, they pledged their

40 “Correspondencia Reyes y Eguia 1873 a 1875,” Escuela de Bellas Artes ‘Alfredo Domínguez,’ Tupiza [hereinafter EBAAD].41 “Juicio de esperas promovido por Guillermo Herrera principio el 2 de enero de 1863 No 168,” Paquete No 5 Año 1863, IDAC.

21

possessions to make good the difference. In some cases, there was also a clause that

specified a fine for every day that the merchandise was delivered late.42

Merchants and miners had no compunctions about forcing muleteers to pay for

damages when things went wrong. For example, Gregorio Pacheco in 1848 lamented

that not only were the muleteers from Calama late, but they had let one box with silk

handkerchiefs get soaked, costing him 100 pesos. Pacheco obligated the muleteer to pay

for the handkerchiefs, though he did not charge him for his tardiness. A decade later, he

almost had a muleteer imprisoned because 100 pesos were missing. The hapless peasant

was saved when Pacheco noticed that the sender had probably made a mistake in the

accounting. Similar problems emerged elsewhere, such as near Oruro when in 1864

Ciprian Chaca had received 730 pesos and a mule from José María Mamani in Challapata

to purchase coca leaf. Chaca did not fulfill his contract because he claimed that bandits

had robbed the money and the mule. Mamani took him to court to get reimbursed for the

alleged loss. Not fulfilling the contract between merchant and teamster could bring

judicial proceedings and a loss of honor. In 1874, the Tupiza merchant company of

Reyes y Eguia received only 23 of 30 cargas of corn they had purchased in Tarija. The

muleteer was also 23 days late. They took the muleteer to court, claiming that “we

believe this is the only means to conclude with this man who looks at us with so much

disdain and who doesn’t take his own words seriously.”43

42 There are a plethora of contracts available in merchant and court records. Representative of these contracts are the ones Gregorio Pacheco signed, such as the one he signed on May 30, 1858, 1853 á 1859 Eneero 4 53 á Enero 4 ’59 y Diciembre 31/59 t. 4, 259, and Tomo 3 1857. Enero 3 á Diciembre 30, 406, GP-BUMSA.43 Pacheco to José Fernandez, Tupiza, January 12, 1848, Tomo 1 Dic 26, 1846-Dic 14, 1857, 47, Federico Avila to Manuel José Ramírez, Tupiza, February 24, 1858, 1853á 1859 Enero 4 á Enero 4’59 y Diciembre 31/59 Tomo 4, 99, both GP-BUMSA.”Civil de Challapata: Ejecutivo por cobro de pesos. Jose Maria Mamani contra Ciprian Chaca. No 31 1864,” 1862-1865 Civiles, Archivo Judicial de Poopó [hereinafter AJP]; Reyes y Eguia to Reyes y Eguia, Tupiza, February 6, 1874, Correspondencia Reyes y Eguia 1873 a 1875, 136, EBAAD.

22

Although the contracts appear to have given the merchants the upper hand in

dealing between muleteers and merchants, in fact muleteers maintained considerable

leverage, especially prior to signing the contract. Merchants complained during certain

times of the year of the lack of teamsters. Complaints were pronounced during sowing

season, when most muleteers, who were also peasants, returned to their home

communities for work in the fields. The lack of muleteers lasted from September through

November. One Tupiza merchant complained in October 1873 that “[t]he sowing season

is so that we cannot find one muleteer here…Yesterday I went into the countryside to

find some muleteer, but I have been unable to do so…” A week later, he asserted that he

would be unable to find some until after All Saint’s Day.44 This lack of muleteers during

the sowing season extended throughout the region, from north to south. In the second

half of September 1880, the Aramayo firm in Tupiza did not receive their merchandise

because muleteers were scarce in Salta. Likewise during the same time, the firm could

not transport the copper it had purchased in the city of Potosí “because of the absolute

lack of muleteers.” 45

During harvest time merchants had similar problems, such as in August 1873,

when the Eguia y Reyes company of Tupiza could not get the 400 cargas of corn it had

purchased from Tarija to Tupiza “because the difficulty [of getting] muleteers is

tremendous.”46 However, there is less evidence of difficulties with transport during

44 Reyes y Eguia to Reyes y Eguia, Tupiza, October 9, October 23, and October 31, 1873, Registrador Contador Cartas A-Z, 79, 87, 90, EBAAD.45 Pablo Klingkort to Fco Fernandez Costas, Tupiza, September, 18, 1880, Klingkort to Geraldo Aramayo, October 1, 1880, Copiador General desde Marzo 12 de 1880 hasta, 328, 345, Fondo Aramayo, COMIBOL Archives, Tupiza, Bolivia [hereinafter FA].46 Eguia to Reyes, Tupiza, Augsut 19, 1873, Registrador Contador Cartas A-Z, 59, EBAAD.

23

harvest. Peasants could be more flexible during the harvest season, since it was the dry

season – harvests could wait since rain was unlikely at that time of year.47

Muleteers also disappeared during carnival season, when the muleteers and

llameros returned to their communities to celebrate. The rainy season started in

February, making transport difficult because the mountain streams that swelled after the

storms. For this reason, merchants hurried to get their merchandise delivered beforehand.

The administrator of the Tupiza merchant firm of Pacheco and Ramírez for example in

1858 urged:

“Amigo, we are quite in a hurry, for this reason I supplicate you that you send the

grains you have gathered in San Ignacio at the latest the twelfth of this month

without fail win which you have to make an effort to deliver everything you can

muster. Later we would be harmed a lot because we will have not way to send

[the grain] because the rains will be more frequent [and] we would not get the

muleteers because of the proximity of carnival.”48

The reasons why merchants hurried to get their merchandise in before carnival

was because it was the busiest season for the import-export merchants. This meant that

merchants had to calculate carefully when to order their goods. Until the mid-1870s,

most Bolivian import-export merchants in the interior ordered goods from their

counterparts in Cobija. The Cobija firms in turn had to order their merchandise from

Valparaiso. It meant that the Bolivians have their orders in by October to get their goods

in time for the busy season in February or March.49 By the time carnival rolled around, it

47 There was the danger of hail during the winter season, which could destroy whole fields, but hail storms tended to be highly localized and not very common.48 Federico Avila to Vicente Guagama, Tupiza, January 4, 1858, 1853 á 1859 Enero 4 á Enero 4 ’59 y Diciembre 31/59 Tomo 4, 6, FP-BUMSA.49 Reyes y Eguia to Reyes y Eguia, Tupiza, October 31, 1873, Registrador Contador Cartas A-Z,” 90-91, EBAAD.

24

was virtually impossible to find muleteers willing to work. In 1858 even Gregorio

Pacheco was unable to send merchandise from Tupiza to Tarija “because of the

disruption and the consequences of the disorder that remains in the plaza this carnival.”50

Muleteers, in other words, behaved as peasants as well as entrepreneurs. They

favored agricultural activity over teamster work during crucial periods of the agricultural

cycle. They kept a hybrid mentality that combined money making and risk-taking with

that of the “safety first” peasant mentality that privileged subsistence over potential

monetary gains. In most cases, the peasant mentality triumphed over the capitalist one.

From the muleteer point of view, sowing crops in their fields was probably also important

because, in an incomplete market for agricultural goods, they needed to first assure that

their families had enough to eat. Moreover, many teamsters owned fields where they

planted forage crops. These were essential for reconditioning their mules and donkeys in

between trips and having their own fields provided them with immediate access to fodder

after their trips. Making sure that the fields were sown (or harvested) was vital to the

muleteers’ enterprise, since they needed them to fatten and rehabilitate their pack animals

after lengthy and onerous trips. The only partial exception to this rule were the muleteers

from the Calchaquí Valley in northern Argentina, whose agricultural cycle was slightly

different from that of the Bolivians and who were able to provide some services when

community members were not available.

Taking time off during carnival to engage in village festivities was also

economically important to the muleteers. In the 19th-century Andes, sociability was an

important component of economic activity and one complemented the other. Although it

50 Gregorio Pacheco to Jofré y Trigo, Tupiza, February 19, 1858, 1853 á 1859 Enero 4 á Enero 4 ’59 y Diciembre 31/59 Tomo 4, 87, FP-BUMSA.

25

might appear that the accompanying carousing and heavy drinking that went along with

these celebrations were antithetical to good business practices, in Andean communities

these festivities were crucial mechanisms to foster community cohesion. Wealthier

members of the Andean peasant villages sponsored fiestas such as carnival, providing

costumes, drink, and food to the other community members by rotating through festival

sponsorships. The periodic appearance and participation in these festivals provided a

means for the community to get together – after all, in many of the villages specializing

in transport most able-bodied men and women were abroad traveling much of the year –

and reassert community ties and hierarchies. Drunkenness was an important social

activity and the sponsorship of festivals redistributed in important ways resources that

some members of the communities had accumulated among the rest of the village.51

That is not to say that muleteers and llameros did not also try to make money.

Muleteers had their own strategies to maximize their earnings. For one, they refused to

accept jobs if the pay was too low. For example, when in 1888 the Leiton merchant firm

in Potosí tried to hire muleteers to take animal hides to the Huanchaca mines, the

muleteers refused, “assuring [us] that the freight charge that the Agency pays is too

low.”52

One of the most important means of maximizing their earnings was to insist upon

working routes where they were able to transport goods both coming and going. Since

muleteers and llameros did not leave many written records, it is possible to see this

51 See Thierry Saignes, comp. Borrachera y memoria: La experiencia de lo sagrado en los Andes. (La Paz : HISBOL/IFEA, 1993), especially the essay by Dwight Heath, 171-185. Of course, there were many more fiestas among the Andean muleteers. For an explication of the fiesta cycle of an altiplano village near Oruro in the most important source for llama transport in the ethnographic present, see Thomas A. Abercrombie, Pathways of Memory and Power: Ethnography and History among an Andean People (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 368-406.52 Lucio Leiton al Sr Gefe de Almacenes de la Ca Huanchaca de Bolivia, Potosí, July 24, 1888, Cartas 1888-1889: Libro No. 1, ASAGIC-FV.

26

concern refracted only through the correspondence of the merchants who hired them. By

the late 1880s century merchant houses appear to have been more sensitive to the issue of

retornos than earlier in the century. The Leiton company, which had its origins in

transporting brandy and wine from the Cinti valley to the city of Potosí and retooled to

take advantage of new opportunities on the arrival of the railroad into the highlands of

Bolivia, was particularly sensitive to this issue. They arranged for the muleteers and

llameros they hired to take minerals to the railhead in Uyuni to bring back merchandise to

Potosí. For this purpose, Leiton contracted not only with mining companies – Aullagas

and Colquechaca – to take the ore to Uyuni, but with German merchant houses such as

Doll and Richter to load the mules and llamas with imports for the return trip. In fact,

Leiton used this as a strategy to monopolize the pack animals. In the first, pioneering

days of the railroad’s arrival, Leiton attempted to squeeze out his competitors by keeping

the muleteers and llameros occupied so that rival merchant houses had no means to

transport their goods from the railhead to market.53 Be that as it may, it was the demands

of the muleteers and the llama drivers that made the search for retornos an important

issue in the relations between merchants and the transporters.

Muleteers were demanding in other ways as well. In 1870s Bolivia, Argentine

muleteers insisted on receiving “good” money from merchants. During the Melgarejo

administration (1864-1870), the financially strapped government severely debased its

coinage, making the value of the Bolivian silver peso less than its face value. After the

Melgarejo fiasco, the Bolivian government coined only pesos fuertes, the silver content

of which was 20% higher than the Melgarejo coins. Bolivian coins were the main

53 Lucio Leiton to Jorje Hanriot, Potosí, November 18, 1889, Lucio Leiton to Guillermo Leiton, Potosí, November 19, 1889, Leiton to Hanriot, November 26, 1889, Leiton to Hanriot, February 11, 1890, all Cartas 1888-1889: Libro No. 1, ASAGIC-FV.

27

currency circulating throughout the south-central Andes throughout the nineteenth

century.54 Only pesos fuertes were accepted outside of Bolivia, because these coins could

be sold at face value either as coins or as silver, to be exported. Argentine muleteers

insisted on receiving these “good” pesos for their work. In 1873 the Reyes and Eguia

company of Tupiza had a hard time getting the hard currency and even contemplated

getting it from the port city of Cobija, where all traders used pesos fuertes almost

exclusively, given that they were the link between the Andean economy and the outside.55

This problem continued into 1874 – the company could not find muleteers to work for

them without paying in pesos fuertes.56 Given that Eguia and Reyes had to pay in pesos

fuertes also indicates that Argentine muleteers that by this time had a virtual monopoly

on transporting goods to and from the Bolivian border town of Tupiza, whether it be

across the Atacama to the Pacific coast, to Argentina to the south, or even Tarija, the

Bolivian frontier town to the west.

Not all teamsters’ strategies to maximize earnings were recorded in merchant

records. Muleteers contracted different merchants at the same time and transported

goods (or currency) together, to increase their profits. For example, in 1852 Ambrocio

Ramos carried monies of 14 merchants for a total of 48,236 pesos, plus 52 sacs of tin to

the Peruvian port city of Tacna. Eleven merchants were from Cochabamba and four were

from Oruro. Another muleteer, Juan Facalde, carried coinage twice to Tacna, once

87,914 pesos 5 ½ reales for two merchant firms located in Sucre and Potosí in October of

54 For a discussion of these issues, see Mitre, El monedero.55 See Eguia to José Araoz, Tupiza, September 30, 1873, Eguia to Reyes, Tupiza, September 30, 1873, Registrador, 76, 77, EBAAD.56 For example, Eguia to José Araoz, Tupiza, January 19, 1874, Reyes y Eguia to Reyes y Eguia, Tupiza, February 6, 1874, Eguia to Jesús M. Reyes, Tupiza, May 21, 1874, all Registrador, 124, 136, 173-174, EBAAD.

28

the same year and 84,932 pesos and 33 ounces of gold for the same firms, plus another

from Potosí.57

Although the business of import-export merchants and miners was the most

visible of all transport activities, much commerce probably took place in which peasants

worked for themselves. The best example of this comes from sources in Poopó, on the

altiplano south of Oruro. In July and August of 1834, 38 individuals received or

presented passports as they traveled through this strategic mining town and way station

along the main route that skirted Lake Poopó across the altiplano. In addition to seven

Indians and two non-Indians (called ciudadanos) going on a pilgrimage to Copacabana

on Lake Titicaca, a large number were peasants engaged in petty commerce. Among all

the travelers, only one individual was identified as a muleteer. He was from Calama, on

his way to the mining city of Oruro.58 Eight were identified as Indians, whereas 13 were

mestizos or whites (including the muleteer) who were transporting merchandise or

foodstuffs.

Purpose and Ethnicity of Travelers through Poopó, July & August, 1834

Ethnicity Purpose

7 Indians Pilgrimage to Copacabana

2 ciudadanos Pilgrimage to Copacabana

8 Indians Commerce

13 ciudadanos Commerce

57 “No. 18997 Libro de estracciones de efectos de la República, que llevan al Perú por las fronteras del Resguardo de la Comisaría de Pichagua, que corre a cargo de su Comisario en Cno Simeon Sanches que dará principio desde el mes de Enero de 1852,”fs. 26-27v, 33-34v, 39v, Biblioteca Municipal, Municipalidad de Oruro [hereinafter BMO].58 “Razon de los Sujetos que han Salido y entrado con sus Pasaportes a esta Capital en este mes de Julio [1834]”and “Razon de los Sujetos que han Salido y entrado consus Pasaportes a saber indibiduos que se ande Presentar en este mes de Agosto [1834],” AJP.

29

Source: See Note 60.

Unfortunately, the information from 1834, although it does provide ethnic

categories, does not give information on what products the travelers carried. However,

information for 1837, while it does not provide ethnic categories, gives more information

on the items the travelers carried. Commerce and movement in general had picked up

considerably by 1837, for the eight days that the list covers (July 24-31), there were 47

travelers who passed through. Eleven were transporting coca leaf, whereas the plurality –

nineteen – were hauling foodstuffs, such as flour, potatoes, chuño [freeze-dried potatoes],

and avocados. Four carried both coca and food, whereas two were taking wool. The rest

did not have merchandise with them.59

Andean peasants took advantage of commercial opportunities as they arose both

as transporters of goods, some of which they purchased themselves to resell elsewhere.

One of the most important categories other than foodstuffs, was the transport of cotton

from the Peruvian coast to the highlands. Joseph Pentland described this commerce in

1826: “The total cotton that is consumed by the manufacturers of Cochabamba is the

product of the maritime provinces of Lower Peru, from whence it is taken, coarse and

without selection, to Paria, a small city in Oruro Province, to whence the inhabitants of

Cochabamba go to purchase it.”60 The transport of this good was almost exclusively in

the hands of Andeans (mostly Andeans) who were residents of the altiplano communities.

In 1835, of the 524 trips taken to bring cotton up into the mountains, only four of them

were made by non-Indians. Altogether, Indians transported in that year 36,950 arrobas

of cotton (versus 296 arrobas for non-Indians), equivalent to approximately 460 tons.

59 “Parte qe da el Comandte del Destacamto de Sebada rio el Sor Govr dela Prova de Paria y es como sigue [1837],” 1840-1849 Civiles II, AJP. 60 Pentland, 103. My translation.

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From the records, it appears that the Indians purchased the cotton on the Peruvian coast

themselves and sold it to non-Indians from the Cochabamba region.61

The sale and transport of coca leaf was the most lucrative enterprise handled

almost exclusively by Andeans from the Indian communities. For example, in 1836 the

customs house in Oruro counted 124 people passing through, hauling a total of 1856

cestos [59,392 lbs] of coca leaf, mainly from Irupana in the Yungas region.62 As I have

explored in another essay, coca leaf dealers often farmed out the hauling of their product

to other members of their extended family or within their ayllu. They did so because they

felt that they could trust them and also to distribute their (often substantial) wealth among

their community.63

A court case provides an unusual glimpse into the coca trade in the mid-

nineteenth century. In 1847, three Indians from Tapacarí ayllu (Poopó) went to La Paz to

purchase coca with their mules. One, Pablo Santos, carried 90 pesos from Doña

Dominga, who was “convinced of my notorious honesty.” Later, Pedro Santos reached

the travelers to give them another 250 pesos, which the three divided amongst each other

and hid away. When they reached La Paz, they stayed in the tambo “of the Cuzqueños,”

where they rented a small room together. They then proceeded to purchase barley for

their animals, as well as coca and porters to carry the coca sacks back to the tambo. The

61 “Libro de tomas de razon de Guia dela Aduana Nacional de Oruro formado a consecuencia de la Suprema Disposicion de 26 de Noviembre de3 1829 del cargo del Señor Administrador Ciuno Francisco de Paula Belzu contiene fojas 157 foliadas para el año de 1835,” BMO. The reason that I believe that the Indians purchased the cotton is because each sale noted that “[the purchaser] has bought them from the Indian {name] in its second sale, as a result [this transaction] does not owe taxes.” 62 Of the 125 shipments with originating information, almost half (62) came from Irupana. In second place was Pacollo, which was a transshipment point in the altiplano, on the western side of Lake Poopó (19); third was Yanacachi (16), also in the Yungas; Chulumani, Yungas (11); Cajuata, Inquisivi (7); La Paz (8); and Oruro (1). See “libro Manual Duplicado de la Aduana Nacional de Oruro del cargo de Administrador Francisco de Paula Belzu, Para la cuenta de año de 1836,” BMO. 63 See Erick D. Langer, “Género y comercio a mediados del siglo XIX en Bolivia: El caso de Antonia Lojo, una acaudalada mujer indígena en Challapata,” Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia Anuario 2002 (Sucre: Talleres Gráficos “La Gaviota,” 2002), 107-129

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Indians went only as far as the city of La Paz to purchase the coca at wholesale and then

return to their communities.64

Indians contracted other indigenous llameros for hauling goods as well. The

glimpses that the documents give us come exclusively from court cases and show the

(probably uncommon) failures of these arrangements. Despite this, they are illustrative

of the gamut of possibilities that community members engaged in. For example, in 1826

Agustín Nina contracted his cousin Cruz Gabriel, both from Ayllu Culli, Salinas de

Garcimendoza, to take the silver bars Nina had purchased from mine owners to buy

imported goods in Tarapacá, on the Peruvian coast. Gabriel not only purchased useless

items that were difficult to sell, but when Nina sent a mule train to bring back the goods,

Gabriel permitted a mule to die on the road. As a result, Gabriel owed his cousin 1000

pesos.65 Likewise, in 1839 Vicente Condorcet from Challapata contracted another Indian,

Acencio Condori, to bring up two and a half mule trains of iron up from Tacna on the

coast. When Condori got drunk instead of doing his job, Condorcet had his 24 llamas

embargoed until the llamero paid the money he had forwarded him.66

Mestizos, but mostly Indians, also engaged in hauling from the mines to either to

the refinery or the Pacific coast. In the altiplano, many community members possessed

the equipment for hauling ore and some became relatively wealthy in this endeavor.

Pedro Idalgo, an Indian from Ayllu Culli in Salinas de Garcimendoza at his passing left

an estate valued at 392 pesos 4 reales. This included 70 male llamas, 40 female llamas,

64 No. 93 1856, “1850-1856: Civiles,” fs 1-1v, AJP. Unfortunately, Pablo Santos was robbed in the tambo in La Paz and he suspected one of his companions, whom the companion’s wife later denounced after a fight with her husband. However, the companion was declared not guilty.65 “Verbal ejecutivo seguido por Isidro Nina contra Cruz Gabriel, por cobro de pesos. Año 1839,” 1834-1839 Civiles, f. 4, 11, AJP.66 “Juzgado de Paz -Varios Juicios (1839) Pedro de Andrade, Rafael Aldunate (jueces),” 1834-1839 Civiles, f. 19, AJP.

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five donkeys and 2 mules, plus 100 sacks and leather straps for the transporting the ore.

In addition, Idalgo possessed 200 pesos in coins, four houses in the town of Salinas, and

some worked silver pieces.67 Others were not quite as wealthy, but still owned

considerable assets. Mariano Tomas, an Indian from Ayllu Mojón, in 1853 only owned

146 pesos 3 reales (other than land) at his death. For transporting ore, he had a llama

herd of 13 males, 3 females and 4 young llamas with new sacks for hauling. Tomas had

invested in other livestock, owning two cows, one steer, 20 sheep, as well as 20 pesos

cash.68 One advantage of having livestock was that community Indians could use

communal grazing lands and thus did not need to acquire separate land.69

This is not to say that relations were always good between community members.

The lure of high earnings at times seduced Andeans to take advantage of other villagers.

In 1879 Francisco Acho went on the seasonal trip to the valleys to exchange highland

goods for valley foodstuffs such as potatoes or wheat when another community member,

Mariano Mitma, took eleven of Acho’s llamas to work them hauling ore from the mines

of Piloco to the refinery in Oruro for two weeks.70

Tristan Platt showed how in Lípez, the Indian community members transported

goods according to an “ethnic calendar,” in which the trips for mining companies and

merchants were timed to seasonal migration that complemented their trips to exchange

highland for valley goods. Trips also coincided with the payment of tribute obligations, 67 “No. 112 Salinas de Garcimendoza 1858,” 1850-1856 Civiles, AJP.68 “Sin título (1853) Juez Juan de Dios Perez,” 1844-1849 Criminales, f.2, AJP. It is likely that he owned land as well, but this was not recorded in this document.69 Among community Indians, it was common in testaments to show ownership of corrals and houses. Some community members put the names of lands – mainly estancias [grazing lands] in their testaments, but it is likely that they did not own the land, but instead just passed usufruct rights of these fields to their descendants. See above testaments, as well as “Challapata: Civil de Quillacas. Juicio de inventarios sobre los bienes de la finada Juana Paqui. 1864,” 1862-1865 Civiles, AJP.70 “Civil: Benta. Algs obrados en la demanda de Francisco Acho, como apoderado de Mal Achapi, contra Mariano Mitma, sobre devloucion de 11 llamas hembras, un macho y otrea hembra degollada 1881,” 1880-1881 Civiles, AJP.

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which fell on Christmas and St. John’s Day. The strategies varied according to the

resources that the communities possessed. In Llica and Tagua, the fields provided most

income and community members worked mainly in transporting goods or in the nitrate

mines in Tarapacá (coastal Peru) when drought or frost ruined crops. In turn, the Indians

of arid San Cristóbal (but close to the huge salt deposit of Uyuni) hauled goods much

more frequently, but this was tied to the salt trade. On their voyage to the valleys of

Tarija, ayllu members passed through Huanchaca and other mining towns to deliver salt.

According to Platt, by the late 1830s fodder harvests to accommodate the traffic had

increased, but declined thereafter.

Lastly, the community members of San Pablo had neither salt nor much

agriculture as their resource and instead were the most important long-distance traders.

They acquired salt in Uyuni (presumably from the San Cristóbal Indians who had a

monopoly of salt production) and transported it far to the eastern valleys, even reaching

(by the late nineteenth century) the Chaco plains. There they also worked in the harvest

of corn and other goods, which they exchanged through their labor or with their salt.

They spent three months, from May to August, away from their highland homes on these

voyages. The rest of the time, the llameros spent their time freighting goods, especially

bajando minerales from the mines to the refineries. Platt assumes that during the mining

boom of the 1870s onward the lack of teamsters from the ayllus during part of the year

served as a brake on mining production, since the Indians preferred their ethnic seasonal

circuits to earning more money at the mines in the winter months of May through August.

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However, Platt calculates that the Indians involved in transport earned much more than

the agriculturalists, in many cases many multiples of what they had to pay in tribute.71

Platt’s analysis is vital for understanding the way in which Indian community

members worked as transport specialists in the Andes because it gets at the indigenous

perspective. However, I do not agree with Platt in all aspects. First of all, the transport

capacity of the Indian communities changed over time even before the 1870s, increasing

rather than decreasing. The specialization in transport was not very developed in Lípez

until the late 1830s and then increased up to the 1870s and did not decline as far as I can

tell. Moreover, the seasonal changes in transport capacity for the mines and merchants

were affected, especially in southern Bolivia, by the ability of the muleteers from

northern Argentina (mainly the Calchaquí Valley) to substitute for the Bolivian Indian

llameros. This, plus, the acquisition of haciendas by the mining companies and their use

of hacienda peons to haul their ores by the late nineteenth century, evened out demand for

transport services from the Indian communities.72

The domination of muleteers and llameros in the transportation sector meant that,

as mentioned above, a significant amount of money flowed from the mercantile and

mining economies to the peasant economy. As shown above, these resources did not

necessarily make peasants wealthy, though certainly it made them more prosperous than

if they had been only agriculturalists. Outcomes varied widely, depending on luck – after

all, muleteers took on most of the risks in transporting goods – but also on good

management of the monies that they received from their activities.

71 Tristan Platt, “Ethnic Calendars and Market Interventions among the Ayllus of Lipes during the Nineteenth Century,” Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology, eds. Brooke Larson and Olivia Harris with Enrique Tandeter (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 259-296.72 See Langer, “The Barriers to Proletarianization.”

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To understand this accumulation of wealth, it is necessary to take into account

that peasants conceived of economic wellbeing somewhat differently than we do today.

Wellbeing came about in three stages: one, the ability to provide for one’s own family

from year to year, secondly, providing a social and economic network that created an

informal infrastructure to provide more security. The third level was to provide for a

wider group, for other relatives or for the community. The accumulation for personal

gain was secondary, since wealth had more to do with creating a web of relationships –

often mediated by social and economic arrangements – that provided security and

dispersed resources over a large number of people. While there were differences in how

this was operationalized between the Andean cultural area of the highlands and that of the

valleys and eastern frontier, the basic conceptions of how to measure wellbeing and

wealth were similar. For this reason, the few testaments of muleteers show this

distribution of wealth among a wide variety of individuals.

The Advent of the Railroad

The arrival of the railroad to Uyuni in 1889 made this issue more important, since

the railhead was the destination of most of Bolivia’s minerals and the source of much of

its merchandise. The mule and llama transportation network adapted to these changes,

refocusing pack animal transport to the railhead of Uyuni. This created many changes in

the pack animal transportation complex. It changed routes, since after the arrival of the

railroad the railhead became the focus of transport for exporting minerals and importing

merchandise. The railroad simplified trade routes, since for the most part the pack animal

trails could not compete. It created a new system in which the pack animal trails radiated

out from Uyuni, simplifying the criss-crossing trails that had existed before, at least for

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the mineral export and long-distance trade. The other trails remained in operation, but

were less heavily used than before and often only for local transport. Also, the minerals

taken to Uyuni were different in weight from the imported merchandise brought in by the

railroad. This created problems with the retornos, since the merchandise spewed out by

the railroad did not use as many pack animals than the heavy sacks of minerals brought to

the rail yard. The arrival of the railroad in Bolivia stimulated pack animal traffic. José

Deustua, one of the few who has examined muleteering in nineteenth-century Latin

America, shows that, in the case of highland Peru, muleteering and railroads coexisted for

a long period and, at least in the medium term, increased pack animal traffic from the

railhead.73

73 José R Deustua, The Bewitchment of Silver: The Social Economy of Mining in Nineteenth-Century Peru (Athens: Ohio Center for International Studies, 2000), 139-173.

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