Cattle Raising in the Argentine Northeast: Corrientes, c. 1750–1870

Though Argentina has long been synonymous with trackless pampas and teeming livestock herds, this common image requires some qualification. Before the late nineteenth century, when refrigerated transport made possible a large international market for Argentine beef, cattle played a less important role in the economy of the Río de la Plata than is usually assumed. Except for Buenos Aires province, where stockraising was predominant even in the colonial period, ranchers often had to struggle hard and insistently to find their niche in the overall commerce of the region. Grazing conditions were excellent in many areas of the Río de la Plata, but because the port of Buenos Aires always enjoyed a near-exclusive control over external trade, the porteños effectively blunted the development of any stockraising that threatened to compete with their own exports. In the northeastern provinces, this resulted in a cattle industry marked by technological backwardness and erratic growth. The chaotic politics of the post-independence era reinforced these conditions, though reform-minded ranchers and government officials consistently tried to improve provincial standards of stockraising.