The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America - autonomous ...

54 Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
Slaves had constituted slightly more than one-half of the hacienda's
total inventory. Now the wage-labor bill was one-half of the
hacienda's running costs. The annual sales of brandy and cocoa
turned out a handsome profit, which, however, proved unsteady. In
the early i86os and again in 1876 the hacienda was confiscated during
civil wars in which Sergio Arboleda took a prominent and losing
role.
The recurring struggle for land control is well illustrated in Arboleda's
instructions to his administrator in 1867 and in 1871, when
once again the balance of power tipped in his favor. His main concern
in 1867 was the black tenants. They were to be divided into
neighborhoods and successively called upon to pay their dues. A
large renter was to be given the power to supervise rent collection in
each neighborhood. Each September special vigilance would be required,
according to the instructions, to stop tenants from clearing
forest for planting corn without permission, and to ensure that
those who did paid a rent. Immediate expulsion was to follow failure
to pay, and no tenant was to be allowed to subrent or bring in outsiders.
Artisans were to provide their own food. "I say this because
experience has taught me: first, they charge the same whether you
feed them or if you don't; and second, that almost all of them when
they are assured food don't do in a month the half of what the food is
worth, and at the end of a year's work, the task has been barely begun."
Some peasants responded angrily. In 1867, Arboleda received a letter
about the rights to distil brandy:
Senor Arboleda:
Who do you think you are? By good fortune do you think
that you are still in Quinamayo with your brother the Granadine
Caligula and your army of bandits sacrificing the poor?
Do you think that we will any longer tolerate your roguery?
Alert, Doctor of Revenge; it is a scandal that a man like yourself
that has so many ways to make money steals from the
poor women their right to make brandy—their only means of
livelihood left after you and your brother robbed us during the
revolution. You are a public thief, an assassin, infamous and
without shame! Take off your trousers and wear bushes. What
have you come to do here? To rob us. Don't think that we have
forgotten all the evil you have done. The hour of revenge will
strike. We will never forget the firing squads of San Camilo
and Palmira, nor the gallows in Piendomo or the orders of your
brother to starve the prisoners to death. Do you think that you