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

Slave Religion and Rise of the Free Peasantry 5 5
are going to make us die of hunger too, quitting the income
from the women? If that's what you think you are mistaken
because here nobody has fear. Take care that the brandy isn't
going to be the way you pay off your debts. Watch out that
your wickedness and criminal life doesn't end up the same as
your brother's [who was assassinated in 1862]; every Caeser has
his Brutus. It's better to rob the government 300,000 pesos or
more than make war on the women over brandy for this is very
ridiculous. Look out or the people will fulfill their duty for we
are free and sovereign; no longer are you Chief of State of the
Goths [Conservatives] that can rob and kill as in 1861.
Some Masked Ones
By 1871, Arboleda's instructions concerning tenants had become
lengthier and even more pugnacious. Squatters kept occupying land,
and many tenants were refusing to conform. Arboleda instructed his
administrator to make a census and expel those without documents
if they would not pay rent. He advised caution. It would not be prudent,
he said, to expel all refractory tenants simultaneously. The
most rebellious should be dislodged first, to teach the others a lesson.
All squatters were to be driven off by destroying their habitations,
and all clearing of land in Japio by small tenants planting corn
was to cease. The peasants retaliated by burning the cane fields and
sabotaging the Arboledas' attempts to extend sugarcane cultivation
so as to combat soil exhaustion.
By the late 18705 profits were well down. They remained so until
the demise of the family and the beginning of large-scale commercial
agriculture in the early twentieth century, when a railroad connected
the Cauca Valley to the Pacific coast and thus to the international
market. The intransigence of the black peasantry made it
virtually impossible to survive the economic crisis. In 1882, Arboleda
was trying to sell the estate. His son Alfonso, who took over the
management in the mid-18705, wrote despairingly to his father of
theft, lack of labor, armed rebellion, refusal to pay tenajes, and the
unremitting hatred of the peasants for the landlords. "These haciendas
now produce nothing. . . . The only hope is with the terrajems,
but they refuse to pay. And the plantains! You have to place a guard
beneath each tree so they aren't stolen." The production of cocoa
was constantly threatened by theft. The blacks made paths throughout
all the plantings, constantly tore down fences, and even blocked
transport in and out of the hacienda. The political situation was desperate:
the Liberal party faction of Hurtado "has assaulted our do-