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Uruguay The Ranching Elite
Compared with their counterparts on the Argentine
pampas,
Uruguay's latifundistas (large landholders) never
achieved
the same level of social and political preeminence.
Constituting
a tiny fraction of the population, they nevertheless
controlled
the bulk of the nation's land, which they typically used
for
cattle and sheep ranching
(see Land Use and Tenure
, ch.
3).
Intermarriage with newer urban commercial elites was
common, but
many of the ranchers descended from colonial Spanish
settlers.
Those who could afford it ran their ranches as absentee
landlords, spending as much of the year as possible in
Montevideo. Their children were traditionally educated in
private
schools, which were either Roman Catholic or
English-speaking
schools. Originally founded for the children of
expatriates, the
latter institutions continued to model themselves on
Britain's
elite private schools.
For the ranchers, the social event of the year was the
annual
agricultural show at the Prado, a park in Montevideo,
where
prizes were awarded for the best breeds of cattle and
sheep and
where the latest farm machinery was displayed.
Politically, the
ranchers were organized in the Rural Federation
(Federación
Rural), which acted as a pressure group for their
interests.
Because the incomes of the ranchers varied with the
profitability
of beef and wool exports, they were constantly lobbying
the
government for favorable tax and exchange-rate policies.
Under
military rule from 1973 to 1985, they were deprived of
much of
their influence, and thus many of them turned against the
government. Historically, the majority of ranchers voted
for the
National Party rather than the Colorado Party. However,
the
distinction has tended to break down. One factor in this
breakdown was the emergence in the 1950s of a nonparty
Ruralist
movement called the Federal League for Rural Action (Liga
Federal
de Acción Rural--LFAR), which allied with different
parties in
successive elections.
Uruguay's rural society remained much more rigidly
hierarchical than its urban society, and status
differences were
pronounced. This was also true of towns outside the
Montevideo
region, where the majority of the interior population
lived.
Data as of December 1990
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