268 CHAPTER 11 THE TRIUMPH OF NEOCOLONIALISM AND THE LIBERAL STATE, 1870–1900
way for their acquisition by legal or illegal means
by the expanding coffee growers); thirteen months
later he decreed the abolition of all communal land
tenure. The new legislation harmed not only these
communities but ladino (mestizo) small farmers as
well. These farmers often relied on municipal tier-
ras comunes (the free pasture and woodlot where
they could graze their stock) for an important part
of their subsistence. In 1879, 60 percent of the
people depended on communal properties, which
composed 40 percent of arable lands.
The result of this new legislation was a rapid
concentration of landownership in the hands of a
landed oligarchy often referred to as “the fourteen
families.” The number, though not an exact fi gure,
expresses symbolically the reality of the tiny elite
that dominated the Salvadoran economy and state.
Throughout most of the nineteenth century, the
great landowners used their own private armies
to deal with the problem of recalcitrant peasants.
Governmental decrees of 1884 and 1889 made
these private armed forces the basis of the public
Rural Police, later renamed the National Police.
In 1912 the Guardia Nacional (National Guard),
modeled after the Spanish National Guard, was
established. Like the National Police, the National
Guard patrolled the countryside and offered police
protection to haciendas.
For the rural poor, the social consequences of
the coffee boom were disastrous. A few of the dis-
possessed peasants were permitted to remain on
the fi ncas, or new estates, as colonos—peons who
were given a place to live and a milpa, or garden
plot, where they could raise subsistence crops. Un-
like the old indigo or sugar latifundia, however,
which required a large permanent labor force, the
need for labor on the coffee plantations was sea-
sonal, so for the most part planters relied on hired
hands. This circumstance determined the pattern
of life of most Salvadoran campesinos. They might
farm a small plot as squatters or as colonos on a
plantation, but their tiny plots did not as a rule
provide subsistence for their families. They would
therefore tend to follow the harvests, working on
coffee fi ncas during the harvest season, moving
on to cut sugar cane or harvest cotton during Au-
gust and September, and fi nally returning to their
milpas, hopeful that the maize had ripened. This
unstable migratory pattern created many social
problems.Venezuelan Politics and Economy
Turmoil in the aftermath of the Federal War ended
in 1870 when Antonio Guzmán Blanco, the ablest
of Venezuela’s nineteenth-century rulers, seized
power. Like his father, Guzmán Blanco was a mas-
ter of demagogic rhetoric. He was a self-proclaimed
liberal and foe of the oligarchy, an anticlerical
and devout believer in the positivist creed of sci-
ence and progress whose ambition was to create
a “practical republic” of “civilized people.” To se-
cure this vision, he forged pacts with the conserva-
tive merchant class of Caracas, regional caudillos,
and foreign economic interests who profi ted from
his ambitious program to construct roads, rail-
roads, and telegraph systems. In the end, Guzmán
Blanco’s dream of a developed capitalist Venezuela
proved to be a mirage; after two decades of his rule,
Venezuela remained rural, monocultural, and de-
pendent, a country in which caudillos again ran
rampant as they struggled for power.
His system has been called “a national alliance
of caudillos,” but over this alliance “the illustrious
American,” as he came to be called by his sycophan-
tic Congress and press, presided as the supreme
caudillo. The constitution of 1864 was periodically
replaced by new constitutions that reinforced the
centralization of power. Although Guzmán’s dicta-
torship was mild by comparison with some others
in Venezuelan history, he did not hesitate to use re-
pressive measures against his foes.
By his pact with the caudillos, Guzmán se-
cured a relatively stable peace (though there were
several large-scale revolts against him between
1870 and 1888, and local uprisings were com-
mon throughout the period). Soon after coming to
power, he established a compañía de crédito with a
powerful group of Caracas merchants. This gave
him the resources needed to initiate a program of
public works designed to improve transportation
and communication. Between 1870 and 1874,
fi fty-one road-building projects were begun. But
local funding did not suffi ce. Guzmán solicited the