Sweet death: indigenous labour exploitation in the San Martín de Tabacal Sugar Mill,Salta, Argentina

ABSTRACT

During the national consolidation process in Argentina, throughout the nineteenth century, a new map of local power was designed based on appropriated territories and the consolidation of ‘internal frontiers’ denominated ‘desert’ by hegemonic discourses. The indigenous presence was denied discursively, yet military crusades of extermination, and a very massive process of labour incorporation of these groups was forced in order to develop the incipient agribusiness activity in certain areas of the country. This article explores life conditions and resistance strategies developed by the indigenous kolla communities, victims of the exploitation performed by the owners of the San Martín de Tabacal Sugar Mill, located in Salta, northwestern Argentina, throughout the twentieth century.

RESUMEN

Durante el período de consolidación nacional a lo largo del siglo XIX se armó en Argentina un nuevo mapa de poderes locales en el cual se apropiaron territorios y se consolidaron ‘fronteras interiores’, denominadas ‘desierto’ por el discurso hegemónico de la época. Se negaba discursivamente la presencia de grupos indígenas al mismo tiempo que se iniciaban campañas de exterminio, y un largo proceso de incorporación forzada como fuerza de trabajo de dichos grupos, para desarrollar la incipiente actividad agrícola-industrial en algunas regiones del país. Este artículo explora las condiciones de vida y estrategias de resistencia asumidas por comunidades indígenas kolla, víctimas de la explotación llevada a cabo por los dueños del Ingenio San Martín de Tabacal, ubicado en Salta, noroeste argentino, a lo largo del siglo XX.

KEYWORDS:

• Latin America
• indigenous peoples
• sugar
• labour exploitation
• agribusiness

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• América Latina
• Pueblos Indígenas
• Azúcar
• Explotación laboral
• Agronegocios

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on the contributor

Marina Weinberg is PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from Binghamton University at State University of New York. She is a researcher at the Instituto Interdisciplinario Tilcara, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Weinberg explores the relation between state policies and indigenous politics in Northwestern Argentina (Salta and Jujuy) as well as the impact development projects have had in these communities.

Pablo H. Mercolli is Licenciado in Sociocultural Anthropology with orientation in Archaeology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. He is a researcher at the Instituto Interdisciplinario Tilcara, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Mercolli carries out zooarchaeological studies in Quebrada de Humahuaca (Jujuy), Quebrada del Toro (Salta) and Bolivia. He also specializes in regional archaeology and its relationship with indigenous communities.

Notes

1. The Independence was declared in 9th July 1816.

2. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the estimated national population was around 400,000 inhabitants, among which 200,000 were indigenous (Massé 2003).

3. One of the most important advocates of this ideology was Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a writer and a journalist who became the seventh president of the country (1868–1874). His most finished production, which became foundational for this ideology was the book Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie (1845).

4. Conquest of the Desert.

5. Many multicultural and bilingual programs were approved in recent years by the National Ministry of Education.

6. This process by no means implies that the social landscape that existed before the foundation of the nation state was uniform, harmonious or static.

7. While the lowlands held populations of hunter-gatherers like the ethnic groups chorote, nivaklé, pilagá, tapiete, toba y wichí among others, due to the presence of anglican and pentacostal missions, they underwent different processes than those analysed in this article for the kolla groups mainly in highland areas (see Gordillo 2002, 2004, 2005 among others, Boasso 2004, Ceriani Cernadas 2011, Bossert 2012).

8. The geographical area we are covering holds a huge ecological variation, which goes from very dry and cold highlands to subtropical lowlands.

9. ‘órdenes eran órdenes. Si usted se llega a enfermar, a curarse y seguir trabajando. Ahí no reconocían parte de enfermo. Si se moría tenían que sepultarlo ahí y seguir trabajando, no había como dicen descanso, tiene que arreglar sus cosas y seguir trabajando’ (Interview with EG, 5th October 2010).

10. Interview with MU (19th October 2010).

11. ‘cuando uno salía a la tardecita, a la noche, había peligro. Hallábamos un sombrero, una campera, he visto eso yo. El sombrero y la ropa. Decían que el Ingenio tenía un diablo ahí, que se comía a la gente. Cuando desaparecía uno, el Ingenio andaba bien. Y cuando ya no había eso, andaba faltando caña, mal andaba el Ingenio y hacíamos menos platita.

  M:

El Familiar tenía que comerse trabajadores para andar bien?

  JC:

Así era. El Ingenio tenía que comerse a alguno. Entonces andaba bien. Así era.’ (Interview with JC, 16th November 2010, our translation).

12. Five-year Plan.

13. During the last military dictatorship (1976–1983), the Estatuto del Peón Rural was repealed and replaced by the Regime of Agrarian Labor (1980), which did not recognize informal (or non-permanent) labour, and consequently left without any regulation or protection most of the rural workforce.

14. ‘Malón’ was the name given to the surprising attacks carried out during the nineteenth century by indigenous groups against the criollos, as a way of defense when the newly independent nation was enhancing its frontiers using military forces. 

15. The Immigrants Hotel was an immense building constructed at the beginning of the 1900s, to receive and accommodate the immigrants who massively arrived from different regions of the world to Buenos Aires.

16. Some members of the community have done, years later, their own reading: ‘Immigrant’s Hotel! For the Indians, as if we were foreigners!’ (Interview with LC, 4th October 2010).

17. A few communities in the province of Jujuy achieved the devolution of their lands yet the majority of the cases are still fighting until these days.