Mobility and Migration in Indigenous Amazonia by Miguel N. Alexiades

Author:Miguel N. Alexiades [Alexiades, Miguel N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845455637
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Published: 2009-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Republic Period

The Republic Period (1826–1952) initiated the first significant penetration of non-indigenous society in Apolobamba, with profound consequences for the Lecos and their environment. Immediately prior to independence, Franciscan missions were converted into secular parishes as native inhabitants retreated back to ancestral lands. The creation of the Caupolicán Province in 1826 coincided with international demand for quinine to treat malaria, and the Bolivian government granted Cinchona tree concessions to attract Bolivian criollos (of European descent) and foreigners (Jimenez 1991; Luisa Soux 1991).12 Apolo, the provincial capital, and Atén, located in the heart of extractive forests to the south, emerged as exportation centres. Trade routes linking these regions, however, were as ephemeral as the quinine boom itself, which declined after 1860. Indigenous communities that reorganised to take advantage of the economy, particularly the Lecos near Atén, were hard hit by tribute demands in the wake of the bust (Armentia 1905; Jimenez 1991; Luisa Soux 1991).

By 1880, international demand for rubber again changed productive and power relations in the province as the first hacienda estates were established and a powerful elite (vecinos) emerged (Luisa Soux 1991). By the twentieth century, numerous haciendas were dedicated to rubber extraction, sugar cane and coca production and cattle ranching, which rapidly expanded to feed the growing population of indentured indigenous workers. Although the Lecos did not experience the large population displacements imposed on interior tribes (see Alexiades and Peluso, this volume), the indigenous peoples of Apolo were gravely exploited by a hacienda system located on the periphery of state control (Luisa Soux 1991: 120–24).

Indigenous subsistence strategies existed along with hacendado-controlled market activities, although the wealth generated neither compensated indigenous peoples, bound by debt peonage, nor led to the development of the province. As with the quinine boom, the rubber boom collapsed abruptly in 1912 and left the region isolated and impoverished. The extractive cycles of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries tentatively linked Apolobamba to the altiplano and adjacent lowlands, although under conditions that created a situation of dependency rather than development (Jimenez 1991). Indigenous peoples, whose identities became buried in the politics of subordination, bore the brunt of the region's economic isolation and remained dependent upon the haciendas, which continued to encroach on traditional lands and resources (MACPIO 2002).

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