Social Classes In Argentina

After Argentina gained its independence from Spain on July 9, 1816, it would have been a long time until it became a unified nation deprived of conflict. Problems of inequality between classes arose and it was not until the early 1900s that these issues were addressed. Before understanding what Juan Peron, the president in 1946 stood for, it is necessary to grasp the economic and political problems that Argentina faced prior to his ruling. By the early 20th century, Argentina had already become dominated by an alliance of the local ruling classes based on two factors, first, the ranching and grain growing in the pampas, and second the import-export and financial sectors in Buenos Aires, which supported the agrarian economy. These local fractions …show more content…
In 1829, a federalist named Juan Manuel Rosas came to power by deliberately exploiting rural unrest to assemble popular forces to counter the Unitarian rebellion (47, Lynch). He imposed a much stronger version of Federalism by manipulating the alternative views, thus creating his own, which relied heavily on a network of personal alliances among the regional land-owning clans, estancias, and the export of meat. It is important to understand the rise of Rosas and what that meant for society here on after. In the book Argentina Caudillo, Lynch states that, ”Rosas represented the rise to power of a new economic interest and a new social group, the estancieros”. Lynch describes how the classic elite of the Revolution of 1810 was focused upon the merchants and the bureaucrats. He goes on to explain how the struggle to gain independence greatly influenced this new economic formation, as he states, “ the struggle for independence created professional politicians, state officials, a new military, men who can be described as career revolutionaries… by 1829 their day had passed” (Lynch 13). In other words, he is elucidating the situation how once Rosas came to power the Buenos Aires landowners overthrew the existing rulers and took direct possession of the government of the province through their representative, Rosas. The start of what was known as the “Rosas Regime” led to landowners becoming the dominant ruling class. This allowed them to gain control over laborers through estancias and the military. In the Argentine Dictator by John Lynch, Lynch argues that the land policy of Rosas had an obvious economic objective in that it reinforced the power of the landowner over the laborer. Lynch also states, “that land was the richest source, a weapon for Rosas” (23, Lynch). He manipulated factions of laborers, gauchos, and elites from the estancias and set himself up as