Unit 6 SAQ 6.4 - 1 AMSCO AP WORLD - Withrow

"Around the middle of the 19th century, Uruguay was dominated by the latifundium [a large landed estate or ranch, typically worked by enslaved people], with its ill-defined boundaries and enormous herds of native cattle, from which only the hides were exported to Great Britain and part of the meat, as jerky, to Brazil and Cuba. There was a shifting rural population that worked on the large estates and lived largely on the parts of beef carcasses that could not be marketed abroad. Often the landowners were also the caudillos [military or political leaders] of the Blanco or Colorado political parties, the protagonists of civil wars that a weak government was unable to prevent (Barrán and Nahum, 1984, 655). This picture still holds, even if it has been excessively stylized, neglecting the importance of subsistence [the act of supporting oneself] or domestic-market oriented peasant production."