Cultivating Racial Democracy: Latin American History from a Tropical Agriculture Institute

In 1947, a geographer and a mycologist at the Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico published an article in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology comparing British and Spanish colonialism in the Americas. Between World War II and the mid-1960s, Raymond Crist and Carlos E. Chardón collaborated in a variety of agricultural development projects and academic exchange programs in the Caribbean, in Colombia’s Cauca Valley, and in the southern United States. At first glance, their 1947 article on race and colonialism in Latin American history seems unusual for a geographer studying contemporary land tenure and an agronomist with expertise in mushroom science. How did they interpret Latin American history and what lessons from the region’s colonial past could affect modern agricultural science?

This paper will explore the place of agriculture in the emerging field of Latin American Studies in the postwar period by considering academic collaboration and intellectual exchange in the Western Hemisphere at the dawn of the political Cold War and the burgeoning Green Revolution. By applying the language of agronomy, especially grafting and hybridization, the authors of the 1947 article showcase perceived connections between history, race, and agriculture in Latin America, reflecting a transnational circulation of ideas between specialists employed at and moving between various agricultural research stations in the Greater Caribbean. Their work represents the currency of intellectual trends in Latin America, including the celebration of mestizaje and racial democracy, across academic disciplines. Using the work of Crist and Chardón as cases in point, this paper examines a Pan-Americanist blueprint of agricultural scientific development and exchange as a tool for alleviating social tensions and promoting the public good. Finally, it understands agriculture as a political, economic, intellectual, and cultural conduit of the Latin American Cold War experience.