The Greater Pampas: Meat, Wheat, and the Making of an Export Economy in the Río de la Plata Region, 1800–1914

This presentation analyzes the trajectory of the Río de la Plata Grasslands, or “Pampas,” from an economic and environmental perspective. It examines the transformation of the region in the long nineteenth century (1800-1914) by focusing on two commodities: meat and wheat. This work adopts a transnational approach to the Pampas’ territory, covering not only eastern Argentina, but also Uruguay and southern Brazil. That way, it offers a renewed historiographic angle of observation to this region by examining the biome as a whole rather than the resulting national portions of it. The talk examines a long chronological span, from the late colonial era to the economic crisis of World War I. Through that itinerary, it discusses the “Atlantization” of the economy, the replacement of silver with rural exports before and after independence, and the expansion of the cultivable frontier. It also studies the manipulation of the grasslands' ecology, the concepts of “progress” and civilization”, the notions of “desert” and “resource,” and the demographic, technological, and infrastructural transformations brought by the region’s incorporation into Atlantic capitalism. In that sense, it demonstrates how these two commodities represent different stages of economic and environmental change in an ecological space, not limited by the international borders consolidated in the mid-nineteenth century. By combining new and classic sources, this presentation bridges qualitative and quantitative analyses to offer a more complete image of the region’s trajectory. It also reflects on the recollection, selection, and use of sources from different archives, introducing notes for a methodological debate concerning the dialogue between economic and environmental history.