The Decline of the Hacienda in Cochabamba, Bolivia: The Case of the Sacaba Valley, 1870-1929
S TUDIES of the rural sector in Latin America in both the colonial and national periods have focused on the hacienda and plantation, concerning tenure, land use, and labor relations. The literature on Bolivia is no exception. The two most important themes studied have been the expansion of the hacienda at the expense of Indian lands and the decline of commercial agriculture as a consequence of changes in commercial circuits in the southern Andean region. The official version of Bolivian history as formulated by the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) political party maintains that the land reform program initiated by that party in 1953 destroyed the feudal hacienda and restructured land tenure in the country, an interpretation which finds general acceptance in Bolivia, especially among scholars who argue that the hacienda expanded at the end of the nineteenth century. Recent studies have examined changing patterns of land tenure in different parts of Bolivia during the late colonial period and in the years after about 1870, showing that in most regions latifundio expanded at the expense of the land base of the corporate Indian communities. In the altiplano (La Paz and Oruro departments), the rapid growth of the cities of La Paz and Oruro in the period 1900-20, following the Federal Revolution (1899), together with the expansion of tin mining created an increasing demand for foodstuffs. Improvements in internal transportation with the construction of roads and railroads linked new areas in the altiplano to the growing urban markets, and made the acquisition of relatively cheap but fertile Indian lands close to the roads and railroad lines attractive to members of the urban oligarchy.' Erwin Grieshaber has documented the