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Like the swing of the pendulum: The history of government-sponsored rural settlements in São Paulo, Brazil (1820s–1920s).
- Source :
- Economic History of Developing Regions; Dec2023, Vol. 38 Issue 3, p305-334, 30p
- Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- This paper studies the history of government-sponsored rural settlements in the province/state of São Paulo, Brazil, as a pendular movement, whose points of reversion depended on the interests of a landowning elite to obtain labour for newly expanding plantations from the 1820s to the 1920s. Faltering infrastructure and ill-defined property rights over public lands were persistent constraints to the development of such rural settlements. Part of this failure can be attributed to a lack of State capacity and part to the opposition of plantation owners to the settling of independent smallholdings. The paper complements this historical-institutional analysis with a quantitative description of such settlements in 1898–1920. These late government-sponsored rural settlements showed the potential to grow in demographic and economic terms and had an overall demographic and occupational composition well aligned with the goal of creating a family-based peasantry. However, there were enormous heterogeneities in ethno-linguistic composition, educational attainment, and economic prosperity between and within such rural settlements, which point to idiosyncratic features that should be taken into account in future research assessing the short- and long-run effects of immigration and settlement policies in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- PENDULUMS
PROPERTY rights
RURAL development
PUBLIC lands
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20780389
- Volume :
- 38
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Economic History of Developing Regions
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 172046032
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2023.2243035