Antes y después de 1810: escenarios en la historia de las exportaciones rioplatenses de cueros desde 1760 hasta 1860

Abstract

This paper focus on the history of River Plate’s exports of hides from 1760 to 1860, a century that ran from the beginning of the Bourbon reforms in America until the beginning of the “first globalization”. The aim of this paper is to show some basic magnitudes of this crucial commodity in the region’s history of international trade, from the early years as a staple until its maturity. Thus, this work collects from primary and secondary sources data on volume, prices and values of exported hides from Buenos Aires and Montevideo along the period. This evidence is useful to grasp how volumes, prices and values performed before and after the critical year of 1810, when the colonial ties with Spain were broken. The results underline three main facts: first, exports of hides from the Rio de la Plata grew at a high rate before 1810 due to a large increase in volumes and in spite of flat prices. Second, they experienced a much more slowly and fluctuating growth after the independence; in spite of wars and political turmoil, this time volumes exported were even greater than before while prices declined until 1850. Third, export prices of hides notably rise in 1850, and just then they acted as the driving force upon value.