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Coffee


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Questions | Bibliography

Chapter Reference: Neocolonialism; Nationalism; Neoliberalism

Coffee has historically been one of Latin America's most widespread principal export crops. For more than a century, it was a mainstay in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. Coffee originated apparently in East Africa. It was transferred to Latin America in the late 1700s. Brazil was the hemisphere's pioneer producer in the early 1800s. Most Latin American coffee producers began to cultivate the crop toward the end of that century, when the international market for coffee expanded enormously, chiefly because of rising standards of living in Europe and the United States. By the mid 1900s, coffee cultivation was spreading to Africa and Asia, increasing competition for Latin American producers. Coffee trade and production is therefore an excellent study in the rise of global commodity markets. A paper on coffee in Latin American history can compare the results of coffee cultivation in various countries. In some places, such as Brazil and Colombia, coffee production proved to be a steppingstone to industrialization, but the impact of the crop has been quite variable. Coffee has been cultivated by slaves on large plantations and also by smallholders on family farms.

Questions for Analysis and Further Reflection:

  1. As a principal export crop in many Latin American countries, coffee has had a major impact on economies. Coffee cultivation in El Salvador in the 1800s, for example, was a success story, but it was followed and overshadowed by later manifestations of the negative impacts of plantation agriculture. What are other examples of the different impacts coffee has had on economies around Latin America since the mid 1800s?


  2. Different patterns of coffee cultivation resulted in a variety of salient social consequences. Compare these patterns and consequences in Brazil, Colombia, and Guatemala.


  3. In the last ten years in the U.S., the number of cafés and coffee drinks has grown tremendously, as has their popularity. In this same period the debate on the "fair trade" of coffee as a commodity on the world market, which aims to pay coffee workers a fair price for their harvest and a fair wage for their work, has gained attention. Are you aware of or do you drink fairly traded coffee? How does the price of coffee-fairly traded or not-fit into the history of coffee in Latin America and illustrate the recognition of the historical impact of coffee cultivation?

Bibliography: (Titles with ** are good starting places.)

Bergad, Laird W. Coffee and the Growth of Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Puerto            Rico. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Bergad presents a scholarly take on the history of coffee in Puerto Rico, suitable for students interested in the history of coffee in the Caribbean or those who want to narrow their focus to one country case.

Cambranes, J. C. Coffee and Peasants: The Origins of the Modern Plantation Economy in
           Guatemala, 1853-1897.
Stockholm: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1985.

** Clarence-Smith, William Gervase, and Steven Topik, eds. The Global Coffee Economy in
           Africa, Asia, and Latin America, 1500-1989.
New York: Cambridge University Press,
           2003.

In this overview of the history of coffee, students will find multiple essays dealing with Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico. There are also a handful of useful appendices with historical statistics on world coffee production.

** Dean, Warren. Rio Claro: A Brazilian Plantation System, 1820-1920. Stanford: Stanford
           University Press, 1976.

Though slightly dated, this well-written history of coffee plantations near São Paulo introduces students to key themes of coffee cultivation, like land expropriation, slave labor, and, following abolition, the development of a wage labor system built around colonization schemes.

Font, Mauricio A. Coffee, Contention, and Change in the Making of Modern Brazil. Oxford:
           Basil Blackwell, 1990.

Font explores the intersection of economics, politics, and social change in their relationship to coffee cultivation in São Paulo during the early 1900s.

** Holloway, Thomas H. Immigrants on the Land: Coffee and Society in São Paulo, 1886
           1934.
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1980.

Holloway provides a readable history of coffee in Brazil, focusing on the colonization schemes that brought immigrants to work the land, and highlighting the impacts coffee had on social relations and the Brazilian economy.

Paige, Jeffery M. Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central
           America.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Paige traces the development of coffee elites and class divisions that grew out of coffee cultivation in Central America. The first two chapters are the most useful for students seeking a general overview of coffee in the region in the twentieth century.

** Palacios, Marco. Coffee in Colombia, 1850-1970: An Economic, Social, and Political
           History.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Palacios offers the most complete historical tour of coffee in Colombia. Students interested in the history of Colombia and of coffee in Colombia would do well to begin with this book.

Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our
           World.
New York: Basic Books, 1999.

Pendergrast provides a readable, journalistic account of the history of coffee.

Stein, Stanley J. Vassouras, A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850-1900: The Roles of Planter and
           Slave in a Plantation Society.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Topik, Steven C., and Allen Wells, eds. The Second Conquest of Latin America: Coffee,
           Henequen, and Oil During the Export Boom, 1850-1930.
Austin: University of Texas
           Press, Institute of Latin American Studies, 1998.

** Williams, Robert G. States and Social Evolution: Coffee and the Rise of National
           Governments in Central America.
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,            1994.

Williams's study is the most complete historical portrait in English of coffee in Central America.


Other Resources:
Brazil
Colombia
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Nicaragua
Guatemala
Mexico
Venezuela