Progressive Chile

by Robert E. Mansfield

For each department of labor on these properties, including canals, corrals, repairs, storehouse, direction of peons, etc., there is a mayordomo, or foreman. Their pay is the same as that of the vaqueros. The proprietor furnishes horses but not saddles for all of his employés, except the peons.

“Ovejeros” (shepherds), connected with these estates live in the hills and work on contract. They receive twenty-five centavos for each lamb born, or one-third of the lambs. In case one receives a per cent. of the lambs as compensation for his labor, he is compelled to sell them to his master for one peso each. Each shepherd has in his care from five hundred to one thousand sheep.

“Inquilinos,” or farm tenants, comprise the servants living on the farm. They must work when ordered or furnish someone to labor in their stead. The head of each of the families is given an allowance of four acres of wheat-growing land, and pasture for six animals; they receive no cash compensation. The peons on the hacienda are not given land and pasturage for animals, but are furnished with a daily ration of food. The owners of estates furnish houses for their servants, free of rent.

The owners of the large, irrigated and well-equipped haciendas constitute the wealthiest, most cultured and aristocratic class in Chile. Presidents, senators and congressmen are elected from this class, and ministers, judges, admirals and generals are selected from the landed gentry. Prominent and influential professional and business men rely upon their estates for both pleasure and profit. The owners live upon their haciendas a portion of the year, but their homes are in the cities, most of them in Santiago, where they live in mansions and spend with lavish hand the income from their estates. The majority of them spend more than their income and as a result the heavily capitalized mortgage bank of Santiago has its octopus-like hand upon ninety per cent. of the beautiful and valuable country estates in Chile. The extravagance of the wealthy class in the Republic is cause for comment, and a surprise to most foreigners. Their prodigality furnishes a ruinous example to the middle classes, who try to emulate them, producing thereby a cheap, imitative kind of aristocracy. Most of them belong to old and influential families who inherited their fortunes and names from pioneer colonists. Some, however, are parvenu aristocrats who have gained access to the exclusive social circles by means of money, a position which from lack of education and breeding they are not qualified to maintain.

Large landowners give little time to the cultivation of their estates, and as a result the haciendas never produce to their full capacity. The chief occupation of the owners is a calculation of the probable income, with the application of as little capital and labor as possible on the property.

Notwithstanding the fact that Chile owns the richest and most extensive nitrate fields and guano deposits in the world, and that thousands of tons of fertilizing material are exported annually to other countries, to enrich depleted soil, little or none of this valuable re-creative agency is utilized to rejuvenate the sterile soil of the worn hill farms of the Republic. They refuse to return to the soil by artificial means that which is annually drawn from it in the production of crops, and as a result much valuable land has lapsed into disuse, being considered sterile and valueless because its producing quality has been exhausted. Under existing circumstances the farmer’s expenses are heavy and certain and his income decreasing and uncertain. The result is that the handsome estates are fast falling under the bane of mortgages, the payment of the interest on which is sapping the life of the soil. Economy is not one of the ruling characteristics of the Chileno; social and political prestige must be maintained, even if the inevitable result is financial ruin.

Mortgages will not permit of a disunion of the estates they cover, or selling of a portion of the land with which to pay interest, and when the owner is unable to longer meet his obligations the hacienda is sold at auction. The family then retires to a life of seclusion, and thereafter live upon a very meager income. There is no moral; remembering their former achievements and the splendor of past life, they indulge in no regret over present conditions. These families do not as a rule, however, belong to the best blood of Chile. They generally consist of those who go from country to the city and whose vanity leads them into unwonted extravagance.

The artificial and realistic phases of social life among the above mentioned classes furnish some sharp and well-defined contrasts. The phase most commonly known, and the one invariably presented to the world, is the artificial, with stage effects and deceptive lights; the other is the real,—the everyday home life, where the natural characteristics of the actors are presented. In the home, all show, pomp and exhibition can be safely discarded; no stage effects are necessary. A “peep” into the home life of some of these families will reveal the female members sitting in groups upon low stools, or on the floor, around a “bracero,” charcoal fire, the servants squatting in close proximity, discussing in a familiar way the latest social triumphs or the day’s hidden economies.

Another striking contrast in the home life is the different characteristics possessed by the men and women. The women are domestic by nature, patient to a degree, long suffering, good mothers and loyal wives. They are content with little, and either by inheritance or through generations of experience and training they do not expect much from their lords and masters. Their education, which is generally secured in the parochial schools, is influenced by religious prejudice. They manifest little interest in politics or world affairs, and a professional career is not to be thought of by a Chilena. ’Tis considered more respectable for a woman to live proudly in abject poverty than to earn a livelihood in a profession or commercial occupation. Many of the Chilean señoritas possess great beauty, are graceful and vivacious. They know the force and effect of flattery, and are artists in the use of that dangerous weapon of society. They have natural talent for languages, usually speak French and have some knowledge of English, and their own language they use with consummate skill.

The sons in the families of the better class are often educated in the belief that labor is degrading, and encouraged to lead lives of indolence. Instead of being taught that labor is honorable, that the gods sell everything to those who work; that the most useless and uninteresting members of society in this busy world are the drones; that intelligent industry is the chief factor in modern civilization; that honest effort is the advance guard of commercial and industrial progress, the youth of Chile is encouraged in the belief that it is honorable and manly to rely upon paternal dependence. Their education and youthful training too often lead them into the erroneous idea that business is drudgery, and that discipline of mind and will are hardships to be endured only by the servants and poor classes.