B <scp>etween</scp> C <scp>ommunal</scp> , E <scp>mphyteutic</scp> , <scp>and</scp> P <scp>rivate</scp> P <scp>roperty</scp> : <i>Liberal Experimentation on Agricultural Land in Nineteenth-Century Bolivia</i>

Abstract This paper examines the gradual imposition of private property on agricultural land, mostly occupied by Indigenous communities, in the early nineteenth century by Andean republics’ ruling classes. The state’s weak authority and the Indigenous resistance to economic and political border advance impeded the immediate destruction of previous power structures, resulting in genuine statal formations in the region and clashes for the imposition of the newly adopted liberal ideas. This paper focuses on two early agricultural property privatization attempts in Bolivia, which have not been properly analyzed yet. First, José Ballivián’s governmental project, which resolved to dismantle the Indigenous communities through capitalist education, by placing “good examples” of white and mestizo colons between Indigenous lands using the legal formulation of emphyteusis, thus expanding the liberal conception of property and taxation and then making the existence of communal lands futile, achieving social homogeneity, enforcing capitalist production, and widening executive authority. Second, Jorge Mallo’s posterior pamphlet, which gave continuity to Ballivián’s policies through public opinion and linked them to the ones finally imposed in the second half of the century. Both initiatives were not successful but were remarkable steps in the process of Indigenous land usurpation by the state and white-mestizo colons.