Rural Association

The guild of Uruguayan landowners was founded in 1871. Although partisan political activity was not inherent in its makeup, it lobbied strongly during the dictatorship of Lorenzo Latorre and has continued to do so. In 1915 the ranchers were confronted by Batllist social reforms, and from the nucleus of the old Rural Association they created the Federación Rural. While the Association had always defined itself as a nonpolitical and nonpartisan organization, the Federation explicitly assumed a political character and adopted a platform in direct opposition to Batllist policies and reforms. The Asociación Rural was an important representative of the interests of wealthy landowners, but it lost its monopoly and hegemony to the Federación Rural, and as the twentieth century progressed, it increasingly came to represent medium and small rural producers.

See alsoBatllismo .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

José Pedro Barrán and Benjamin Nahum, Historia rural del Uruguay moderno, 1851–1885, vol. 1 (1967).

Enrique Méndez Vives, El Uruguay de la modernización, vol. 5 (1977).

Additional Bibliography

Cancela Vilanova, Walter, Alicia Melgar and Verónica Camacho Durán. El Uruguay rural cuarenta años de evolución, cambios y permanencias. Montevideo: CLAEH, 2004.

Moraes, María Inés. Bella Unión: De la estancia tradicional a la agricultura moderna, 1853–1965. Montevideo: Centro de Investigaciones Económicas: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1990.

                                          Fernando Filgueira