Myths of Modernity: Peonage and Patriarchy in Nicaragua

by Elizabeth Dore

In Myths of Modernity , Elizabeth Dore rethinks Nicaragua’s transition to capitalism. Arguing against the idea that the country’s capitalist transformation was ushered in by the coffee boom that extended from 1870 to 1930, she maintains that coffee growing gave rise to systems of landowning and labor exploitation that impeded rather than promoted capitalist development. Dore places gender at the forefront of her analysis, which demonstrates that patriarchy was the organizing principle of the coffee economy’s debt-peonage system until the 1950s. She examines the gendered dynamics of daily life in Diriomo, a township in Nicaragua’s Granada region, tracing the history of the town’s Indian community from its inception in the colonial era to its demise in the early twentieth century. Dore seamlessly combines archival research, oral history, and an innovative theoretical approach that unites political economy with social history. She recovers the bygone voices of peons, planters, and local officials within documents such as labor contracts, court records, and official correspondence. She juxtaposes these historical perspectives with those of contemporary peasants, landowners, activists, and politicians who share memories passed down to the present. The reconceptualization of the coffee economy that Dore elaborates has far-reaching implications. The Sandinistas mistakenly believed, she contends, that Nicaraguan capitalism was mature and ripe for socialist revolution, and after their victory in 1979 that belief led them to alienate many peasants by ignoring their demands for land. Thus, the Sandinistas’ myths of modernity contributed to their downfall.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book that explores two themes:

1) The dissolution of communal land ownership - las tierras ejidales - and by extension the dissolution of Indian identity in the Granada department. This took place with the advance of private property, concentration of land in the hands of oligarchs, and debt peonage.

2) The intensification of patriarchy. The patria potestad was intensified with women becoming completely subordinated to the male head of house, while at the same time women were included along with men in the vagrancy laws that enforced peonage. The result is that men were able to pawn off women and children to serve as peons, and that many women chose to either remain unmarried or to never marry after widowing.

This is a timely book because the introduction and conclusion touch on the conflict between the FSLN during the 1980s and peasants. The author explains that - contrary to official history -the debt peonage system of Pacific Nicaragua was NOT capitalist but rather based on patriarchal peonage, coercion, and a practically feudal serfdom. As a result, the Sandinistas attempts to impose state land ownership did not resonate with many peasants because they did not constitute a rural proletariat, and instead preferred to win land titles for their families.

I highly recommend this book because it is reasonable, well-sources, and thoroughly explains the development of patriarchy from above (patriarch-peon) and patriarch from below (men-women/children) through the lens of economics, class analysis, and systems of coercion. It also provides a very reasonable critique - from a Marxist perspective - of the FSLN's various land programs during the 1980s and how they relate to the previous 150 years of rural relations in Nicaragua.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I remembered my specific problems with this book. Read for a class. I am obsessed with Nicaragua. I think it was her obvious anti-FSLN bias and related conclusions that I disagreed with. I do not like her interpretations of Nicaraguan history, though the history itself is interesting.