Latifundium

Alatifundium(Latin:latus,"spacious", andfundus,"farm", "estate" )was originally the term used byancient Romansfor greatlanded estatesspecialising in agriculture destined for sale: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were characteristic ofMagna GraeciaandSicily,Egypt,Northwest AfricaandHispania Baetica.Thelatifundiawere the closest approximation to industrialised agriculture in antiquity, and their economics depended uponslavery.

In themodern colonial period,the word was borrowed in Portugueselatifúndiosand Spanishlatifundiosor simplyfundosfor similar extensive land grants, known asfazendas(inPortuguese) orhaciendas(inSpanish), in their empires.The forced recruitment of local labourers allowed by colonial law made these land grants particularly lucrative for their owners.

Ancient Rome

The basis of thelatifundianotably inMagna Graecia(the south of Italy includingSicilia) andHispaniawas theager publicus(state-owned land) that accumulated from the spoils of war, confiscated from conquered peoples beginning in the 3rd century BC.As much as a third of the arable land of a new province was taken foragri publiciand then divided up with at least the fiction of a competitive auction for leased estates rather than outright ownership.Later the practice of establishing agriculturalcoloniae,especially from the early 1st century BC, as a way to reward Roman army veterans created smaller landholdings, which would then be acquired by large landowners in times of economic distress. Such consolidation into fewer hands, mainly patricians was not universally approved of, but efforts to reverse the trend byagrarian lawswere generally unsuccessful. Later in the Empire, as leases were inherited, ownership of the former common lands became established by tradition, and the leases became taxable. Ownership of land, organised in thelatifundia,defined theRoman Senatorialclass as it was their only acceptable source of wealth.,though they would set up their freedmen as merchant traders and participate as silent partners in businesses from which senators were disqualified.

Latifundiaincluded avilla rustica,including an often luxurious owner's residence, and operation of the farm relied on a large number of slaves,sometimes kept in anergastulum.They produced agricultural products for sale and profit such aslivestock(sheepandcattle) or olive oil, grain,garumand wine. Nevertheless Rome had to import grain (in the Republican period, from Sicily and North Africa; in the Imperial era, from Egypt).

Thelatifundiaquickly started economic consolidation as larger estates achieved greatereconomies of scaleand productivity, and senator owners did not pay land taxes. Owners re-invested their profits by purchasing smaller neighbouring farms, since smaller farms had lower productivity and could not compete, in an ancient precursor ofagribusiness.

Latifundiaalso expanded with conquest, to the Roman provinces ofMauretania(modernMaghreb) and inHispania Baetica(modernAndalusia).

ThelatifundiadistressedPliny the Elder(died AD 79) as he travelled, seeing only slaves working the land, not the sturdy Roman farmers who had been the backbone of the Republic's army.His writings can be seen as a part of the 'conservative' reaction to the profit-oriented new attitudes of the upper classes of the Early Empire. He argued that thelatifundiahad ruined Italy and would ruin the Roman provinces as well. He reported that at one point just six owners possessed half of theprovince of Africa,which may be a piece of rhetorical exaggeration as the North African cities were filled with flourishing landowners who filled the town councils.

As small farms were bought up by the wealthy with their vast supply of slaves, the newly landless peasantry moved to the city of Rome, where they became dependent on state subsidies. Free peasants did not completely disappear; many became tenants on estates that were worked in two ways: partly directly controlled by the owner and worked by slaves and partly leased to tenants.

The production system of thelatifundiawent into crisis between the 1st and 2nd century as the supply of slaves dwindled due to lack of new conquests.Nevertheless by the 2nd century AD,latifundiahad replaced many small and medium-sized farms in some areas of the Roman Empire.

Italy

In the 6th century,Cassiodoruswas able to apply his ownlatifundiato support his short-livedVivariumin the heel of Italy.

InSicily,latifundiadominated the island from medieval times. They were only abolished by sweeping land reform mandating smaller farms in 1950–1962, funded from theCassa per il Mezzogiorno,the Italian government's development fund for southern Italy (1950–1984).

Spain

In theIberian Peninsula,theCastilianReconquistaof Muslim territories provided the Christian kingdom with sudden extensions of land, which the kings ceded as rewards to nobility, mercenaries andmilitary ordersto exploit aslatifundia,which had been first established as the commercial olive oil and grainlatifundiaof RomanHispania Baetica.The gifts finished the traditional small private ownership of land, eliminating a social class that had also been typical of theal-Andalusperiod.

In the Iberian peninsula, the possessions of the Church did not pass to private ownership until theecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal(Spanish:desamortización), the "secularization" of church-ownedlatifundia,which proceeded in pulses through the 19th century.

Big areas ofAndalusiaare still populated by an underclass ofjornaleros,landless peasants who are hired by the latifundists as "day workers" for specific seasonal campaigns. Thejornaleroclass has been fertile ground forsocialismandanarchism.Still today, among the main Andalusian trade unions is the Rural Workers Union (Sindicato Obrero del Campo), a far-left group famous for theirsquattingcampaigns in the town ofMarinaleda,Province of Seville.

Examples oflatifundia

• Villa Romana del Casale
• Villa Romana del Tellaro
• Villa of Geraci
• Villa Romana di Patti
• Villa dei Volusii
• Settefinestre
• Realmonte
• Villa ofCasignana

See also

• Roman agriculture
• Latifundio–minifundio land tenure structure
• Pronoia
• Agro-town
• Plantation
• Sánchez Navarro latifundio,Mexico
• Encomienda
• Encomiendas in Peru

References

• Stephen L. Dyson,The Roman Countryside (Duckworth Debates in Archaeology).
• René Martin:Recherches sur les agronomes latins et leurs conceptions économiques et sociales,Paris, 1971.
• John Paul Russo, "The Sicilian Latifundia",Italian Americana,March 1999, Vol. 17 Issue 1, pp. 40–57.

External links

• Kautsky, Karl(1908) "The Technological Inferiority of the Slave Economy",fromI. The Slave Economy, Book Two: Society In The Roman Empire, Foundations of Christianity.Published in English: Russell and Russell, 1953.
• Dr Frithjof Kuhnen, (University of Göttingen), "Latifundia (Hacienda)".
• Jonathan Conning (Hunter College), "Latifundia economics".Hunter College Department of Economics Working Papers with number 02/1.