historical perspectives on frontier agriculture

as an adaptive strategy’

MAXINE MARGOLIS-University o f Florida

The love of the soil that one may see in China or France, the desire to honor it, to keep it in
possession no matter how small the plot may be, is a thing born of familiarity and tradition,
what we might call a part of the folk spirit in a long settled agricultural community. I t is quite
different from the restless response to the “invitation o f the land” in a pioneer region.
-Isaiah Bowman
The Pioneer Fringe

introduction

In recent years, many seemingly inexplicable cultural practices have been rendered
intelligible by ecological interpretations which have explored the adaptive advantages
these traits confer on the populations which practice them. An ecological approach has
proven useful not only in understanding the nature of economic and social activities, but
also in demonstrating the adaptive aspects of religious beliefs and ceremonial behavior,
domains often s t i l l categorized exclusively within the ideological realm (see, for example,
Harris 1966; Rappaport 1968; and Moore 1969). Still, ecologically oriented anthro-
pologists have tended to focus on economic behavior, the way “people make their living,”
since i t is here that the link between a human population and its environment i s most
apparent.
The subsistence activities of relatively small, homogeneous populations devoted to
foraging, pastoralism, or horticulture have received the most attention within the
economic sphere. Two factors may account for this preoccupation with “primitive”
societies. First, they are the traditional subjects of anthropological inquiry. More
importantly, however, the relative simplicity o f their adaptations makes it far easier for
the investigator to disentangle the complex environmental and cultural variables affecting
them. Ecological studies o f more complex societies, while they exist, are few in number
(see, for example, Bennett 1969). For the same reasons, ecological anthropologists
concerned with agriculture have dealt largely with populations practicing slash-and-burn
techniques and again, with few exceptions (Boserup 1965; Geertz 1968; Hanks 1972),
have not analyzed the cultural and environmental factors involved in more complex

Thispaper examines the ecological and economic factors which result in

resource depletion on one type of agricultural frontier: those devoted to
cash crops. I t argues that the adaptive strategies of frontier cultivators
are analogous to the “fugitive strategies” characteristic of some non-
human species. These strategies account for the exploitative nature of
frontier agriculture which leads to partial resource depletion or long-
term ecological destruction.

42 amrrimn ethnologist
systems of cultivation, particularly those that are tied to world market demands.
This paper will examine the economic and ecologic variables affecting one system of
complex agriculture often associated with frontier zones: the cultivation o f cash crops for
which there is a high market value. It will be argued that a number of interrelated
economic and environmental factors are associated with a particular variety of
exploitatiorr in which (1) the goal i s quantitative not qualitative production, (2) the land
is used extensively rather than intensively, and (3) the abundance of land, along with a
scarcity o f labor and capital, puts the burden of greater production on the soil. It will be
further argued that frontier agriculturalists, living under the conditions described below,
behave similarly because they individually adapt to the same set of ecological and
economic constraints. It will be shown that it is the circumstances in which frontier cash
crop cultivators find themselves which account for their reluctance to invest in expensive
agricultural methods, including their failure to employ soil conservation measures. Not
unexpectedly, the combined effect of these exploitative agricultural practices is far
greater than the damage wrought by individual cultivators, and they lead to either partial
resource depletion or long-term environmental degradation.
Mentalistic explanations for the exploitative character of cultivation in frontier zones
will be disputed. Opportunistic “get-rich-quick” attitudes held by frontier cultivators are
sometimes cited as explanations for the destructive quality o f agricultural regimes in
frontier regions (see, for example, Bowman 1931; Allen 1959). According to this view, a
footloose lifestyle, an absence of deep-rooted ties to the’land, and a lack of concern for
it, make frontier cultivators indifferent to the long-term consequences of their behavior.
It follows, then, that these values are regarded as ultimately responsible for environmental
degradation because they take precedence over considerations of resource conservation.
An alternative explanation for this behavior, one which looks to the material
conditions which affect many frontiers devoted to cash crop agriculture, will be utilized
in this paper. It will be argued that the frontier cultivators’ exploitative stance vis-d-vis
natural resources can be best explained as an adaptive response to a particular set of
economic and ecological conditions which often prevail in frontier regions. This approach
is superior to one which cites “frontier values” as the prime movers for such behavior in
that i t does not merely describe these values, but explains their appearance within certain
frontier contexts. I n addition, if this analysis i s correct, we can predict that a similar
series of values will arise where certain preconditions are met.
The variables affecting the nature of frontier agriculture will be separated into two sets
(economic and ecological) for heuristic purposes only, realizing that they are interrelated
and often interdependent. The economic factors include (1) the demand for a valuable
cash crop, (2) the presence of free or inexpensive virgin frontier land, (3) unstable market
conditions affecting the price received for the crop, (4) the accessibility of markets, and
(5) the availability of credit. The ecological factors involved are (1) the effects on the
quality of the soil of clearing virgin land for cultivation and (2) the influence o f unstable
and unpredictable natural conditions-that is, those related to weather and the presence
of insect pests.
The etic conditions outlined above produce adaptive strategies among frontier
cultivators that are analogous to the “fugitive strategies” characteristic o f certain
nonhuman species.? “Fugitive species” are able to survive by rapid and temporary
occupations of new ecological niches as they first become available (MacArthur and
Wilson 1967:82).3 It i s suggested that a similar gambit i s followed by frontier cultivators
on land newly opened up for cash cropping. A word of extreme caution should be added
here: in using t h i s analogy between the strategies of nonhuman species and human

frontier agriculture 43
 populations it is with the full realization that the actual mechanisms of their respective
adaptations are vastly different. Without belaboring this obvious point, in frontier
environments cash crop cultivators, as individuals, draw upon a large repertoire of learned
behaviors, many of which are used in adapting to changing circumstances. Moreover, their
success in adapting to frontier conditions is a measure of their cultural, not, as in the case
with fugitive species, of their biological success.
In order to analyze the adaptations of frontier cash crop agriculturalists and the
factors which produce them, their strategies in two world areas will be described in
depth: the cotton frontier in the southern and southwestern United States and the coffee
frontier in southern Brazil. In addition, the strategies of cash crop cultivators in other
frontier regions will be briefly described.

consequences of frontier cash crop agriculture

Historians probably were the first to note the destructive effects of frontier agriculture
on natural resources and to decry the social consequences of worn-out, abandoned lands.
Many historical accounts of southern and westward expansion in the United States
vividly portray the conquest of the wilderness by “farmers who made no compromise
..
with nature . which they came to subdue, not preserve” (Billington 1966:41).This
“frontier spirit,” in turn, led to “the ruthless exploitation of nature’s resources” (Allen
1959:lll).
The literature on the settlement of the North American continent abounds with
descriptions of prodigal cultivation techniques, the lack o f conservation measures, and the
deleterious consequences o f these practices on the land. Some historians argue, in fact,
that the pace of frontier expansion was accelerated in the American south and southeast
by the rapidity with which tobacco and, later, cotton exhausted the soil (Allen 1959:34).
One of the best-documented examples of the exploitative nature o f cash crop
cultivation on frontiers i s the swift advance of cotton culture in the American South
during the nineteenth century. Many contemporary observers lamented the cotton
planters’ and farmers’ seeming indifference to the future of their lands; they decried the
cultivators’ overwhelming desire for quick profits which led to their constant search for
fresher, more fertile soil in which to plant their crops; These commentators equally
lambasted the conditions that this movement left in its wake: the abandoned farms and
desolate towns, the decaying mansions, the lifeless gullied countryside covered with
broom sedge and foxtail, and the social and political consequences of mass migration
from exhausted lands that could support no one (Eaton 1949,1961;Weaver 1945).
There is little doubt that most methods of cotton cultivation in the south were
destructive of the land. The slopes were plowed and planted with cotton year after year
without using clover or peas to plow under and restore the soil’s humus. Humus also was
destroyed by the practice of clean planting in rows, which reduced the capacity of the
soil to absorb moisture. Drainage channels became clogged so that heavy spring and
summer rains ran down the slopes carrying off the topsoil with them’. Although sheet
erosion was not evident a t first, gullies began to appear and then deepen, eventually
making cultivation impossible and the abandonment of the land unavoidable (Gates
1960:139).
There were pleas for crop rotation and diversification, for using improved seed, for
manuring depleted lands, for building drainage ditches, and for deep plowing (Weaver
1945:88). A few o f these were heeded, but most fell on deaf ears. Many cultivators
readily adopted better cotton seed which increased production, and the plow was used

44 american ethndogist
 more widely for cotton than for staple crops. But, as for soil conservation and crop
diversification, little or nothing was done. The same exploitative practices first used in the
Piedmont region were carried to Alabama and Mississippi and points west; planters and
farmers alike tilled the soil without apparent concern for its future.
A similar tale can be told for the advance o f coffee cultivation in southern Brazil. In
less than one hundred and fifty years, coffee spread from the hilly flanks around the city
of Rio de Janeiro to the Paraiba Valley, onward to Minas Gerais and Sio Paulo and, most
recently, to Parani, finally crossing the international boundary into Paraguay. Here again,
critics of the advance abound; while historians have described the rapid westward march
of the crop, agronomists have criticized the degradation o f natural resources it left in i t s
wake. “Improvidence” was said to have “rode along with the coffee frontier” (Little
1960:260); an “exploitative psychology” was held responsible for the move to fertile
frontier lands once the old lands were depleted (Moore 1962:465), and a spirit of
“routinism” (rorina) was blamed for the planters’ failure to adopt modern agricultural
methods (Stein 1957:48).
Again, there is a great deal of evidence that the techniques used in cultivation led to
the rapid deterioration of the soil. In the Paraiba Valley, coffee was planted in vertical
rows up and down the slopes, and hard tropical rains washed away the soil, leaving the
trees’ roots exposed to the elements (Stein 1957:34). There were few attempts to
conserve the soil’s initial fertility; “rational” agricultural methods-mechanization, seed
and seedling selection, fertilizer, reforestation, and erosion control-were utilized
infrequently, and then, in most cases, as stopgap measures only after yields had begun to
decline.
The aftermath o f falling coffee production and depleted soils in Brazil was not unlike
its counterpart in the southern United States. In some areas, the abandoned coffee lands
were so devastated that it is unlikely that they can be restored for crop production. The
destruction of humus was on a massive scale: “In most regions, a mere one tenth now
remains of the amount of humus present when coffee cultivation was
started.. . .Centuries of forest growth would be required to restore an adequate humus
layer” (Borgstrom 1967:329-330). In many regions, cattle ranching replaced coffee
cultivation; large-scale unemployment resulted, followed by partial depopulation
(Margolis 1973:218-219). Cattle graze on pasturage that is deficient both in quality and
quantity and must be ever on their guard to avoid injuring themselves in the gullies and
ravines which are barely concealed by the sparse vegetation (Borgstrom 1967:330).
Today, in many former “coffee counties,” abandoned schools and houses, unused drying
terraces, and vast expanses of pasture punctuated by lifeless coffee trees bear mute
witness to the injurious results of cash crop frontier agriculture.

the destructive cycle: economic considerations

In order to account for the rather striking parallels in the course of cash crop
cultivation in frontier regions, we now turn to the economic and ecological contexts with
which this type o f cultivation i s most often associated. The sine qua non of the
exploitative agricultural regimes described above i s a combination of free or inexpensive
virgin frontier land and a high market demand for a cash crop. For a variety o f reasons
which cannot be dealt with here, subsistence farming does not seem to produce the same
opportunistic patterns?
Typically, once a demand i s established for a cash crop, there is a rapid, large-scale
migration to frontier areas more or less suited to its cultivation. The land is possessed

frontier agriculture 46
 either through squatting or through payment of a nominal price. Forests are quickly cut
down, the land is cleared for planting, rudimentary shelters are constructed, and
seemingly overnight a vast wilderness has given way to cultivated fields dotted with signs
of human habitation.
The prices received for the cash crop are relatively high, certainly higher than for
alternative crops, so that the cultivators’ goal is to produce as much as possible on the
land available to them. For this reason, the production of subsistence crops may be
insufficient to meet the needs of the local population, since, with a relatively sparse
population, labor is too valuable to “waste” on growing such mundane staples as rice,
corn, or beans. Harvests are very large at first, as they can be on newly cultivated soils;
and profits, at least initially, are high. This phase often is marked by an aura of general
prosperity with a “boom town” atmosphere. Comparatively lavish consumption i s
common; food and clothing are imported; and, in the contemporary era, there are
purchases o f radios, sewing machines, and even cars and jeeps.
During their early settlement, the cotton and coffee zones of the United States and
Brazil conformed closely to the scenario outlined above. In the former, the passage of the
Harrison Frontier Land Act of 1800,setting the minimum price of government land a t
$2.00 an acre and allowing payments in four annual installments, encouraged the
expansion o f cotton in the Gulf states (Eaton 1961:31).Rich alluvial lands in the lower
Mississippi region sold for $2-4 an acre (Cohn 1956:lOS).Between 1830 and 1840, the
tide of humanity coming from the older cotton states to the Gulf states in search o f fresh
frontier land swelled the populations of Alabama and Mississippi by 76 percent and 154
percent, respectively (Eaton 1961 :44).Within thirty years, the great forests had vanished
and had been replaced by cultivated fields, plantations, and roads. The rude log cabin of
the first years gave way to the southern “mansion house,” with i t s sweeping veranda and
imposing columns.
Both harvests and profits were initially large, despite fluctuations in the price received
for cotton. For example, in Louisiana following the War of 1812,the combination of
high prices and high yields on newly cleared land enabled planters to earn $500to $600
annually per worker by cultivating cotton (Gray 1933:899).Planters sowed most of their
holdings in cotton, forcing themselves to buy staples in .the market, and in 1825,when
there was a sudden upsurge in the price of cotton, corn actually was plowed under to
make way for the more valuable cash crop. The Mississippi river boat trade thrived during
this period, carrying all manner of goods to the planters o f the region; these were truly
“Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi,” as a book written during the era was called
(cited in Eaton 1961:35).
The story of the settlement of Brazil’s newest coffee frontier, northern Parani, follows
a very similar pattern. Within a period o f forty-five years (1 920-1965),population density
in the coffee-producing regions of the state increased from just under nine to slightly over
seventy-five people per square mile, and a fourfold population increase in ten years
occurred in some parts of the zone (Nicholls 1969:40,48). Between 1940 and 1950
alone, it is estimated that some two million people migrated to the Parani frontier from
many o f the older agricultural areas in Brazil (Courtenay 1965:82).
The dense semi-tropical forests rapidly gave way to row upon row o f coffee trees, as
people with fairly meager resources flocked to the region hoping to strike-it-rich with
“green gold,” as coffee was called. Land was cheap and could be purchased in
installments a t low interest rates,’ so that many settlers were able to afford at least small
frontier plots. Those with fewer resources came to the region in hopes of being
contracted as formadores de cufi, that is, cultivators who cleared the land, planted and

46 american ethnologist
 cared for the coffee trees for up to six years in return for the rights to the first and
second harvests (Margolis 1973:35).Still others were attracted to northern Parani by the
relatively high wages they could earn as laborers in the coffee harvest
The coffee boom in northern Parani reached a peak during the decade of the 1950~~
when the newly planted coffee trees began producing their first harvests and prices soared
to a high of $15 per bag of unprocessed coffee (Margolis 1972:lO).These were the days
of “milk and honey” for much o f the local population; stores were well stocked with
luxury goods, the towns bustled with activity, and shiny new Volkswagens traveled the
recently built dirt roads that crisscrossed the countryside.
Booms of this sort in frontier regions generally do not last. After a few years, yields
begin to decline. The exact number of years depends upon the initial fertility o f the soil,
the demands which particular crops make on it, and other factors. During the early
years of cultivation, which were marked by bountiful harvests and good profits, little or
no attention was paid to maintaining the soil’s original fertility. Labor was too scarce and
costly to carry out conservation measures. By the time that crop yields have decreased
due to soil depletion, the price received for the crop may be lower as the result of
overproduction, and profits are down considerably. Conservation measures, therefore, are
not economically feasible even if planters want to undertake them. A central
consideration here, however, is that cultivators are highly reluctant to invest large sums of
money in efforts to improve their partially depleted holdings when cheap fertile frontier
land is st/// ava/lable. The reserve o f seemingly inexhaustible virgin land makes the
landowners’ unwillingness to spend their resources on “rational” agricultural methods
understandable; for considerably less they can purchase frontier plots which are virtually
guaranteed to produce high yields for a t least a few years.
These events occurred in both frontier zones under consideration. In the southern
United States during the nineteenth century, there was almost a constant south and
westward movement of farmers and planters from the older cotton-producing regions to
the virgin frontier lands being opened up for cultivation. But why this migration? In the
early cotton-producing areas of Virginia and North Carolina, production fell drastically;
the combined crop from the two states was 104,000 bales in 1828-1829,but fourteen
years later it had fallen to 22,500bales (Gray 1933:889).Soil depletion, early frosts and
lower cotton prices were all held responsible for this precipitous decline (Phillips
1929:99-100).But still there was no call for soil conservation. Thomas Jefferson held
that fertilizers were not needed in Virginia “because we can buy an acre of new land
cheaper than we can manure an old one” (quoted in Cohn 1956:49).
Many cultivators from the older cotton regions rushed to Alabama and Mississippi in
hopes of recapturing the profits that can be made when a valuable cash crop is grown in
virgin soil. But here, too, the story was repeated. There was a relatively short-lived period
of high yields and general prosperity, but by 1840, in one typical Alabama county, the
average yield of cotton seed had decreased from 1,000to 500 pounds (Davis 1939:170).
By this time, however, it was not feasible to establish agricultural practices which might
have replenished the soil: “generally speaking, soil conservation was a luxury far beyond
the planters’ means” (Davis 1939:173).
The peak of the coffee boom in the Paraiba Valley of Rio de Janeiro was the decade
1850-1860,but production fell sharply thereafter; where 1,000 coffee trees had yielded
up to 4,500 kilos o f coffee, thirty years later they produced only 750 kilos (Stein
1957:219). In the 1890s, many planters from the Valley sold their depleted holding?
and migrated to the coffee frontier in SZo Paulo state. Their desire to move there is
perfectly understandable in light of the fact that the newly cultivated lands on the SZo

frontier agriculture 47
 Paulo frontier produced yields four to five times greater than those of the sapped soils of
the Paraiba Valley (Gifun 1972:8). While conservation techniques certainly were known
to and discussed by the planters of the Valley, it is important to note that the purchase of
frontier land was more reliable and less costly than investments in soil conservation and
restoration.
Another very important economic variable affecting the nature of frontier agriculture
is the price received for the crop, since it, in conjunction with the size of yields, in part
determines the cultivators’ profit level. One problem common to frontier cash crop
agriculturalists is that they are buffeted by forces of the world market over which they
have no control. The prices paid for commodities on the world market rise and fall, and,
as we shall see, the behavior of frontier cultivators is greatly influenced by the conditions
of uncertainty created by this situation.
The prices received by North American planters for their cotton crop is a good case in
point, since they were determined by the international, largely British, commodity
market (Allen 1959:40). Between 1801 and 1807, the price per pound of cotton fell
from forty-four to twenty cents due to overproduction, a result of the rapid rush to plant
that crop spurred by i t s initial high return. Cotton prices continued their decline through
1814, but by 1815 the market had recovered, and cotton brought thirty cents per pound.
Overproduction led to periodic declines in price-in 1820, 1825, and 1837-1845-greatly
affecting the cultivator’s level of return (Phillips 1929:99-100).
Similarly, the career of coffee in Brazil has been marked by great fluctuations in price.
At the onset of the Great Depression, for example, prices plummeted from 22.5 cents to
eight cents per pound within two years (Little 1960:159). Prices remained so low
throughout the decade of the 1930s that Brazilian planters did not have sufficient money
to carry out basic pruning tasks on their coffee trees (Little 1960:184). Following World
War II, prices rose sharply, eventually peaking a t eighty-eight cents per pound in 1953
(Schurz 1961:254). The mid-1950s were banner years in terms of the planters’ actual
returns on their crop; during this period, they received an average of $15 per bag of
unprocessed coffee.’ In the 1960s, world prices for coffee dropped again, and planters
were now required to sell through the Brazilian Coffee Institute (lnstituto Bmsilelro de
Cuf), a federal agency. By 1967, planters were being paid an average of only $5.00 per
bag of unprocessed coffee (Margolis 1973:47).
The price received for cash crops also plays a major role in the decision to move to
frontier lands. The North American historian, Ray Billington, has shown a direct
correlation between land sales in the south and west and commodity prices in England
and Europe. For example, between 1815-1820, when prices for cotton were high, there
was a rapid southwestward expansion of the crop, but in 1820 the price fell, and so did
the demand for southern land (Billington 1966:29).* Likewise, in Brazil the westward
movement of coffee was slowed considerably during the depression of the 193Os, but it
picked up enormous momentum following World War II, when coffee prices once again
soared (Margolis 1973:22).
Two types of behavior which are potentially destructive of nat,ural resources are
stimulated during periods of high prices. When prices are high, the primary goal of
frontier cash crop cultivators i s to produce more; to take their profits through quantity
rather than quality; and to increase yields, not through more intensive methods of
cultivation, which would require greater capital inputs, but through expansion into even
newer frontier zones where land is both fertile and cheap. In Phillips’ words, ”when
cotton was high they [planters] f e l t the tug of richer profits to be gained from fresher
lands” (1 929:99).

48 american rtbndoaist
 It i s an irony of frontier cash crop agriculture that when capital i s available for the
maintenance of soil quality; that is, during periods of high prices, little attention is paid
to it since yields are abundant owing to the initial fertility of newly cultivated lands.
However, by the time that soil fertility has declined, prices are often lower due to
overproduction, and little capital is available to invest in soil conservation. The result is
that capital i s usually not used intensively on frontiers devoted to cash crop cultivation.
Another side effect of high prices has been noted by the agricultural economist,
Ciriacy-Wantrup: cultivation expands “into areas which, under more conservative price
expectations, would not be suited climatically or geographically. Such speculative
expansion has frequently led to soil depletion” (1963:120).This occurred during times of
high prices in both the United States and Brazil. In the former, cotton was planted in
hilly, topographically unsuited areas of the Piedmont, as well as in the sandy loams of
west and central Florida (Phillips 1929:273). In the latter, coffee spread into areas of
poor sandy soil, once all available terra roxa-a deep red porous soil particularly suited to
coffee planting-was under cultivation. In Parand state, coffee was planted in regions
subject to periodic frosts with frequently disastrous consequence^.^
During’ periods o f low prices, there is sometimes a tendency among cultivators to
maintain production or even increase it through greater labor inputs. This is particularly
the case among low income, self-employed farmers; unable to afford hired hands, family
labor may be increased during times of low prices. Such conditions also prevent the
purchase of fertilizer, and the intensified use of the soil leads to further depletion. “A
vicious cycle-low prices, low income, and soil depletion-is created” (Ciriacy-Wantrup
1963:208).
The effects of these events on resource depletion are magnified if, during periods of
high prices, cultivation has expanded into regions which are topographically or
climatically unsuited to the particular cash crop in question. As noted above, it is during
times of low prices that there is a slowing of the movement into newer frontier zones. It
will not be halted completely, however, if the cash crop, despite i t s relatively low price,
still affords greater returns than alternative crops.’
Even greater contributors to resource depletion in frontier zones than speculative
expansion of cash crops during times of high prices are conditions of uncertainty in
market price. There is a greater reluctance on the part of cultivators to invest in
conservation techniques during periods of price fluctuation. “Even expenditures of costs
sunk for shorter periods-e.g., fertilizer-will be reduced if there is an increase in
uncertainty” (Ciriacy-Wantrup 1963:llH-119).Thus, economic instability which leads to
price fluctuations has a major influence on conservation decisions. This tendency
probably is enhanced in frontier situations characterized by cheap abundant land. Since
uncertainty in market price marked the careers of cotton in the United States and coffee
in Brazil, it is understandable that their cultivators were unwilling to invest heavily in soil
conservation, not to mention the more expensive and slow process of land restoration.
The accessibility of markets i s another major variable affecting the nature of frontier
agriculture. Clearly, frontier cultivators must have ready access to markets where they can
sell their crops. In fact, the location of frontier land in relation to roads, railroads, and
ports i s an important determinant o f its value in “export-propelled economies” as distinct
from subsistence economies (Katzman 1975:269).
The importance of the initial presence of market access should not be overstated,
however, because, even if transportation facilities are poor or entirely lacking at first, the
demand for a valuable cash crop, along with the availability of good land on which to
grow it, usually stimulates the construction of marketing facilities necessary for the

frontier agriculture 40
 staple’s commercialization. This certainly was true in the two frontier areas under
discussion. Within ten years o f the appearance o f short staple cotton as a commercial
crop, steamboats were plying the Mississippi River bringing cotton to the two principal
southern ports of New Orleans and Mobile for shipment via New York to British
factories. Although the major period of railroad building in the South did not get
underway until the decade of the 185Os, the railroads were primarily designed to carry
staples-particularly cotton-to the seaports of the region (Eaton 1961:199, 207, 210).
Only one area of the Cotton Kingdom was adversely affected by inadequate transporta-
tion facilities; the Georgia-South Carolina Piedmont was cut off from the coast by pine
barrens and lacked navigable rivers, but i t s inferior soil probably was more responsibte for
cotton’s early demise in the area than was i t s geographical situation (Abernethy
1922:99).
In the early period of coffee cultivation in Brazil, before the construction of the
railroad, the crop was transported by mule pack to the port of Rio de Janeiro (Stein
1957:81). This costly and hazardous form of transport was replaced by the Pedro
Segundo railroad, which reached the Paraiba Valley in the early 1860s. Coffee planters in
Sio Paulo state had no such marketing problems; railroads were very nearly coterminous
with the coffee frontier:
The railroad terminus for three or four years at a time would be an important urban center or a
boco de sertcio (mouth of the backlands). When a population farther in the interior had enough
freight and passenger traffic to merit service, the railroad followed (Little 1960:21).

Similarly, in northern Parand the railroads extended to the edge of frontier settlement’
and today, in addition to the railroads, well-maintained paved highways permit the easy
transport o f the crop to the ports o f Santos and Paranaqud (Margolis 1973: 19-21).
The final economic factor to be considered here which affects the nature of frontier
agriculture is the availability of credit. A characteristic of many frontier zones is their
“indebtedness” (Allen 1959:40). Farmers and planters alike often lack sufficient capital
to “set up shop.” The expenses o f the early years of frontier settlement are particularly
heavy; living quarters must be built, tools purchased, land cleared and paid for, to say
nothing of the money required to meet the cultivators’ and their families’ subsistence
needs until the first crop has been harvested.’ I n short, frontier farming is not possible
with little or no capital, Frederick Jackson Turner (1920) notwithstanding. Most
cultivators, even relatively wealthy ones, need some source of credit.
Credit is usually not difficult to come by in a frontier zone devoted to the cultivation
of a valuable cash crop. When prices for the commodity are high and yields are large,
creditors presumably have confidence in the cultivators’ ability to repay their loans-at
least for a while. Not unexpectedly, then, credit was abundantly available a t most times
on the two frontiers in question.
The availability o f credit is not only necessary for the establishment of commercial
agriculture in frontier regions, but it also affects the frontier cultivator’s behavior in
regard to soil conservation. In the long run, therefore, it may have an influence on
resource usage and depletion.” If loans are needed to meet initial expenses of all types,
they also will be required for the purchase o f fertilizer, insecticide, select seeds, and labor
to carry out erosion control measures.
There are two links between the use of credit and conservation decisions: uncertainty
in the price received for the crop and uncertainty in natural conditions. Frontier
cultivators are reluctant to invest in conservation measures and to borrow money for
them a t what often are high interest rates, if there is doubt as to the price they will
receive for the crop. If the principal and interest o f their “conservation loans’’ must be

50 rmerican ethnologist
paid off during a period of sharply declining prices, their profits may be cut severely or
wiped out completely. For similar reasons, frontier cash crop cultivators are loath to
purchase fertilizer or to invest in erosion control, if there is the likelihood of a frost or
drought which would drastically cut the size of the anticipated harvest, if not entirely
eliminate it. And here again the spectre of unsettled virgin frontier land looms large: Why
go into debt to finance conservation measures on one’s own partially depleted holding,
when inexpensive frontier land-which virtually is guaranteed to produce for a t least a
few years-is readily available?
I n cases of sudden price plunges or the immediate threat of natural disasters,
conservation decisions may be affected by the cultivators’ fear of losing their land:
.
Farmers.. who own their own land, but who are obligated to pay high interest and
amortization charges may fear they will be dispossessed by their creditors in times of drought
or economic depression; they have no more interest in soil conservation than a tenant with a
short lease (Ciriacy-Wantrup 1963:145).

Credit was the life line o f cotton culture in the southern United States, with the
cotton factor playing the central role in its distribution. Cotton factors usually lived in
port cities and acted as the planters’ agents, selling their crops, providing them with credit
to buy land, slaves, and staples, and sending supplies to their plantations. The small
country general store served a similar function for farmers with small holdings. These
stores operated almost entirely on credit. Thus, cultivators on a large scale or small were
heavily dependent on loans to meet their expenses, since they usually lacked cash until
their crops were sold. For their services, the creditors naturally demanded a price. Cotton
factors generally charged interest rates o f only 8 percent, but they frequently required
indebted planters to sell their crops exclusively to them. Small shopkeepers, too, were
compensated for their loans; they marked up goods as much as 100 percent, a t least
partially because of the exigencies of agriculture on which the repayment of their loans
depended (Eaton 1961:200-206).
It appears that cotton planters did not borrow money for Conservation purposes, but
only negative evidence attests to this. In a detailed study of the factorage system in the
southern cotton region, there is no mention o f loans to buy fertilizer or to finance other
conservation measures (Woodman 1968). While cultivators went heavily into debt to
purchase more land and more slaves, particularly during periods of high prices, they did
not borrow money to improve or conserve land already under cultivation. Nor was cash
on hand used for t h i s purpose: “surplus cash not needed for the payment of debts was
invested in new land instead o f being used for the improvement of the old” (Davis
1939:177).
Credit also played a vital role in the advance o f the coffee frontier in Brazil. From the
first establishment o f coffee plantations in the Paraiba Valley, planters borrowed money
to buy land, slaves, and the few necessities o f life, such as salt, not available locally (Stein
1957:17). But, once again, despite sharply declining yields in later years due to soil
exhaustion and the increasing threat to the coffee trees from soil erosion, money was not
borrowed to finance conservation schemes.
This has changed, however, but only very recently, on Brazil’s newest coffee frontier.
In northern Paranb, just as in other cash crop frontier zones, cultivators borrowed heavily
for everything from the purchase o f food and household goods to the hiring of extra
hands for the harvest. It is only within the last five years, however, that they have taken
out loans to buy fertilizer and insecticide and to finance contour planting for erosion
control (Margolis 1973:245). Like their counterparts elsewhere, coffee cultivators in
northern Parani have been reluctant to go into debt to make “conservation loans,” since

frontier agriculture 61
 their repayment will greatly cut profits in the event of lower prices or a frost. However,
other-largely new-factors now influence their decision to make the investment despite
the risks involved. Of major importance i s the fact that coffee trees that have been
producing for fifteen or twenty years on sandy soil, like most of those in Parani, give
extremely small harvests if fertilizer i s not applied. Secondly, since coffee i s a
price-supported crop, its cultivators are assured that the bottom will not completely fall
out o f the market and that they will receive at least some return on their investment. In
addition, loans for fertilizer and other conservation techniques now are readily available
from the Bank of Brazil at very low interest rates. Finally, the present supply o f virgin
frontier land in Brazil suitable for coffee cultivation is extremely limited,’ thus closing
the traditional “escape hatch” for planters with exhausted soils. These recent cir-
cumstances, then, have tempered frontier cultivators’ usual unwillingness to become
indebted in order to conserve their land. If this peculiar set o f factors which influence the
coffee planters of Paran6 is taken into account, however, then their behavior may be the
exception which helps to prove the rule.
In order to complete the discussion of economic factors which affect the nature of
frontier agriculture, the following questions should be raised: Why did cotton and coffee
planters in the United States and Brazil show such blind devotion to their respective
crops? Why, for example, did they refuse to plant alternative cash crops with more stable
price structures or cultivate subsistence crops on a larger scale? The answer, in part, is
that in the regions in which they were grown, cotton and coffee were the most profitable
crops.
Several factors stimulated the monocrop economy in the southern United States. For
one, cotton could be grown over a wider region than any other cash crop. “Rice, sugar
cane, and tobacco demanded soil and climatic conditions that prevented their extension
over all the available territory” (Cohn 1956:45). Then too, cotton, which has a long
growing season and periodically requires intensive hand labor, limited crop diversification;
cotton l e f t no surplus labor for tending other crops. Subsistence crops were not widely
grown in the southern cotton region because, as we have seen, both land and labor were
considered too valuable to expend on them, particularly when cotton prices were high.
Moreover, foodstuffs could be easily imported from the border states and other
noncotton producing regions. In addition, cotton was always marketable, while a t times
there were no mechanisms for marketing alternative cash crops (Cohn 195651). Finally,
cotton meant credit to buy supplies and slaves and to acquire more land-credit which
was never available on the same scale for other cash crops.
Somewhat similar factors encouraged monocrop cultivation in Brazil. Since coffee is a
perennial, it is incompatible with crop rotation-one means of crop diversification. Coffee
i s also a labor-intensive crop, and its annual cycle conflicts with another potential
money-maker-cotton-in that their harvests fall at the same time of year (James
1959:493). Subsistence crops were not grown on a large scale in Brazil’s coffee region
because land was too valuable to devote to them alone, and intertilling food crops with
coffee tends to rob the latter of soil nutrients and reduce the trees’ yields. Nevertheless,
intertilling was practiced by the owners of small holdings to help meet their subsistence
needs. Also, coffee had government price supports which insured that i t s price would not
fall precipitously, while the returns on alternative unsupported crops fluctuated wildly
according to the laws o f supply and demand. Cultivating productive coffee trees also
guaranteed easy access to credit, an advantage not afforded by any other cash crop. The
final factor wedding planters to coffee is probably the most important one: coffee

52 american ethnologist
produced the highest returns on investment. Even during periods of relatively low prices,
there was no other crop which could compete with coffee in terms of profitability.’
A t this point, a word on the various labor systems employed on the two frontiers i s in
order. Even though a variety of labor arrangements existed on the cotton frontier in the
United States and the coffee frontier in Brazil, similar adaptations to frontier conditions
arose in both cases. During various periods these frontier lands were cultivated by slaves,
sharecroppers, day laborers, colonos, tenant farmers, and small holders. What i s
striking, however, i s that despite the great differences in the actual operation of these
diverse labor systems and the class relations to which they gave rise,I6 the economic and
ecological factors present on these frontiers appear to have overridden the differences in
labor arrangements and to have produced remarkably similar behavioral gambits on the
part of large holders and small.
Before turning to the ecological factors which affect frontier cash crop regimes, it is
very important to emphasize that a number of the economic factors which influence
frontier agriculture are not controlled locally: they stem from the frontiers’ dependent
relationship with other world areas. World market price and the availability o f credit”
and marketing facilities are determined by forces largely or totally outside of the frontier
regions in which the cash crops are actually grown. This was the case in both the southern
United States and southern Brazil. Their cotton and coffee frontiers were “satellites” of
“metropoles” (Frank 1969). In the early years of cotton cultivation, the American south
was an “international satellite” o f England, because, in part, the British market for
textiles was largely responsible for making cotton the boom crop that it was, and British
capital played a major role in the development o f the cotton frontier (Allen 1959:40).
Later, however, the south’s dependency on the British market was replaced by an equally
strong dependency on northern business: “The most striking characteristic of Southern
economy was that, although the colonial connection with England had been broken, a
new colonialism arose with respect to Northern business” (Eaton 1961:196).
Initially, investments in Brazil’s coffee industry were made largely by Brazilian capital,
but soon British capital entered the scene “after Brazilian capital had paved the way and
shown the profit” (Frank 1969:168). The coffee frontier’s satellite status crystallized
with heavy British investment in railroad construction in Sio Paulo and Parani and
British-financed improvement of the port facilities in Santos. Foreign interests in Britain,
France, and the United States took over most of the coffee export trade and, later, some
of its domestic financing and production. Today, seven of the ten largest coffee-exporting
firms in Brazil are in North American hands (Frank 1969:253). The coffee frontier’s
dependence upon the metropole(s) perhaps is best illustrated by the disastrous plunge in
coffee prices during the world economic crisis of 1929.

The details of the relationship between the metropoles and their frontier satellites
deserve a separate volume and clearly are beyond the scope of this paper. In addition, the
question o f possible similarities and differences in the influence of these factors in
noncapitalist political economies can not be dealt with here. Whether or not frontier cash
crop agriculturalists would exhibit similar behavioral gambits within the context of
strongly centralized political systems with tightly controlled colonization programs is a
separate, although related, topic. Whatever the case in socialist political economies, there
is no doubt that the dependent status of frontier areas within capitalist systems greatly
influences the behavior of resident cultivators and, therefore, indirectly contributes to the
destructive nature o f frontier cash crop agriculture.

frontier agriculture 63
 the destructive cycle: ecological considerations

There are important ecological considerations which influence the course o f frontier
cash crop agriculture. Perhaps foremost among them is the effect o f simply clearing the
land of its forest overgrowth for cultivation. Virgin soil protected by its natural
vegetation changes very slowly in composition. When cultivation gets under way,
however, when the soil covering is broken and crops are taken out, change occurs far
more rapidly. A number of processes are involved in soil modification and depletion. First
is the loss of materials due to the growth and harvesting of crops. The removal of organic
matter results in at least temporary impoverishment o f the soil, which diminishes the
availability of important nutrients to subsequent crops, unless, of course, they are
restored by artificial means-e.g., fertilizers. Also, with the removal of the forest canopy,
the soil, for the first time, is directly exposed to the elements, most notably rainfall. The
damage done by rainfall “comes not only from the actual carrying away of soil particles
in suspension (erosion), but also by the removal of materials in solution (leaching)”
(Craven 1925:16). The material carried away by the waters also lessen the soil’s fertility,
since potassium, phosphorous, calcium, nitrogen, etc., are carried off and no longer are
available as plant food. Although hilly areas are most endangered by the hazards of
rainfall, all lands under cultivation are subject to at least some depletion from this source.
The final factor contributing to the diminished fertility of cultivated soils is the
development of harmful toxins, fungi, and diseases in them. Although their effects on soil
fertility are variable and in part depend on the soil’s original composition and in part on
the cultivation techniques employed, they often play a role in soil depletion (Craven
1925: 15-19). The point o f these ecological considerations is that cultivation on virgin
land-cultivation of whatever sort-opens the path to deterioration.
Since unstable and unpredictable natural conditions, particularly weather conditions
and the appearance of insect pests, encourage exploitative cultivation practices, they are
another set of ecological factors which lead indirectly to soil depletion in frontier areas
devoted to cash crops (Ciriacy-Wantrup 1963:201). Although frosts, droughts, and insect
pests are hardly unique to frontier zones, they often constitute serious threats to
cultivation in them and amplify the uncertainty caused by price fluctuations (see p. 49).
Instability in natural conditions affects the cultivators’ behavior in regard to conservation
decisions, because the fear of a severe frost or drought makes them reluctant to invest in
fertilizers and other conservation measures; should such a natural disaster occur, their
investment would be lost and they might even find themselves in debt.
Uncertain conditions of this type played major roles on the two agricultural frontiers
under discussion. The primary natural scourges of cotton culture in the southern United
States were excessive rainfall, droughts, and the infamous boll weevil. Too much rain
sometimes delayed harvesting and damaged the cotton crop; it also enhanced the growth
of noxious plant life as well as insect pests. Droughts occurring during critical phases of
the growing cycle adversely affected the quality and quantity of the yields. Finally, the
boll weevil, which multiplied in huge numbers in the cool, rainy climate of the South, had
to be controlled, or it too could devastate the cotton crop (Cohn 1956:175).
In most areas of Brazil in which coffee was grown, frosts were the major natural
phenomenon endangering the trees’ yields. Frosts have periodically eliminated harvests in
SZo Paulo and Parand, and, on occasion, severe ones have killed the coffee trees. As noted
above, during times of high prices, the threat of frost damage was aggravated by the
expansion of coffee cultivation into frost-prone regions. The link between frost risk and
conservation decisions is illustrated by the behavior of cultivators in Our0 Verde, a

54 american ethnologist
“coffee county” in northern Parani. There, many farmers are afraid of applying chemical
fertilizer; in the event of a frost or a drought that destroys the berries, their whole
investment is lost, because fertilizer already applied will not benefit subsequent harvests
(Margolis 1973:171).
Once again, the dependence of frontier zones on their metropoles contributes to the
exploitative . nature of frontier agriculture-in this case, to ecological degradation.
Metropolitan interests demand that their satellites grow that which is marketable (not
necessarily that which is most needed to meet the nutritional requirements of the frontier
population). Furthermore, since the cash crops are sold in distant markets, the metropole
receives no feedback concerning critical ecological factors affecting the frontier. But even
if metropolitan interests were aware of the ecological damage wrought by the cultivation
o f the desired cash crop, they probably would not take heed of the problem, because
they would have nothing to gain-or, rather, little to lose-from the environmental
degradation o f a distant satellite zone. For the metropole, “it i s more efficient to utilize a
system at full rate until it is exhausted of the desired resource, and then to seek another
population to appropriate” (Weiss 197922).

tobacco, anchovies, oranges

In an attempt to demonstrate that the cotton cultivators of the southern United States
and their counterparts in southern Brazil are by no means unique in the opportunistic
character of their behavior toward natural resources, the strategies of cash crop cultivators
in colonial Virginia and Maryland will be examined briefly.18
The earliest frontier “boom crop” in what was to become the United States was
tobacco grown in the colonies of Virginia and Maryland. Tobacco was first cultivated in
Virginia in 1616, and with the increasing demand for the crop in England along with the
colony’s near monopoly of it, by 1617 tobacco was being grown in the streets and market
square of Jamestown. Production skyrocketed, and, in 1620,40,000 tons were exported
to England (Courtenay 1965212).
The population o f Virginia swelled fairly rapidly, spurred on by the policy that
individuals who emigrated to the colony a t their own expense could claim fifty acres of
land, provided that they cleared it and a t least nominally occupied it (Courtenay
196513). The expansion of tobacco cultivation continued apace; by 1630 clearings were
being made on the York River and somewhat later along the Rappahannock and
Potomac. The march o f tobacco continued unabated until the “hard times” during the
last quarter of the seventeenth century (Craven 1926:63).
A t first, tobacco brought a high price-five shillings per pound-but as early as 1630,
the price fell to two pence per pound as a result of overproduction. Throughout the
colonial period the price of tobacco fluctuated wildly, but despite some lean years,
profits from growing the crop were generally high during the first five or six decades of
the era, as the rather luxurious life style that arose in the tobacco region attested. Even
after the boom days had passed, one contemporary observer estimated that a planter’s
initial investment o f fifty pounds sterling had grown to 600 pounds sterling within two
years (Craven 1926:39).
The prices received for tobacco in the early days were so high that ‘‘a man’s labor in
tobacco production yielded him six times as large a return as might be secured from any
other crop” (Craven 1926:30). It is not surprising, then, that tobacco was planted on
almost all available land and that many planters were forced to purchase at least part of
their food crops. Tobacco also encouraged monocrop production in that i t s periods of

frontier agriculture 66
 soil preparation, planting, and harvesting coincided with those o f corn and wheat. Labor
was simply too expensive to expend on these staples, given the profits that could be
obtained from growing tobacco on newly cleared land. In addition, toward the end of the
colonial period monocrop production was spurred by the authorities because of the
revenue taxes on tobacco added to the Royal Treasury. Any attempts by planters to
cultivate alternative crops were met with official discouragement (Craven 1926:31 ,
40-41).
Tobacco also enjoyed decided advantages over other crops in terms of transport. It
kept well, and its weight when ready for shipment was fairly low, both important factors
because its major market lay thousands of miles across the open sea. Only tobacco could
pay the high costs of transportation and still return a profit to its planters (Craven
1926:30-31).
There i s no doubt that the cultivation techniques employed by the cblonial tobacco
planters were wasteful of the land. No effort was made to preserve the soil’sfertility; since
tobacco used the entire labor force as well as the best lands, the supply o f animals to
produce manure for fertilizer was severely limited. However, as long as an abundant
supply of virgin land whs available to which planters could move once their current
holdings were depleted, the problem was not a serious one. The scarcity of capital also
played a role in soil depletion. From the earliest period tobacco was based on hoe
cultivation.” The surface soils were loosened by a continual but shallow stirring of the
plants’ roots. The deeper soils were “not touched and turned up to the surface to give
new supplies of food materials nor the depth given to the surface soils that would enable
them to absorb rainfall and prevent washing” (Craven 1926:35). Such techniques clearly
invited erosion.
Another contributor to soil depletion was the high cost of labor, a result of i t s relative
scarcity on the colonial frontier. According to Craven, a laborer cost four times as much
as the land which he could tend (1926:36), and because o f i t s high cost, planters were
forced to make the most of their workers regardless of the ill effects on the soil. An
inexpensive labor supply was one o f the planters’ goals, not preservation of the land.
Since high quality tobacco could be produced only on the freshest soil, after the
second crop was harvested the land usually was abandoned. Planters rarely took more
than four or five crops out of a given field because subsequent harvests declined in both
quality and quantity. This wasteful frontier method of agriculture was largely followed
because of “the high cost of labor and the illimitable reserves of land, rather than because
of ignorance or carelessness” (Eaton 1949:27). In fact, the movement to virgin land was
so rapid that the terms “tobacco lands” and ‘hew lands” became synonymous (Craven
1926:32).
The result of these practices was soil depletion and erosion on a massive scale. As the
tobacco frontier moved into ever newer lands, it left behind gullied fields which were
sometimes briefly given over to corn cultivation before turning to secondary forest
growth. The Virginia and Maryland countryside, covered with yellow sedge and old field
pines, “had an unkempt and worn out aspect” (Eaton 1961:4). The dilapidated mansions
and deserted log cabins o f the region were reminders of the heyday of tobacco culture, as
well as symbols of the desolate aftermath of cash crop agriculture on the colonial
frontier.
Another striking example of gross exploitation of a natural resource involving be-
havioral components similar to those displayed by frontier cultivators is instructive
since i t i s not found within the context o f a frontier agricultural regime. This is the
unchovetu (‘anchovy’) industry in Peru. Here, the ocean i s the “frontier,” and the

56 american ethnologist
anchovy of the Humboldt current, which i s made into fish meal, the valuable resource
being exploited. The fish meal industry of Peru, funded by massive investments of
European and North American capital, is a relatively new one. It got underway in the late
1950s and was soon heralded as the salvation of the Peruvian economy. “The ocean was
.
glowingly described as the big new eldorado . . the scene of the great adventure of our
days” (Borgstrom 1972:763).
During the first decade, both catches and profits were huge; during the peak year of
1970, 12.3 million tons of anchovies were scooped from the Pacific Ocean off the coast
of Peru (Idyll 1973:26).20 Profit margins were enormous, exceeding 100 percent during
the first years, when fish meal sold for $250 to $300 per ton (Borgstrotp 1972:766). It is
not surprising that thousands of fishermen and fish meal companies were attracted to this
venture.
But as was the case with the agricultural frontiers reviewed, the boom did not last. The
concentration of fish meal plants in one area led to overfishing which resulted in declining
yields of anchovy and the capture of young fish. Fishermen began complaining o f smaller
catches,2 and this, combined with a lower price received for anchovies, $124 per ton in
1968, resulted in considerably reduced profits (Borgstrom 1972:766).
The ocean, then, is structurally equivalent to frontier lands in that, like them, it is
“cheap” and there for the taking. Just as the supply of fresh frontier land appeared
limitless to its exploiters, so too did t h i s natural oceiin resource. Also, like their
counterparts on land, the fishermen and operators of the fish meal industry apparently
gave no thought to the long-range consequences o f their over utilization of the unchovetu;
as long as profits were high, there was no co,ncern for conserving this valuable resource
through a rational program o f fish management. Finally, the effects of the dependent
status of this frontier zone are comparable to those found on agricultural frontiers: fish
meal, an excellent source of high quality protein, was exported to the metropokes for
livestock and poultry feed, rather than being used to meet the nutritional requirements of
the Peruvian population (Borgstrom 1967:281-282).
I had originally planned to include a discussion of the late nineteenth-century citrus
industry in northern Florida as another example of the exploitative nature o f frontier
cash crop agriculture. After reading about the history of citrus in Florida, however, it
became apparent that, due to a number of factors, this case did not conform to the thesis
of this paper. This example is worth reviewing briefly, however, since as a result of the
special circumstances of the Florida frontier and the nature of citrus agriculture, it may
be the exception that helps prove the rule.
On the surface, the Florida frontier appeared ripe for the sequence of events that
occurred on the other frontiers devoted to cash crops discussed in this paper-the
combination of an abundance o f virgin land and the demand for a valuable cash crop led
to the so-called “orange fever” of 1880-1895. Settlers from the North flocked to the
Florida frontier spurred on by tales of the fabulous fortunes to be made growing citrus in
the land of sunshine. Orange production boomed: between 1870 and 1880 the value of
the crop increased fifteenfold, and between 1880 and 1890, it went up sixfold. During
the latter decade, the population of the state’s orange belt increased by 83 percent
(Divine 1952:23,48-49).
Once the groves were established, many planters sat back and waited for the profits to
pour in. The neglect of weeding, pruning, and fertilizing the groves led to many failures.
The efforts of other cultivators came to nothing because they lacked sufficient capital to
sustain themselves and their families until the trees bore their first harvest up to ten years
after planting. However, unlike the other frontier agriculturalists reviewed, the Florida

frontier agriculture 67
 planters did not push on to newer lands hoping to grow the boom crop profitably, while
despoiling the landscape in the process. Rather, most of those who failed in citrus
cultivation withdrew from it entirely and returned to their home states in the North.
The central question i s how did the citrus frontier differ from those already
considered, such that its cash crop agricultural regime did not lead to environmental
degradation from exploitative cultivation practices? A number of factors seem to be
involved. For one, despite the abundance of cultivable land in Florida, rather limited
areas of it were close enough to transportation facilities to make citrus cultivation
feasible. This was particularly the case when steamboats were the principle means of
transporting and marketing the crop, and orange cultivation closely hugged the shores of
navigable waterways. The problem was not entirely resolved, however, even after railroad
networks crisscrossed the orange belt during the height of the citrus boom; the great
weight and bulk o f the crop made transporting it even a short distance to the rail lines
prohibitively expensive. As a result, undeveloped land very near transportation
appreciated rapidly, bringing $40 per acre even during the early years of the boom. Simi-
larly located land with producing trees often sold for $1,000 per acre (Divine 1952:47).
Another factor which led to the very rapid increase in land prices on the orange belt
was the activities o f speculators and land companies. They propagandized potential
settlers from outside the state with extravagant tales of the fabulous profits that could be
made from citrus and they “created the impression that orange growing was a bonanza
which could enrich all who tried it” (Divine 1952:41). It goes without saying that these
speculators upped the price o f land considerably when they sold it to Northern
immigrants.
Land companies and individual speculators were also at least partially responsible for
creating the illusion that only a modest investment was needed to start an orange grove,
while downplaying the fact that up to ten years would elapse before its first harvest. As a
result, many arrived on the Florida frontier with far too little capital to see them through;
they failed before they had really begun. These people simply lacked the resources to
move along with the frontier and invest in somewhat less costly land at its outer edges.
Under the circumstances outlined above, it becomes clear why the Florida citrus boom
did not follow the course of the other frontier crops discussed previously. Most
importantly, there was never a “free” or “cheap” land situation during the period when
the demand for oranges far exceeded the supply, making their cultivation an extremely
profitable enterprise. Then, too, citrus agriculture requires far greater resources than the
other cash crops reviewed, if only because the trees take so long to produce. Finally,
because of the length of time between planting and the first harvest, citrus culture is
necessarily a more “stable” enterprise than t h e others discussed; its planters are
understandably reluctant to pull up stakes and start over again on new land, only to wait
another eight or ten years before their first profits are realized.
In one respect, however, the orange boom in northern Florida conforms to the
scenario of other cash crops grown in frontier regions. During the period that high prices
were received for the crop, the orange belt extended far north of its climatological limits.
As a result, a series o f killing frosts in the 1890s completely devastated the citrus industry
in northern Florida, and the once bountiful groves o f the region gave way to pasture in
less than a decade.
frontier cultivators as “fugitive species“
A t the beginning o f this paper, it was suggested that the behavior of frontier cash crop
cultivators is analogous to the adaptations of fugitive species. A brief review of the

58 american ethnologist
evolutionary strategies of these species will point out the similarities between their
adaptive gambits and those of their human counterparts.
In the literature, fugitive species are called by a number of terms--“r-selected species,”
“opportunists,” “prodigals,” and “pioneers.” By whatever name they are known, these
species are “adapted to changing conditions in time and space” (Margalef 1968:88); they
are able “to take advantage of transitory and unstable situations” (Leopold 1966:66),
and they are successful colonizers because of their “preference for unstable, scattered
habitats” (MacArthur and Wilson 1967:82). Because of their predilection for disturbed
ecological conditions, fugitive species frequently are found in habitats undergoing change,
for example, those that have been modified by human activity (Leopold 1966:68). They
are llopportunists” that invade virgin soil left uncovered by retreating glaciers and that
occupy “areas where a temporary freedom from competition accompanies the upsetting
of the natural balance by axes, plows, bulldozers, etc.” (Erdman 1965:367).
Since fugitive species are able to survive in changing environments within a single
region, they also are preadapted to colonizing neighboring regions (MacArthur and Wilson
1967:82). Good dispersal mechanisms which enable them to enter proximate areas are
essential for their existence, because fugitive species cannot compete successfully with
any other species able to invade the same niche.
They are forever on the move, always becoming extinct in one locality as they succumb to
competition and always surviving by reestablishing themselves in some other locality as a new
niche opens (Hudson 1951:575).

Time i s o f the essence for the fugitive species. I t s adaptation is heavily dependent upon
its ability to take immediufe advantage of a newly available niche before more slowly
moving competitors enter it. Later, the fugitive will become extinct, but “some of i t s
descendants [will] occupy transitorily a temporarily available niche in some other
locality” (Hudson 1951 :575). Since fugitive species and their rivals are able to occupy
identical environmental niches, it is not surprising that they are closely allied on the
evolutionary scale.
It is widely recognized that, as with fugitive species, certain benefi‘ts accrue to
cultivators who are the first to arrive and take advantage of new opportunities in frontier
situations. Ulrich B. Phillips has written that cotton cultivators in the Piedmont region of
the southern United States were correct in believing that their success “in the wilderness
depended upon a quick exploitation of the best favored localities, upon getting ahead of
the crowd” (1929:96). Similarly, Bowman has noted that “a large part of the advantage
of pioneering lies in getting there first, because the essence of the thing is to get good land
cheap” (1931 :6). The “chain speculators” of the North American frontier also illustrate
this point: those who arrived early made land claims and, without improving the land,
sold the claims for $50 to $100 to later settlers before moving west to make new claims
(Gates 196552).
The gains derived from “being ahead of the crowd” also are apparent on the Brazilian
coffee frontier. In northern Parani, upward mobility through land acquisition was
possible only to early arrivals on the frontier. Even those with relatively little capital
could save enough money to buy frontier plots by sharecropping highly productive coffee
trees on newly cultivated land. Later arrivals with few financial resources lost out because
within two decades coffee yields had declined, cutting the sharecropper’s profits and
eliminating the possibility of buying land (Margolis 1971).
The recurrent colonization of similar “niches” is another characteristic common to
both fugitive species and their human counterparts. In many cases, the same individuals
led the southwestward advance of the cotton frontier in the United States: one family of

frontier agriculture 69
 South Carolina cotton planters moved to the Alabama frontier to set up a plantation, but
within ten years they had pushed on to “greener pastures” in Texas (Eaton 1961 :3&39).
In other cases, the children of frontier cultivators were in the vanguard of the movement
west. Then, too, the near depopulation of older cotton (and coffee) regions which the
ever-advancing frontier l e f t in its wake i s somewhat analogous to the extinction of a
fugitive species in one locality as its descendants invaded and colonized another.
There is some evidence that frontier cash crop cultivators, like fugitive species, are
unable to compete successfully with later arrivals. As we have seen, “getting there first” is
a necessary element in the success of frontier agriculturalists. Many arrive on the frontier
with little capital, so that it is essential that land be inexpensive if they are to purchase it
at all. As the boom crop “takes off” and the supply of virgin land diminishes, land
increases in value, effectively pricing the cultivator with few financial resources out of the
market. This point i s well illustrated on the Paran6 frontier. Individuals who bought land
after the first decade of colonization invariably came to the frontier with far larger capital
reserves than did those who purchased land during the very first years of settlement
(Margolis 1973:211). It is in the economic sense, then, that most early settlers are unable
to compete with later arrivals. After the free or cheap land situation of initial frontier
settlement disappears, success-i.e., acquiring land-comes to depend on having consider-
able financial resources a t the time of arrival on the frontier.
The final analogy between the strategies of fugitive species and frontier agriculturalists
is their persistence: what works in one locality will work in another. As cash crop
cultivators in Brazil and the United States moved along with the advancing frontier, they
used more or less the same agricultural methods they had employed in the past. Even if
innovative agricultural techniques had been readily accessible and affordable, success
rarely depended upon their adoption.
In summary, there are a number of parallels in the adaptive strategies of certain
nonhuman species and the behavioral strategies of frontier cash crop agriculturalists. In
both cases, success is contingent upon breaking new ground, on taking advantage of fresh
opportunities, on quickly occupying and exploiting a newly available environmental zone.
Fugitive species and their human analogues are also adept at colonizing neighboring (or
similar) niches as soon as they open up; their ability to.move rapidly is a key to survival
(or success). Their extinction in or migration from one locale does not spell their demise;
at least some individuals survive (or succeed) by moving on to still newer horizons. Final-
ly, although these opportunists usually cannot compete successfully with later arrivals,
they nevertheless persist; by using time-worn techniques, they are able to vacate the old
and adapt to the new.

conclusion

Short-term benefits are important to people now alive and are valued more highly than benefits
to future generations.
4. I. Schwattz and T. C. Foin
in “A Critical Review o f the Social Systems Model of Jay Forrester”

The above quotation is particularly appropriate for concluding a discussion of the

nature of frontier cash crop agriculture and its destructive effects on natural resources.
There i s a good deal of evidence that, under conditions of uncertainty, human beings opt
for schemes with superior short-term gains. This i s an axiom of human behavior that has
been observed by many scholars in diverse fields. In his analysis of the social and
ecological consequences of the Miskito Indians’ commercial exploitation of turtles and

80 american ethnologist
other animal resources, for example, Nietschmann concludes that “short-term economic
returns will be gained a t the expense of social and ecological disruptions” (1972:66).
More pertinent to the subject under discussion i s Craven’s remark that the only methods
employed by frontier cultivators are those “which give greatest immediate returns
regardless of future consequences” (192521 ).
The adaptive strategies of cash crop agriculturalists in frontier zones also must be
interpreted from the standpoint of the short- versus long-term gains which accrue to
them. Cultivators’ decisions with respect to the adoption (or nonadoption) of
conservation measures are influenced by a number of factors: uncertain natural
conditions, price fluctuations, access to untapped frontier resources, and scarcities of
labor and capital. If the threats of lower prices and adverse weather conditions are taken
into account, it becomes apparent why cultivators are reluctant to invest the relatively
large sums necessary to maintain their soil’s fertility. Given these conditions, particularly
the availability of inexpensive virgin frontier land, the cultivators’ interests do not lie in
expending their limited capital on conserving their current holdings, especially if soil
depletion already has set in. Despite its long-term costs to natural resources, then, the
failure to employ conservation techniques must be viewed as a rational choice within the
economic and ecological contexts of frontier cash crop agriculture.
The opportunistic mentality so often attributed to frontier cultivators also is
comprehensible within the framework of these etic conditions. Their orientation toward
the present is adaptive, given the uncertain nature of frontier existence brought about by
factors largely beyond their control. For these reasons, it is important to bear in mind
that the exploitative stance vis-2-vis natural resources found among North American and
Brazilian frontier cultivators is not unique; similar values can be expected to prevail
wherever similar conditions exist.

notes
‘A brief version o f this paper was presented at the 74th annual meeting of the American
Anthropological Association in San Francisco in 1975. I am very indebted to Professor Andrew P.
Vayda of Rutgers University for introducing me to the literature on fugitive species. I also would like
t o thank Dr. jerald T. Milanich and Dr. Donald Rice of the Florida State Museum and Professor
Charles Wagley and Mr. Anthony Stocks o f the University o f Florida for their comments on a draft of
this paper.
’The definition of “analogy” used in this paper is as foilows: “A resemblance in some particulars
between things otherwise unlike” (Gove 1965).
In recent ecological theory, fugitive species have been termed “r-selected species.” r-selected
species are species having high rates of reproduction and growth with the ability to exploit unused
resources in the early colonization o f new ecological niches (Odum 1971:257). Success among such
species is linked t o their “ability to disperse into an area, establish themselves, and multiply” (Emlen
1973:356).
4Ciriacy-Wantrup summarizes the reasons for this: “An economy that produces mainly for home
consumption utilizes its resources more conservatively, as a rule, than one that produces largely for
sale at distant markets. The former usually is more diversified, more immune from price fluctuations,
less subject to adverse effects o f taxation, credit, and tenure” (1963:13).
’The Northern Parani Improvement Company (Compania Melhoramentos Norte do Parani),
which colonized much of this region, offered relatively generous payment plans; 40 percent of the
price of the land as a down payment, with the balance to be paid over a four year period (Margolis
1973:37).
6The coffee plantations often were sold to settlers from Minas Gerais who were establishing cattle
ranches. In many cases, however, when the coffee planters defaulted on their loans, their holdings
were taken over by the banks (see Stein 1957).
‘One bag contains sixty kilograms of coffee.
*This contradicts the “safety-valve theory“ of frontier settlement, which argues that in hard times
the poor and unemployed moved west t o buy cheap land and set up farms. The frontier was said to

frontier agriculture 61
 afford an “escape mechanism’’ which drained excess workers from the urban areas of the East (see
Turner 1920 and Billington 1966).
9The most recent frost in southern Brazil, which i s reputed to be the most severe one in at least
fifty years, occurred in July, 1975. It is estimated t o have destroyed 70 percent of the country’s
coffee crop (Gainesville Sun, August 14, 1975).
‘Coffee cultivation continued its expansion into extreme western Paranb and into Paraguay in the
late 1960s and early 1970s, despite the relotively low price received for the crop. However, i t was still
the most profitable cash crop in the region (see Margolis 1973, Ch. 8).
“This is a particularly acute problem for coffee cultivators, since the trees take four years to
produce their first harvest, and it i s not until the fifth year after planting that full yields are produced.
“One study carried out in Jamaica found that farmers were willing to adopt conservation
measures, but the scarcity of capital and labor prevented them from doing so. Further, “there proved
to be a strong relationship between capital availability and the acceptance of capital requiring soil
conservation measures; generally only those with more than the average amount of capital responded”
(Blaut, e t al. 1959:419).
13There are still frontier lands suitable for coffee cultivation in Paraguay. These offer a more
limited “escape hatch” for Brazilian planters, however, since their utilization requires operating in a
foreign country.
14See Margolis (1973:68-69) for comparative costs and profits for coffee, cotton, corn, and cattle
in a county in northern Parani.
‘SCo/onos are workers paid on a monthly basis to care for a given number of coffee trees. This
system was widely used in SPo Paulo and to a lesser extent on the Paranb frontier.
16For an excellent discussion o f the class relations produced by varying land and labor
arrangements in export-propelled agricultural systems see Paige (1975).
“Banks were ready to extend credit for cotton and coffee for which they knew there was a
demand, but not for other crops, particularly food crops, with dubious marketability.
‘*The example of resource exploitation on the Virginia and Maryland frontiers in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries i s particularly relevant here, since it demonstrates that the opportunistic
behavior of frontier cash crop cultivators i s not limited to the context of subtropical crops for which a
demand developed In the nineteenth century.
lgThe plow did not come into general use in tobacco cultivation until late in the colonial period,
when the land into which the crop could expand was nearly exhausted and “old lands” were again
, cultivated (Craven 1926:35).
”The actual catch of anchovies in 1970 is conservatively estimated at thirteen to fourteen million
tons when losses from spoilage are included in the total. This far exceeds the ten-million-ton maximum
sustainable yield recommended by fishery biologists (Idyll 1973:29).
““El NiRo,” a natural ecological change in the waters off the coast of Peru, is possibly also
responsible for the decline in the anchovy catch. During El Nitio the coastal waters rise In temperature,
and this, in combination with the dwindling of the microscopic plants and animals off which the
anchovies feed, leads to a scattering of the fish so that they are no longer available in enormous
quantities to fishermen. There is no doubt, however, that over-fishing has worsened the effects of El
NiRo and “there is some reason to fear that the world’s greatest stock of fish may have been
irreversibly damaged.” (Idyll 1973:28).

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Date of Submission: February 4, 1976

Date of Acceptance: May 13,1976

64 american othndogirt