Explain How the Social and Economic Changes Affected Gaucho Life
Due to the huge migration to Latin America, foreigners introduced the gauchos to many changes that would have a lasting effect. Two of the main changes felt by the gauchos included social and economic restructuring. One must understand that history about the gauchos can potentially be biased. This is due to the fact that only news that is interesting is reported and only bad news is interesting. This clash of recorded history and actual history causes us to question what actually occurred during this time period. The gauchos' lifestyle suffered greatly because of these social and economic changes.
New institutions, values and beliefs all aided the transformation and elimination of the gaucho. Imported values like family, religion, education and government impacted the daily lives of the gaucho. Whether the gauchos' lives changed in a negative or positive way, is up to you to decide. I would say it just continued to evolve this specific lifestyle, all the way out existence.
This acknowledged value of family affected the gaucho in the area of marriage specifically. Previously the gauchos impregnated multitudes of women and did not follow through with the responsibilities included with this action. They would just continue on with their normal lives. The importance of monogamy by others cramped the gauchos' style. Marriage did have one positive result. Women's worth increased in the peoples' eyes. Prostitution became more controversial. With religion on the rise, this act also crossed over to the inappropriate list. The value of education left the gaucho in the dark. The gaucho had no formal education at all. Schools began educating others, but not them. This meant that the gaucho was falling on the social ladder due to lack of education. Europeans imported this value and importance of education.
Gauchos' social lives covered many interesting areas. These traditional acts decreased because of the new laws. Previously, gauchos would roam the pampa, continuously moving onward to unknown destinations. This freedom became restricted with the invention of the fence. The fence also impacted other areas of the gauchos' lives including economically. The fence forced the change from a ranching to farming. The need for ranchers decreased, which put gauchos out of work. These fences also kept animals contained to specific pastures. Before this gauchos would kill roaming horses for fun, cattle for food and skins, and ostrich for feathers. These fences set territories that kept the gaucho from wandering freely.
Another change that kept the gaucho from wandering freely involved vagrancy...