THE FARMS (wk 10a)

The farms were very useful businesses but they were not very studied themes, and that is going to be the theme for this week’s essay. These farms were very good systems for everyone, since they helped them in all aspects, plus it was not a hard business to handle.
The ranches produced every variety of things, such as “cacao”, banana, sugar, fruits, etc, and these things went out to the market and were sold at very good prices for the costumers and for the owners of the ranches.
The people were all satisfied with the new business, and they started to have ranches all over Colombia. These places were very big, because to be able to produce something, they needed certain space to produce good products and with more order. The farms also could last a lot of time in function, and this made a long time of life with many benefits for many generations.

As mentioned before, the farms were very good businesses and was one of the benefits during the colonialism, but these places had also many debts and neighbors often complained about them. Some ranches didn’t work and had to close because they had a bad start or because they didn’t produce enough things to pay for them later.
Some farms specified on producing a single thing, like “cacao”, because it was sold vey good and people found it easier to produce and a smarter way to handle farms.
Farms benefited natives too, because they saw it as living their own law, as we can see in the book: “Basta afirmar que fue un simbolo de libertad para indios que huian de la oppression de sus encomenderos o para marginados que huían de la justicia y deseaban vivir en su propia ley” (Colombia, Imágenes de su Divesidad, pg 101).
Farms lasted a lot of time because as the owners died, their heirs assumed control over the farms. Mostly the people with power owned a farm, so it was mostly the Spaniards who owned a ranch, and it was very rarely that the natives had a fam of their own.

In conclusion, we see that the ranches were a step up in economic situations during the colonialism, and they even benefited natives, but they also caused trouble in the government. The owners were mostly rich and powerful, plus these places sometimes were very varied and sometimes they weren´t, because the “cacao” was a very good business. Some were not successful because of different reasons.