Data

4.3.1 General Description

Anthropometric history provides a technique for analyzing historical living conditions that is especially useful in the case of times and places for which conventional economic data are unavailable (Steckel, 1995; Komlos, 1998). Trends in physical stature also provide insights into biological living standards across the social strata, and provide insights into the well-being of individuals who are in the lower socio-economic groups and are particularly vulnerable to economic variation (Baten and Fraunholz, 2004, p. 48). Therefore physical stature provides information about net cumulative nutritional and epidemiological conditions over time.

The recent contributions to the literature are beginning to provide an overall pattern of 19^th-century Latin American stature variation. On account of widespread poverty and extreme inequality, Latin American physical stature tended to stagnate throughout the 19^th century, not increasing until the 20^th century (López-Alonso and Porras Condey, 2003; Salvatore, 2004, 2007; Carson, 2005, 2008; López-Alonso, 2007;

Frank, 2006; Meisel and Vega, 2007; Baten et al., 2009). Peruvian heights are the object of one study comparing 19^th-century Limeño² height variation with that in Argentina and Brazil. Baten et al. (2009) find that heights in Lima stagnated from the 1820s to the 1850s, increased from the 1850s to the 1860s, and then stagnated again from the 1860s to the 1880s. We triple their sample size, to 2716 males and 380 females.³ Data from the Lima penitentiary were recorded between 1866 and 1909, allowing us to study birth cohorts from the 1820s through the 1880s. The prison records comprise information on each inmate’s place of birth, religion, age, occupation, ethnic group, and stature. While the sample is nationwide, most men and women were either Limeños or inhabitants of the coastal zones (Table 4.1).⁴ Aguirre (2005) presents a statistical profile for Lima’s prison-inmate population. It is evident that heights in this sample are skewed, under-representing the economic elite (white professionals), and over-under-representing lower

2 Inhabitants of Lima.

3 Baten et al. (2009) had too few female observations to be included in their analysis.

4 We restrict our analysis to Peruvian males aged 20–50, since adolescents have further growth potential, a factor that could have skewed the results. We conducted several tests to define a limit to growth potential. The same restrictions are applied to women and immigrants.

socio-economic groups, even if it is likely that inmates were shorter than the non-criminal poor.⁵

4.3.2 Ethnicity

We divide the data into ethnic and occupational groups to determine the extent to which Peruvian society was influenced by skin color, personal wealth, and education. We adopt the ethnic classification used in the 1876 official census: whites, blacks, mestizos, Indians, and Asians (Díaz, 1974, p. 29).⁶ For the sake of simplicity, we classify zambos⁷ as blacks, because they are of the same height. Since skin color in Peru is an accurate indicator of sociocultural as well as biological background, it is a good proxy for overall well-being. For example, a large number of non-white Peruvians were classified as white because of their wealth or political influence (Middendorf, 1893, p. 204). The black portion of the population is over-represented in our data set (Díaz, 1974); blacks constituted only 2% of the Peruvian population.

Nearly all Indians and blacks were categorized as unskilled workers and were at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Indians became slaves or laborers and were obliged to pay a burdensome tribute (Gibson, 1984, p. 381). Blacks were treated as an investment, and were regarded as socially superior to Indians because the slave owner had spent money for their acquisition (Díaz, 1974, p. 27). Although blacks were freed slaves, they were probably better off than the indigenous population. Indians who left the Andean highlands had no choice but to work in mines or haciendas as bond-slaves;

blacks found less brutal work as servants in the elite houses of Lima or on haciendas elsewhere on the coast. Indians remained socially isolated, at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy, whereas the widespread practice of manumission (especially after the country had won independence from Spain) meant that ex-slaves found satisfactory social standing in Peruvian society (Tannenbaum, 1946, p. 41). Most mestizos were

5 Baten (1999) compares Bavarian military samples with prison populations for the 18^th and 19^th centuries and finds that both of them are representative of lower socio-economic groups.

6 Mestizos are of mixed European and American Indian ancestry. In our analysis Asians are excluded because their case numbers are too small, and during the period under study, they fell into the migrant category, whereas in today’s population composition they play a considerable role.

7 Zambos are of black, mulatto, and Indian background, while mulattos are descended from whites and blacks.

skilled craftsmen. Constituting Peru’s middle class, they identified with the white elite, since social advancement meant a rise in one’s standard of living.

4.3.3 Region and Urbanization

The country is composed of three distinct geographical regions, the costa (coast), the selva (Amazon basin), and the sierra (Andean highlands) (Figure 4.1). Because the populations of the sierra and the selva are under-represented in our sample, these groups are combined (interior). On the other hand, because of the possibility that living conditions in Lima were exceptional, prisoners born in the capital are distinguished from those born elsewhere in the costa. For reasons such as a rising export market in Lima, the cultivation of cash crops on the costa, and the mining activity in the sierra, we maintain that there were few regional disparities in the biological standard of living in Peru throughout the period under consideration.

4.3.4. Occupations

A simplified Armstrong (1972) scheme (the prison records listed approximately 300 occupations⁸) is used for occupation identification: unskilled, farmers, skilled, and professionals.⁹ Farmers are coded separately because they may have benefited from land ownership and close proximity to protein-rich diets. Moreover, there is little evidence of an occupational bias among the inmate population; the large percentage of day laborers is roughly equivalent to that of the non-prison population.

According to the 1876 occupational census, farmers constituted about half of the Peruvian population and are under-represented in the prison sample (Pinto and

8 Within each category, we list the most numerous occupations: Unskilled: butcher, baker, cook, day laborer, launderer, loader, muleteer, peasant, servant, tailor, wagoner, worker; Farmer: agriculturist, cattleman, cultivator, farmer; Skilled: blacksmith, bookbinder, cabinetmaker, carpenter, caretaker, clerk, confectioner, deliveryman, enlistee, hatter, mason, mechanic, merchant, painter, plumber, printer, saddler, silversmith; Professionals: doctor, engineer, industrialist, journalist, lawyer, professor, business owner, schoolteacher, student.

9 Armstrong (1972) uses two more categories in his 19^th century censuses studies, the semi-skilled and semi-professionals.

Goichochea, 1977). For further analysis, we adjust our estimated means by population weights.¹⁰