Market and supply in Santa Fe la Vieja. The "common good" and the city's notables

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the urban market and supply of Santa Fe la Vieja population, starting from the concept of “life in town”. To this end, we consider the socio-ethnic characteristics, the settlement patterns, the urban development organization, the municipal functioning, the way of life of its inhabitants and the constitution of a local elite, in the context of the urbanization process of the River Plate littoral region. On the basis of the distribution and the alterations in the city layout, we describe the structure of the urban market within the frame of the local and regional space. The neighbours’ intervention in the city layout is registered, as well as the actions of the Cabildo to safeguard the “common good”, particularly in relation to population supply and commerce regulation. The documentary corpus used is mainly that of the Capitular Acts, Public Deeds and Civil Records belonging to the General Archive and the Department of Colonial and Ethnographic Studies of the Province of Santa Fe.