Abstract
The paper aims to study the economic investments of the richest families of charqueadas (ranch) owners in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, between 1850 and 1900. Jerked beef was a very important food in the diet of slaves of sugarcane and coffee
plantations and also of the poor people of the coastal cities of Brazil. Therefore, this work is an analysis of a group of pro-slavery businessmen whose production was primarily intended to supply the internal market. The charqueadas owners, who also had leather, tallow, and grease as important export products, were the richest businessmen in southern Brazil. The paper also studies the role of these ranches in the long-distance maritime trade and analyzes the assets of the richest among them. Both in the first and the second half of the nineteenth century a group of families tended to gather the main material and immaterial benefits of the ranching economy which increased their prestige and made them a major component of the provincial elite.