I may be reaching unconscionably here, but this could be an allegorical statement. The little we know of Mr Gould senior tells us that he was a successful merchant (perhaps a coffee-planter) in the primitive days following Guzman Bento's reign, with a brother who was killed trying to bring about better conditions. As such he represents foreign economic exploitation at an earlier, simpler stage, before the interests of mass capital and ideological imperialism were involved, before the idea of Costaguana business was "engaged" to that of global altruism.