POISED TO BREAK: LIBERALISM, LAND REFORM, AND COMMUNITIES IN THE
PURÉPECHA HIGHLANDS OF MICHOACÁN, MEXICO, 1800-1915
A Dissertation
submitted to the Faculty of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
of Georgetown University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in History
By
Fernando Perez Montesinos, M.A.
Washington, DC
December 8, 2014
Copyright 2015 by Fernando Perez Montesinos
All Rights Reserved
ii
POISED TO BREAK: LIBERALISM , LAND REFORM, AND COMMUNITIES IN THE PURÉPECHA
HIGHLANDS OF MICHOACÁN, MEXICO, 1800-1915
Fernando Pérez Montesinos, M.A.
Thesis Advisor: John Tutino, Ph.D.
ABSTRACT
This dissertation studies the history of liberal land reform in Mexico in the nineteenth century
and early twentieth century. It examines, in particular, why and how it came to happen in the
meseta purépecha, a region located in central-west Michoacán and home to numerous
indigenous communities. The dissertation traces the colonial origins of the reform under the
Spanish rule and describes how efforts to turn long-standing indigenous corporate land rights
into private landownership became the banner of liberal governments after independence. It
analyses the communal land regime of the meseta communities, how it was intimately connected
to the physical and environmental aspects of the region, how corporate land-rights worked in
practice, and why they came into conflict with liberal land policies.
The work also explains why, despite repeated efforts to push its implementation, the
reform did not come to fruition until relatively late in the nineteenth century. It argues that the
enforcement of liberal land policies was the product of an unprecedented combination of
historical circumstances, including a major political shift after 1867, a new fiscal policy affecting
iii
the lands in possession of indigenous communities, demographic pressures, the introduction of
railroad lines in Michoacán, and the subsequent expansion of commercial forestry in the meseta.
Communities, the dissertation shows, actively engaged land reform. Engagement, however,
fluctuated over time and differed from one community to another—even from one community
group to another. Local support or opposition to liberal land policies depended on existing
disparities and rivalries between communities, community members, and other non-indigenous
residents of the meseta (i.e. landowners, tenants, merchants, government officials).
The dissertation concludes that liberal land reform in the meseta brought about
ambiguous results. It significantly modified land rights, but it did little to alter inequalities within
communities and between communities and the larger Mexican society. It took place at the
expense of comparatively underprivileged community members, did not represent meaningful
improvements for a majority, and benefited for the most part the local wealthy—including some
better-off community members.
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Para gina, con g, como le gusta
v
Acknowledgements
Va para gina la dedicatoria de este trabajo. Ella lo hizo posible en formas que tal vez ni se
imagina. Yo, por mi parte, no me imaginaba todas las cosas que serían posibles gracias a estar a
su lado. Gracias es poco.
One happy day, in the middle of a conversation, a fellow graduate student came up with
the term tutinistas to describe the passionate way with which a group of students engaged
Professor Tutino’s courses. A generous teacher, a patient advisor, and an exceptional scholar,
Professor Tutitno has left an enduring mark on countless students. I was lucky to be one of them
and to be a part of tutinismo. Even better, I was honored to have him as my mentor. Gracias,
muchas gracias.
I was not entirely sure what I was getting into when I first got to Washington D.C. and
Georgetown University. The experience was at times challenging, but rewards far outdid any
setbacks and uncertainties. That I owe to an extraordinary community of professors, fellowgraduate students, and friends. Gracias a Elizabeth Chavez, Rodolfo Fernández y Luis Fernando
Granados por la compañía, los sakes, las pupusas y todo lo demás. Gracias también a Veronica
Vallejo, Okezi Otovo, Xenia Wilkinson, Marisabel Villagómez y Alejandra Ezeta, la “vieja”
guardia de latinoamericanistas en el departamento de historia. Mi gratitud también va para la
“nueva” guardia: April Yoder, Larisa Veloz, Javier Puente, Daniel Cano y Geraldine Davies.
Hay que agregar a este grupo a Graham Pitts, Eric Gettig y Jonathan Graham, los primeros dos
amplios conocedores del fútbol y todos los tres muy versados en la historia de América Latina.
vi
Experts in other world regions, I would also like to thank Joshua Kueh, Paul Adler, and Onur
Isci.
The Department of History of Georgetown University is one of the best places in the
world to learn and practice the profession of historian. I mean it. There I found an outstanding
community of scholars and human beings. My professors, and the faculty at large, showed me
why it is worth loving and pursuing the study of history. I would specially like to express my
gratitude to Erick Langer, John McNeill, Alison Games, Chandra Manning, Aviel Roshwald, as
well as Maurice Jackson, Brian McCann, and Adam Rothman. They all made me see history and
the world in a very different light—literally. My gratitude also goes to Kathy Gallagher, Miriam
Okine, and Carolina Madinaveitia who, also literally, made it possible for me and many other
graduate students to get things done.
Gracias a Alfonso y Ruth. De apellido Álvarez los dos y metidos como yo en eso de dejar
el D.F. por D.C., me ayudaron más de una vez a pasarla mejor (mucho mejor) lo mismo cuando
las cosas iban mal que cuando iban bien. En una ciudad distinta, Morelia, pero a la que por
fortuna fui a parar por un tiempo para hacer mi investigación, me encontré con Amelia Enciso.
Sin ella mi conocimiento de Michoacán y la meseta purépecha se habría quedado en buena
medida en pura teoría. Muchas gracias por las corundas, los churipos y por llevarme, entre otros
lados, al mismísimo San José de Gracia. En el D.F. toca agradecer a Daniela Arroyo por haberse
animando a trascribir una parte de los papeles viejos de los que está hecha está investigación. A
Tatiana Ramírez, ahora también metida de lleno en el oficio de historiadora, le agradezco mucho
haber compartido ideas y numerosa bibliografía. Esta tesis tiene como cómplices a César
vii
Rebolledo y Teresa Carlos. Entre chelas y bromas (y frustrados viajes a Acapulco) nunca dejaron
de animarme a seguir escribiendo. Con ustedes siempre me sentiré en entera libertad.
Totalmente ajeno al mundo de la academia y sus rollazos, mi hermano Carlos leyó la
última versión de la introducción de esta tesis. Dijo haber entendido lo que ahí escribí. Gracias
carnal, con eso me basta; muy perdido, entonces, no debo andar. A mi padre va todo mi cariño y
profundo agradecimiento. Ella ya no está, así pasó y sin avisarnos. Este trabajo es un tributo para
los dos.
Gracias, pues, a todos. Cheers!
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
VI- VIII
1
CHAPTER 1. THE IMPERIAL ROOTS OF LIBERAL LAND REFORM
The predicament of communal land rights
Imperial Reforms
21
23
29
Reforms in Spanish America
32
The Reform of pueblos de indios in New Spain
Seeds of Land Reform
41
55
Imperial Crisis and the Birth of Land Politics
62
CHAPTER 2. ECOLOGY, ECONOMY, AND COMMUNITY IN THE PURÉPECHA HIGHLANDS 75
A Stretch of Hilly Country
76
An Uneven Distribution of Water: The Upper and Lower Meseta
A Three-part Make-up: Urban, Agricultural, and Forest Lands
Settlement Hierarchy
87
Three-part Households
91
Distribution of Land Shares in Built -up Areas
95
Distribution of Agricultural and Forest Lands
98
ix
79
83
Haciendas and Ranchos in Nineteenth-century Michoacán
The Ebbs and Flows of a Rural Economy
105
111
The Chronic Limits of Hacienda Dominance and Commercial Expansion
Resourceful Pueblos
120
The Centrality of Corn
127
Supplementary Activities 130
Conclusion 133
CHAPTER 3. THE FOUNDATIONS OF LIBERAL L AND REFORM IN THE MESETA 136
A definition
136
An Unconventional Story
136
Six Conditioning Factors
138
Periodization: The Two Repartos
Christmas Day, 1868
143
146
The Radical Egalitarianism of Early Liberalism
The Limited Impact of Early Land Policies
Politics against Policies
148
151
153
A New State Reparto Law
156
The Federal Disentailment Law and a Country at War
A Struggling Treasury
163
An Overlooked Link: Reparto and Fiscal Policy
x
167
158
117
CHAPTER 4. THE FIRST REPARTO: FEDERAL, S TATE, AND LOCAL LIBERALISMS MEET 172
Initial Responses: Qualified Support and Outright Rejection
Buying Time
174
179
State Reparto vs Federal Disentailment
Communities Split
185
Conflict of Laws
191
Hard Choices
181
193
Supporting Liberalism against Liberalism
197
Implementation: Compromise and Ruptures
200
Conclusion
215
CHAPTER 5. THE SECOND REPARTO: STATE EXPANSION AND THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL
FORESTRY
218
Signs of a New Era
218
Four Major Challenges
219
Policies against Politics
221
Forging a New Relationship: Land Taxes and Conventional Agreements
224
Repurchase Agreements: The Piecemeal Fragme ntation of Community Lands 234
Demographic Pressures
239
A Word of Warning and a “Wise Law”
244
xi
Railroads and the Rise of Commercial Forestry
247
Boundary Conflicts over Forest Lands and New Calls for Reparto
Lumber Companies and the Opening of Commun al Forests
CONCLUSION
281
REFERENCES
290
APPENDIXES
316
xii
269
255
“And in all human affairs, he who studies them carefully will notice that
one can never remove one inconvenience without causing another to
arise." Niccoló Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy
xiii
INTRODUCTION
Paracho. Paricutín. Cherán. Tancítaro. Parangaricutiro. This work examines the events and forces
shaping the life and times of a group of highland indigenous communities in central-west
Michoacán, Mexico. In 1800, like most people at the time around the world, these communities
lived off the land, communally held land. Legally sanctioned and protected by the Spanish
Crown, communal land holding and usufruct rights were part of indigenous people’s rights as
lawful subjects of the monarchy; they were also essential to secure communities’ fulfillment of
their tributary obligations. Tellingly, lands were not subject to any form of levy. Lands were the
means to obtain the goods and the money to pay the tribute, but not a direct source of royal
revenues.
A product of Mesoamerican agrarian arrangements and Spanish colonial policies,
communal land holding was by all means a complex land regime. It admitted multiple concurrent
land-use rights—including family and individual uses—and permitted numerous forms of
gaining sustenance and returns on surplus. In fact, communities in the meseta purépecha1—the
home region of these communities—sustained a significantly diversified economy. Corn was by
and large the most important crop. Yet cultivation of many other agricultural produces (including
wheat and a variety of fruits and vegetables) was also significant. Similar to other mountainous
1
Meseta literally means plateau. I will use the term meseta throughout the dissertation, rather than plateau, because
it conveys as much as an environmental as a historical meaning. Purépecha refers to the language and ethnicity of
indigenous communities in the meseta and, more generally, of most indigenous people in Michoacán. Scholars
sometimes also use the term Tarascan instead of Purépecha. Both terms are problematic since none was used in precontact Michoacán exactly the way they are used now. I will adopt Purépecha because, unlike Tarascan, at least one
of its connotations refers to a social group, namely, that of the “common people” or “commoner.”
1
people of the world, people in the meseta broadly engaged in cattle-raising. Roads were often in
bad shape, especially during the rainy season, and access was consequently difficult, but
participation in local and regional markets was widely extended. People, and not only goods,
flowed outside the meseta; they travelled north to the booming silver mines of the Bajío and
south to the sugar-producing estates of Michoacán’s tierra caliente (or hot-country) searching for
seasonal labor and supplementary income.
Michoacán c. 1899 by Antonio García Cubas
Source: Mapoteca Manuel Orozco y Berra. Encircled, the meseta.
2
Crucially, estates in the meseta were restricted to the southern and lowermost areas of the
region, where water, not coincidentally, was abundant; by contrast, they were entirely absent in
the uppermost lands, where water was a scarce resource. Conflicts between landowners and
communities were chronic, but almost never sharp. Furthermore, since most estates devoted their
lands to corn and wheat, there was little incentive to impinge upon community lands and both
sides frequently engaged in unequal but mutually beneficial relationships through sharecropping.
Concentration of lands within communities was also fairly limited. Communities were far from
being egalitarian havens. Social differentiation and an uneven distribution of local resources
pervaded interactions between community members. Yet, for the most part, competition for
lands did not result in systematic appropriations and fragmentation of community lands. The
relative modest size of the population—indigenous communities were the home of a little more
than 15,000 people—also prevented lands from becoming a scarce resource and therefore the
object of escalating disputes.
Part of communities’ land base and one of the region’s most abundant resources, forests
also provided community members with important supplies and means of livelihood. Community
members collected fuel wood and extensively utilized lumber for house building and craft
making—wooden crafts (boxes, furniture, floorboards, and other construction materials) were
highly valuable in local and regional markets. Extensive as it was, however, forest use involved
no large-scale operations and, significantly, was limited to community members only. Very
rarely did community members or communities engage in disputes over forest lands. Broadly
speaking, in sum, late colonial indigenous communities in the meseta enjoyed a modest but hard3
earned degree of material security. They did not, on the other hand, enjoy the same degree of
freedom vis-à-vis the colonial state. Crown officials—Bourbon officials—had become
increasingly intrusive, meddling with how communities spent their funds and made use of their
holdings, undermining the relative autonomy they once had under the Habsburgs.
About a century later, in 1910, on the eve of the Mexican revolution, fundamental aspects
of the life of communities in the meseta had been significantly recast. People still lived off the
land; that would not change for many decades to come. Yet property rights were no longer
communal. More precisely, communal land tenure had lost any official and legal recognition.
Authorities no longer protected or sanctioned corporate land rights; they promoted individual
property rights instead. Furthermore, communities themselves—and not just land rights—had
been divested of legal personhood. Tribute, for its part, had long been abolished. In its place,
community members now paid a number of taxes, including—most notably—land taxes.
Community members, much like they did a century earlier, continued relying on a variety
of products and activities to secure sustenance and gains. Corn still reigned supreme, not only as
the staple, but also as the most profitable product of the meseta for both communities and estates
alike. Cultivation of wheat, fruits, and vegetables, same thing as cattle-raising, remained as
important as ever. A majority of roads experienced no significant improvements. There was,
however, one critical difference: railroads had arrived in Michoacán and the meseta. The volume
and pace of goods flowing in and out of the region had increased, although in most cases not
spectacularly. Regional trade, not national and even less so international dealings, still
predominated. Seasonal labor migration persisted, but had become increasingly more important
4
to many indigenous families. The Bajío was no longer a primary destination, but demand for
labor in the booming sugar- and (now) rice-producing estates in the hot-country was probably
greater than ever before.
As in the past, estates and communities in the meseta maintained a conflictive but
symbiotic relationship. Yet some meaningful changes had taken place. Sharecropping was now
more extended, its terms were less advantageous for sharecroppers, and community members
had grown more dependent on it. Roughly estimated in about 37,500 individuals (probably a
conservative sum), the indigenous population of the meseta had more than doubled since the
early nineteenth century. Competition for lands within communities had gradually become a
pervasive and corrosive trait of everyday life. It was not just that families were larger. With the
legal end of communal land tenure, buying and selling community lands was now openly
permitted. Bit by bit, numerous fragments of community lands had changed hands, almost
invariably at the expense of the worse-off and the benefit of the local wealthy (better-off
community members, landowners, shopkeepers, moneylenders). Local and internal material
disparities had never been greater—they were, at any rate, much greater than a century earlier.
Not surprisingly, although they almost never escalated into violent conflicts, new and longstanding divisions had grown ever bitterer.
Forests also showed the footprints of a notable transformation—perhaps a comparatively
more drastic transformation. Not only had a number of community members claimed stretches of
forest for themselves. Heated disputes—legal and otherwise—between neighboring communities
over forested areas had become recurrent and widespread. Families still extensively relied on
5
wood for domestic consumption, house building, and craft making, but access to the forest was
no longer limited to community members. Communities had signed lease contracts and granted
lumber companies permission to extract unprecedented amounts of wood. Forests, in other
words, were now the object of large-scale industrial activities. Land use, not solely land tenure,
had been significantly refashioned.
Overall, in sum, early twentieth-century communities in the meseta enjoyed a modest but
increasingly thinner and uneven material security. While for those at the bottom of the ladder
getting by had become ever more difficult and challenging, those at the top within communities,
by contrast, had come to control the means and resources not merely to survive but even to
thrive. At the same time, communities had lost much ground vis-à-vis the state. Authorities, once
more, meddled with how community funds and holdings (especially the new forest revenues)
were managed and spent. Any margin of local autonomy that communities achieved or regained
after independence had been substantially undermined.
Much change had thus come about in the meseta between 1800 and 1910. Deliberatively
provoked, but full of unintended consequences; long in the making, seemingly peaceful, yet
deeply divisive, it was a change like no other in the history of the meseta and its communities.
The engine behind this transformation was something that contemporaries in Michoacán and
many other parts of nineteenth-century Mexico called reparto. A word that roughly translates
into English as “apportionment,” it was intimately (ideologically) linked to nineteenth-century
Mexican liberalism and was used at the time to describe a series of land policies and reforms
aiming to end communal land tenure. Yet, as this dissertation aspires to show, reparto also
6
conveys a different, larger, and more complex meaning. It describes not only a policy or a
reform, but a process. That is, a collection of forces (legal, political, economic, fiscal,
demographic, social) shaping the way communities in the meseta interacted with the society and
the world they lived (and died) in. Explaining how these forces surfaced and combined in
specific moments, how they unfolded and acted on each other, such is the purpose and leitmotif
of this dissertation.
Understanding the history of the reparto as a process—an intricate combination of
forces—is important not only from a methodological, but also from a historiographical point of
view. For too long the study of land privatizations and the end of communal land tenure in
nineteenth-century Mexico was dominated by a rather crude narrative of greed and plunder.
Beginning in the mid-1850s, so the story was told, liberal elites launched a systematic assault on
communal landholding. The main instrument of this assault was a national law that came to be
known as the Lerdo law (1856). In doing away with corporate land rights, the enforcement of
this law was supposed to stimulate the creation of numerous small and privately-owned rural
properties across the country. Yet implementation brought about just the opposite results.
Everywhere indigenous communities were deprived of their lands, but lands did not pass from
communities to independent, industrious, and productive freeholders. On the contrary, lands
ended up in the hands of powerful and rapacious big landowners. As a result, hundreds of
indigenous peasants were pushed to the cities where they became cheap labor force. Many more,
dozens of thousands, ended up laboring for the very same landowners that had taken lands away
from them. Living conditions in the estates were often dreadful and former community members
7
(once free indigenous commoners, now peons) were forced to endure near servitude. By 1910, a
majority of Mexican rural workers (indigenous and non-indigenous) were landless and
oppressed, while former community lands (but also lands in general throughout the country)
concentrated in the hands of the very few—in ever large estates. No wonder, the story concluded,
Mexico soon burst out in revolution.
This tight synthesis may seem overly basic and swift. Not every classic interpretation of
liberal repartos and community land privatizations was as schematic and straightforward. For the
most part, however, accounts tended to fall under the same general canon. They all, at any rate,
shared some basic features and premises. Accounts were heavily based on national sources; more
precisely, on national laws and (some) federal statistics. Hard to get and often in disarray,
regional and local records remained widely unexplored and even ignored. Speculation and
theoretical generalizations thus compensated for the empirical gaps. The resulting image was a
top-down and centralized perspective of regional and local contexts that often lacked much
nuance and missed many of the fine points (the intricacies) of nineteenth-century everyday life in
rural Mexico. Hence the tendency to interpret communal land tenure as a monolithic and static
form of ownership, communities as undifferentiated collectivities, and indigenous people as
passive victims of other people’s actions. No background characters (although they too were
often reduced to rough, almost clichéd representations), landowners by contrast were depicted as
all-powerful and, therefore, as the almost exclusive winners of land privatizations and outright
dispossessions of community lands. Finally, the canonical view also had a tendency to consider
land privatizations relevant mainly because they contributed to explain an apparently greater and
8
more important event, namely, the Mexican revolution. Taken for granted and studied not in its
own right but in light of the other events, the actual history of how communal land tenure
worked, how communities lived, and how land privatizations came about remained widely
unstudied and unexplained.2
The classic canon remained dominant for most of the twentieth century. Yet it did not go
entirely unchallenged. Eventually, some of its main premises were questioned. By the 1970s and
1980s, reservations, hitherto unarticulated, began to take a more coherent shape. The enactment
in 1856 of the Lerdo law, it was then suggested, probably did not have the immediate and
irresistible impact that once it was thought it had; implementation took longer and it was far
more erratic than previously supposed. State laws, for their part, should also be taken into
account when considering land privatizations; they were often enacted before the federal law and
may have played an equally important role in bringing about the end of communal land tenure.
The Lerdo law, in that sense, represented neither the starting point nor the heyday of nineteenthcentury liberal land policies. Acknowledging the importance of state laws and policies made the
study of regional and local contexts all the more imperative. If the enforcement of land policies
had been uneven and inconsistent it was probably because it was conditioned by specific local
2
The roots of what I call here the classic canon can be traced back to the work of Andrés Molina Enríquez, Los
grandes problemas nacionales (Mexico: Imprenta de A. Carranza e Hijos, 1909) and Frank Tannenbaum,
Tannenbaum, The Mexican Agrarian Revolution (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1930). A thorough
discussion and analysis of how the classic came to be can be found in Emilio Kourí, "Interpreting the Expropriation
of Indian Pueblo Lands in Porfirian Mexico: The Unexamined Legacies of Andrés Molina Enríquez," in Hispanic
American Historical Review 82, no. 1 (2002): 69-117. Two important works informed, to different degrees, by the
classic canon are: Thomas Gene Powell, El liberalismo y el campesinado en el centro de México (1850-1876)
(Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1974) and Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution: Porfirians, Liberals
and Peasants, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
9
circumstances and dynamics that could not be easily extrapolated from the study of national
sources. Much more research, based on local and regional archives, was thus needed to support
old and new assumptions and generalizations. Only by this means could the conventional image
of both communities and landowners be confirmed or discarded. Moreover, if circumstances and
conditions on the ground turned out to be not as schematic as formerly imagined, then land
concentrations may have not been as stark as once suggested; people other than exclusively large
landowners perhaps also extensively benefited and profited from the fractioning of communal
lands.3
Promising and insightful, these new hypothesis and suggestions generated no great
interest for some time. Locally- and regionally-based studies on communal landholding and
privatizations continued to be few, intermittent, and little-known.4 It was only until recently, in
the last fifteen years or so, that interest has substantially grown and a cohesive body of literature
has started to take shape. The image that is emerging from this new literature is still patchy and
blurry, but it is one that looks substantially different from that of the classic canon. Buttressed in
3
See, Margarita Menegus, “Ocoyoacac—una comunidad agraria en el siglo XIX,” Historia Mexicana 30, no. 117
(1980): 33-78; Donald Fraser, “La Política de Desamortización en las Comunidades Indígenas, 1856-1872,”
Historia Mexicana 21, no. 4 (1972): 615-652; Robert Knowlton, “La individualización de la propiedad corporativa
civil en el siglo XIX. Notas sobre Jalisco,” Historia Mexicana 38, núm. 157 (1990): 24-61; Jean Meyer, “La
desamortización de 1856 en Tepic,” in Relaciones 13 (1983): 5-30; Jean Meyer, “La ley Lerdo y la desamortización
de las comunidades en Jalisco,” in La sociedad indígena en el centro, 189-212; Meyer, Jean. "Haciendas, ranchos,
peones y campesinos en el porfiriato. Algunas falacias estadísticas," Historia Mexicana 35, no. 3 (1986): 477-509;
Friedrich Katz, “Mexico: Restored Republic and Porfiriato, 1867-1910,” in Cambridge History of Latin America,
Vol. 5, edited by Leslie Bethell, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 1-78; Horacio Crespo, Tierra y
propiedad en el fin del porfiriato (Mexico: CEHAM / Universidad Aútonoma del Estado de Morelos, 1982); Francie
R Chasen-Lopez, “¿Capitalismo o comunalismo? Cambio y continuidad en la tenencia de la tierra en la Oaxaca
porfirista,” in Don Porfirio presidente... nunca omnipotente. Hallazgos, reflexiones y debates, 1876-1911, ed.
Romana Falcón and Raymond Buve (Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1998), 153-200.
4
See, Frank Schenk, "Muchas palabras, poca historia: una historiografía de la desamortización de tierras comunales
en México (1856-1911),” Cuadernos de Historia Latinoamericana 7, (1999): 215-227.
10
extensive archival research beyond national sources, it presents the history of nineteenth-century
land privatizations in a more fluid, nuanced way. The many intricacies of communal landholding
are now thoroughly described. As federal laws lose their once central place, much more energy is
spent in analyzing state laws and policies. Communities, for their part, are shown as
imaginatively engaging land policies and as active participants in regional and even national
politics. Local and internal politics are also the subject of much attention; social differentiation
and hierarchies within communities are now widely acknowledged (although not necessarily
explained). It is not, to put it bluntly, a soft version of what is still deemed as a very shady
episode of modern Mexican history. The new literature is, in fact, far from showing that outright
dispossession and illegalities did not happen. If something, it has begun to show that abuses were
not exclusively conducted by powerful landowners; many others, including indigenous people,
were also involved. The new literature, on the other hand, does show that the history of
nineteenth-century land privatizations cannot be reduced to instances of misappropriations and
that many community members often saw liberal policies as much as an opportunity as a threat.
In sum, not as crude a story as that of the classic canon, but one full of conflicts and
contradictions—and equally, if not more, disruptive.5
5
Probably the finest study of this new historiographaphy is Emilio Kourí, A Pueblo Divided: Business, Property,
and Community in Papantla, Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). See also, Jackson, Robert H. ed.,
Liberals, the Church, and Indian Peasants. Corporate Lands and the Challenge of Reform in Nineteenth-Century
Spanish America. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997); Daniela Marino, “La desamortización
de las tierras de los pueblos (centro de México, siglo XIX). Balance historiográfico y fuentes para su
estudio,” América Latina en la historia económica. Boletín de Fuentes 16, (2001): 33-43; Antonio Escobar
Ohmstede, ed., Los pueblos indios en los tiempos de Juárez (Oaxaca: Universidad Autónoma de Oaxaca /
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2007); Margarita Menegus, “La venta de parcelas de común repartimiento:
Toluca, 1872-1900,” in La desamortización civil en México y España (1750-1920) eds. Margarita Menegus and
11
There are, however, many gaps to be filled. Important areas of Oaxaca, central Mexico,
and northern Veracruz have received comparatively more attention. Yet, while research is
growing, entire regions remain unstudied or have been only scarcely examined. Some areas of
Michoacán have been subject to analysis, although in truth the detail and depth of the analysis
varies greatly. Studies include the Lake Pátzcuaro region, southern Michoacán, specific parts of
the Lake Chapala area, and the region known as Cañada de los Once Pueblos. One of
Michoacán’s and Mexico’s most important indigenous regions to date, the meseta by contrast has
almost completely gone unnoticed by the new (and old) literature on nineteenth-century liberal
privatizations. There are a very small number of studies (most of them unpublished) on equally
small number meseta communities. Well-researched and insightful, these studies are nonetheless
limited in scope and depth and offer a very fragmentary picture of the region and its
communities.6
Mario Cerutti (Mexico: Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León / Senado de la República, 2001), 71-90; Margarita
Menegus, La Mixteca Baja entre la revolución y la reforma. Cacicazgo, territorialidad, y gobierno, siglox XVIII y
XIX (Oaxaca: UABJO / UNAM, 2012); Edgar Mendoza García, Municipios, cofradías y tierras comunales. Los
pueblos chocholtecos de Oaxaca en el siglo XIX (Oaxaca: UABJO / UNAM, / UAM Azcapotzalco / CIESAS,
2011); Pastor Rodolfo, "Desamortización, regionalización del poder y guerra de castas, 1822-1862. Un ensayo de
interpretación," in Poder local y poder regional México, ed. Jorge Padua y Alan Vanneph (Mexico: El Colegio de
México-Centre d’Études Mexicaines et Centramericaines, 1993), 89-105; Carlos Sánchez Silva, ed., La
desamortización en Oaxaca. México: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2007); Romana Falcón, México
descalzo. Estrategias de sobrevivencias frente a la modernidad liberal (Mexico City: Plaza & Janés, 2002).
6
See, Robert Knowlton, “La división de las tierras de los pueblos durante el siglo XIX: el caso de Michoacán”, in
Problemas agrarios y propiedad en México, siglos XVIII y XIX, ed. Margarita Menegus (Mexico: El Colegio de
México, 1995), 121-143; Brigitte Boehm, “Las comunidades de indígenas de Ixtlán y Pajacuaran,” in Estructuras y
formas agrarias en México, del pasado y del presente, eds. Antonio Escobar Ohmstede and Teresa Rojas Rabiela
(México: CIESAS, 2001), 145-175; Moisés Franco Mendoza, “La desamortización de bienes de comunidades
indígenas en Michoacán,” in La sociedad indígena en el centro y occidente de México, ed. Pedro Carrasco (Mexico,
El Colegio de México: 1986), 169-187; Moisés Franco Mendoza, La ley y la costumbre en la Cañada de los Once
Pueblos (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1997); Paul Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt in a Mexican Village
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970); Sergio García Ávila, “Desintegración de las Comunidades Indígenas de
Morelia,” Estudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea de México 15, (1992): 47-64; Sergio García Ávila,
12
This is thus the first comprehensive study of the reparto and the meseta in the nineteenth
century and early twentieth century. It offers a detailed description and analysis of the ecological,
economic, and social conditions that gave the meseta and its communities their specific historical
patterns. Only by means of identifying and examining these patterns—including land tenure and
land use patterns—can we fully grasp the many angles and intricacies of the process of
fragmentation and transformation of community lands.7 In adopting this approach, this
dissertation aspires to offer more than a mere description of the reparto process. It also aims to
provide an explanation of why it came to happen. The reparto, I argue, was the product of an
unprecedented combination of factors—ideological, legal, political, fiscal, demographic, and
economic factors. It was only when this combination came to fruition, and only then, that the old
land tenure and land use patterns of the meseta started to change.
Timing is thus essential in this explanation. Too often the history of nineteenth-century
liberal land reforms has been presented as if events leading up to the partition of community
lands took place within an unchanging context, without any precise points of reference but the
enactment of state and federal laws. Even when the patchiness of reparto policies is
acknowledged—the intermittence of its implementation and the unevenness of its impact—
seldom is a specific periodization understood. Thus, it is not only important to explain why the
reparto came to happen, but also to examine when it came about, and how it evolved and
"Reparto y Desintegración de la Propiedad Comunal Indígena en la Ribera del Lago de Pátzcuaro, Siglo XIX,” (MA
diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2001); William Roseberry, “’El estricto apego a la ley.’ La ley
liberal y los derechos comunales en el Pátzcuaro del porfiriato,” in Recursos contenciosos. Ruralidad y reformas
liberales en México, ed. Andrew Roth Seneff (México: El Colegio de Michoacán, 2004), 43-84. Local studies of
communities in the meseta are referred to in the body of this dissertation.
7
This view owes much to Kourí’s, A Pueblo Divided.
13
changed over time. The factors at play acted differently at different times with very different
consequences. In the meseta they gave way to two related but ultimately distinct periods: the first
reparto, which went from roughly 1868 to the early 1880s, and the second reparto, which went
from roughly 1885 to 1914.
Laws, politics, and taxes combined to instigate the first reparto. State laws against
communal land tenure were first enacted in Michoacán in1827-1828 and for a second time in
1851. Then, in 1856, the federal government enacted the Lerdo law. The conventional narrative
of land privatization often assumed that the enactment of laws (the Lerdo law to be precise)
necessarily meant enforcement. Legal changes alone, however, could hardly spark
implementation. Major changes in the political realm also had to come about for this to happen.
It was only after liberal political groups retook power in 1867—after decades of civil strife,
political fragmentation, and two major international wars—that prospects of implementing land
policies gained momentum. Ironically, it was not the strength, but the weakness of the liberal
state that provided the stimulus to advance land privatizations. Wars had left public finances in
ruin. In the search for much needed revenues, liberal authorities in Michoacán introduced a new
tax on landed properties, including (for the very first time in centuries), the lands of indigenous
communities. Decisively, the tax only applied for undivided (that is, communal) lands; if divided
and privatized, parcels would be tax exempted.
Land policies thus moved forward, but not in the way the authorities of Michoacán
anticipated. An increasing number of community members and tenants of community lands
appealed not to the state land laws, but to the 1856 federal law. Scholars, as pointed out, have
14
progressively come to acknowledge the centrality of state laws in processes of land privatization.
State laws, it has been argued, were as important as the Lerdo law (if not even more important).
Seldom, however, has the literature attempted an analysis of how both sets of laws combined in
bringing about the fragmentation of community lands. In the meseta, state and federal laws did
not only combine, but they also collided. Both aimed to undo communal land rights. Yet they
also promoted two very different visions of how this should happen. State laws (first the 18271828 laws and then the 1851 law) advocated a radical redistribution of community lands: equal
land shares for equal number of community members. Significantly, community members had
precedence over outsiders. The Lerdo law, by contrast, made no such distinction between
community members and non-community members. Those who actually possessed the land had
precedence, whether they were community members or not. Tenants, in other words, had the
upper hand. Equally important, the Lerdo law did not speak of equal land shares. Broadly
speaking, land distribution within communities would remain the same as before implementation
of land policies, meaning that existing disparities would not be significantly upset. Tenants and
community members clearly understood the advantages and risks of choosing one or another
version of land policies. When the time to choose came, they chose the one version that could tip
the scales in their favor.
A different combination of factors characterized the second reparto (1885-1914).
Already consolidated in power, liberal authorities utilized land taxes as an instrument of political
centralization—and not so much to promote the progress of land policies. Making communities
to accept land taxes, and therefore to accept the right and power of the government to collect
15
them, was now comparatively more important. Thus, the impetus for privatization came from
somewhere else. Legal restrictions to buy and sell community lands had been undone during the
first reparto; demographic growth increased the pressures and incentives for actually carrying
land sales out. Many land sales were driven by necessity and not by the desire to make a profit.
As families grew larger and parcels increasingly inadequate to provide sustenance, numerous
community members resorted to local creditors putting up their lands as collateral. Unable to
repay the loan, many ended up losing their lands to lenders: the local wealthy.
Two other fundamental developments shaped the second reparto: the introduction and
expansion of railroad lines and the spectacular rise of commercial forestry. Railroads connected
Michoacán and the meseta to larger markets; they also created an unprecedented demand for
forest products, lumber chief among them. Lumber was a key component in the construction of
rail lines. It was used in the making of crossties, the braces that supported the rails on railway
tracks. As rail lines expanded in Michoacán and in other adjacent states, more and more crossties
were required, dozens of thousands of them. The abundant forests of the meseta thus became, for
the very first time, the object of large-scale commercial exploitation. Communities maintained
possession of their forests; although liberal laws allowed purchases of community lands, they did
not allow purchases of forest lands. Yet, as woodlands turned increasingly valuable, many
community members and local lumber entrepreneurs managed to get hold of numerous stretches
of forests. Since forests (loosely) delimited mutual boundaries, the rise of commercial forestry
also prompted a series of disputes between neighboring communities. Hoping to get the
government’s support against rival claims, communities then began to solicit authorities the
16
enforcement of reparto policies. To a large extent, it was due to these disputes and petitions (and
not to the initiative of liberal authorities) that a new state land law was enacted in 1902.
Ironically, the law further extended the power of the government over communities, precisely at
a time when communities began to let lumber companies make extensive use their woodlands.
State intervention and a major shift in land use marked the culminating moments of the second
reparto. Lumber companies secured ample access rights to the meseta forests and dominated
wood extraction and lumber production. Communities, for their part, retained land tenure and old
land use rights for domestic and small-scale activities; they also obtained important revenues
from lease arrangements with companies. The government of Michoacán, however, took control
of forest revenues away from communities: in order to make use of revenues, communities
needed first to relinquish communal ownership of forest lands.
This analysis of the reparto in the meseta, needless to say, promotes and participates in
the emerging literature on the history of indigenous communities, liberalism, and liberal land
reforms in Mexico and Latin America. Hopefully, it will bring some new insights and elements
of discussion into an increasingly stimulating conversation. It calls for studying in greater detail
the historical link between liberal tax policies and liberal land policies. Such link has been
suggested in the past, but rarely analyzed. At least in the meseta, it proved to be of fundamental
importance. The analysis of the reparto in the meseta also reveals that much more attention
needs to be put on the differences between state land laws and policies, on the one hand, and the
federal Lerdo law, on the other. State and federal versions of land reform did not mean the same
thing—not on paper and, more importantly, not in practice. In Michoacán they represented two
17
distinctive and conflicting versions of liberalism. I hope this work can bring attention to this
important and thus far unnoticed fact and, by this means, help us to understand whether it also
came to happen in other places outside of Michoacán. The dissertation, on the other hand, offers
further evidence of the piecemeal nature of nineteenth-century land privatizations that others
have come to notice in different Mexican regions. The end of communal land tenure was not
caused by a sudden, thorough, and spectacular strike, but by a silent, incomplete, and
meandering process. Finally, this dissertation wants to call the attention of researches to
investigate the relationship between railroads, commercial forestry, and changes in land use
patterns. Presumably, the meseta was not the only indigenous region in experiencing a boom in
commercial forestry in the late nineteenth-century and the early twentieth-century in Mexico.
The lumber business, stimulated by railroad construction, may have also been the engine of
many other repartos as well.
One final word on the role that indigenous community members played in shaping the
history of the reparto. For too long, as pointed out, indigenous communities were portrayed as
lethargic and uniform collectivities, averse to change and removed from the rest of society,
acting in unison and defensively against external threats. Communities, it is now widely
acknowledged, were from the beginning dynamic and changing collectivities connected to
everything in colonial New Spain and in the Mexican nation. Not only did they engage changes
actively, but contributed to shape institutions, laws, politics, and culture at large.8 Nowadays the
8
The key work advancing this argument for the nineteenth century is Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The
Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). See also, Peter Guardino,
18
question is not whether communities participated in the making of history, but how they did so.
In the case of nineteenth-century liberal land reforms, the analysis often focuses on examining
the dilatory strategies and obstacles communities set to impede the implementation of land
policies. Such approach, while important, is not entirely satisfactory. It presumes that
communities and community members invariably rejected reforms, and it assumes that resistance
ultimately left communal land-rights and practices intact. For the meseta purépecha—and surely
many other regions—the question is not whether reforms failed or succeeded, but how they came
about and what type of changes came with their contested implementation. Communities and
community members in the meseta did not conform to one pattern of behavior. The way they
engaged liberal land reforms shifted because the circumstances and conditions they contributed
to create did not remain unchanged. Their doings resist conventional classifications. Modes of
action were many, different and, more importantly, contradictory.
Responses to land policies not only varied over time, but also from one community to
another and, equally important, from one group of community members to another. Not all
indigenous people wanted the same things, and when they pursued a shared professed goal their
reasons to do so often differed. This is far from an obvious point and it needs to be explained if
we want to fully understand the impact of liberal land policies and liberalism upon indigenous
communities—in the meseta and elsewhere in Mexico. On the ground, land policies instigated
Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State: Guerrero, 1800-1857 (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1996); Peter Guardino, The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750–1850
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2005). A recent and insigfhful example is Karen D. Caplan, Indigenous Citizens:
Local Liberalism in Early National Oaxaca and Yucatan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, December, 2009).
19
and responded to many competing interests and purposes. Reasons to support or reject changes
in land tenure were to a great extent defined by people’s particular position inside communities.
The consequences and outcomes of land policies, in like manner, were not the same in all
communities and for all community members. They proved to be advantageous for the better-off
and the local wealthy—including a number of community members—and unfavorable, even
bitter, for people at the bottom of the ladder.
Much of this dissertation is thus about how intentional actions often ended up
engendering all sorts of unforeseen reactions and outcomes. In pressing new land policies on
communities, liberals launched forces they could rarely control. Liberal policies not only served
as means authorities used to end communal land tenure; they were also the instruments
communities, community groups, and other local actors used to pursue a variety of ends and
interests. In doing so, they all bent land reforms in ways liberals did not anticipate, intend, or
desire. Communities and community groups, indeed, contributed to the shaping of laws, policies,
and the history of Mexican liberalism at large. They too, however, launched forces they could
not always control. Land policies, at times, were used to settle old accounts against local
adversaries, other community members, and rival communities. Strategies in support and against
policies often backfired. Machiavelli was right, but his dictum does not only apply to rulers
alone. Indeed, in removing one inconvenience, both liberals and indigenous people caused many
others to arise.
20
CHAPTER 1
THE IMPERIAL ROOTS OF LIBERAL LAND REFORM
Let me introduce you to Manuel Rosales. Chances are that you have never heard of him or the
place where he lived. He was neither a renowned writer nor a well-known politician nor a man
whose life people care to write about. Manuel had a less fashionable occupation. He was a
peasant. At age thirty, Manuel was a married man and father of two. Ireneo was the youngest of
his children. He was only two. His sister, Buenaventura, was four years old. The name and age of
Manuel’s wife is for us unknown. The Rosales were a small family living in a small settlement
called Agua Nueva (New Water) in the state of Michoacán. With no more than a hundred
inhabitants, the settlement did not figure on most maps of Mexico. Not even on most maps of
Michoacán. Agua Nueva, however, was part of a larger community comprising about 3,000
Purépecha-speaking people. The majority of the community lived in and around the villa of
Tancítaro. The Rosales, nonetheless, had put down roots in Agua Nueva. There, Manuel had
three pieces of land. One used for housing; the other two for farming. It was 1872. Life seemed
to carry on without apparent variation.9
Forces of change, however, had long before been set in motion. In many ways, Manuel
lived as his father and grandfather had. Toiling the land had not changed very much from one
generation to another. Women and children, as Ireneo and Buenaventura would probably do
soon, still collected fuel wood from the surrounding pine and live oak forests. Crops and food
9
Archivo General e Histórico del Poder Ejecutivo de Michoacán (AGHPEM), Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación,
Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 14, 183-187 and 192-235.
21
remained the same. Heavy rains felt during the summer and the ancient peak of Tancítaro was
still plainly visible from Agua Nueva.10 Yet while some things looked unaltered, life was hardly
the same. The changes were not always noticeable. They came, for instance, in ostensibly
innocuous forms. That year of 1872, three men entered Manuel’s name into a book full of other
names and numbers. The men also wrote down the amount, size, and estimated value of
Manuel’s parcels. Everybody in Agua Nueva knew the parcels belonged to him. Yet the
inscriptions in the book, Manuel was told, were to be the ultimate and tangible proof that he was
the absolute and exclusive owner of the lands he toiled. Indigenous commoner no longer, but
property owner. It was nothing more than words written in a book. A simple bureaucratic
procedure. Yet it took the world to change and empires to fall for this to happen.
This chapter offers an overview of how the core principles—the rationale—behind
nineteenth-century liberal land reform came about. The federal Lerdo law of 1856, considered
one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of nineteenth-century Mexican
liberalism, is often taken as the starting point of the campaigns to end indigenous people’s
corporate land rights. Yet the enactment of several anti-communal land tenure laws in the states
(including Michoacán) shortly after independence under the first federal republic (1824-1836)
contradicts this idea. Moreover, many of the key arguments that would later on define liberal
stances against indigenous corporate land rights and that would be enshrined in the Lerdo and
earlier state laws can be traced back to the late colonial period. It was, indeed, during this period
10
William C. Leavenworth, “A Preliminary study of the vegetation of the region between Cerro Tancítaro and the
Río Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, Mexico,” American Midland Naturalist 36, no. 1 (1946): 137-206.
22
(under the Bourbons) that government officials and intellectuals started to see communal land
use and tenure as contrary to the best interest of the state, the economy, and even the well-being
of indigenous people; it was then when the bases of future liberal land reform were first
established and when its main goals were set.
The predicament of communal land rights
One big after effect of the revolutionary outbreaks that swept Europe and the Americas from
roughly 1770 to 1825 was the transformation of land tenure patterns and property rights in large
areas of the world. Around 1800 the vast majority of people on earth still lived off the land and
continued to have different sorts of common rights over at least parts of the lands they worked
and benefited from in a variety of ways (wood extraction, livestock grazing, farming).11
Common rights, in fact, usually entailed a combination of individual, family, and communal
forms of possession and usufruct. Land, however, belonged to no one in particular and, thus, in
principle, could not be sold to anybody. This did not mean that individual and family lands
belonged to everybody and that everybody had exactly the same rights over the lands that others
customarily toiled to support their families. Or that there were no mechanisms to transfer land
from one hand to another. Land was handed down among family and community members in
different manners. Inheritance, for instance, but also marriage and bartering. Ownership was the
result of some type of sanction by a higher authority and a number of compromises and
11
C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Malden:
Blackwell Publishing, 2004) 27-29. “Peasants [circa 1750],” says Bayly, “broadly understood, must have accounted
for 80 percent of that gross population [i.e. global population], though in some areas the emergence of nodes of early
capitalist commerce may have pushed the urban population to above 20 percent of the total” (28).
23
settlements that took into consideration different types of land use and tenancy by the members
of a community. Ownership was not the exclusive right of single holders. Individual possession
rested on local conventions, implicit agreements, and concrete land uses (all underpinned by
power relations and social hierarchies). Common rights, in that sense, depended on preventing
individuals or groups of individuals from claiming exclusive rights not over a specific strip of
land, but over the shared space at large.12
Over the course of the nineteenth century common rights either came to an end or were
widely reshaped in many parts of the globe. Manuel Rosales, the peasant who lived in tiny Agua
Nueva, was one of the many millions of people who experienced this transformation. In truth, the
transformation had begun long before the revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries broke out. Yet attempts to either end or reform common rights gained an
unprecedented impetus from the revolutionary period on. This became more evident in some
places than others. For most of the nineteenth century, the push to end common rights was
greater in areas that gained political independence as a result of the revolutions (as in the
Americas) and in regions still ruled or in the direct orbit of influence of European powers (places
like India, Egypt, Ireland, and many corners of Europe itself).
In all places, however, the campaigns against common rights entailed four fundamental
premises. The first one held that common rights, as a rule, bred inefficiency and unproductivity.
Sharing access to land and leaving the definition of property rights (at least in part) to customary
12
Rosa Congost, "Property Rights and Historical Analysis: What Rights? What History?," in Past & Present, no.
181, (2003): 73-106.
24
norms could only limit people’s ability to make the most out of nature and, thus, create wealth—
and wealth was, ultimately, wellbeing. The second premise advised granting individuals (and not
collectivities) uncontested property rights to specific strips or portions of land. Governments
would issue the corresponding attesting documents so that no one but an individual holder could
claim a given piece of land. Handing lands to individuals and providing them with exclusive
rights had one major corollary: it turned lands into commodities, that is, into articles of exchange
just like any other goods bought and sold in the market.
The third premise asserted that full ownership of land by individuals begot rational
human beings. Exclusive property rights, so the argument ran, induced individuals to cherish the
lands they owned. Caring more also meant taking more interest not only in safeguarding, but in
improving the land. This, in turn, demanded ingenuity and planning. Assessing gains and losses,
monitoring the market, finding new ways to increase yields; these were the signs of a rational
creature. The last premise stated that ending common rights also provided an incentive for rural
folks to break away with the bonds of custom and coercion of communities and landlords. The
landless and agricultural laborers in bondage, servitude, or in any other dependency tie would
become free laborers. This had a double benefit. On the one hand, free laborers would become
more efficient and productive and, on the other, they would provide the workforce needed in
other commercial activities in the cities and centers of production.13
13
See, Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 149-152; Giole Solari, “La
concepción liberal del Estado,” in Política y Estado en el pensamiento moderno, in eds. Gerardo Ávalos Tenoriio
and María Dolores París (Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2001), 86-88; Edward P. Thompson, "The
Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century," Past & Present, no. 50 (1971), 76-136; Congost,
"Property Rights," 80.
25
Replacing common rights, however, turned out to be a tortured and lengthy process.
Common and other traditional property rights did not just surrender to the implacable rationale of
individual property rights. Conflicts and compromises were, in fact, the norm. Technically
speaking, exclusive and common rights were incompatible. The differences between their
respective guiding principles were big enough so as to make confrontation, if not inevitable, at
least very unsurprising. What is more, the drive to substitute property rights, as a rule, came from
above and was preeminently a concern of a minority. Imposition from above by the few,
predictably, sooner or later would meet some opposition.
On the ground, however, things were frequently less clear and simple. The introduction
of absolute individual property rights did drive classes, communities, and families apart. Yet
many times support for ending common rights did not exclusively come from the wealthy and
government officials, but also from villagers, farmers, and peasants, making what was originally
the initiative of powerful minorities into a matter of numerous and overlapping interests. The
question, in that sense, was not whether to relinquish old rights in favor of the new and allegedly
superior ones. More often than not, the question resided in determining how the new rights
would fit into a set of already existing norms and practices. In other words, it was not solely a
matter of how individual property rights would change previous land tenure regimes, but a
matter of how previous rights would shape the exercise of the newly acquired (willingly or not)
property rights.14
14
See, Congost, “Property Rights.”
26
Revolutionary outbreaks added a different dimension to the way conflicts and
compromises over land unfolded. The impact varied from one place to another around the world.
In some cases, the connection between revolutionary outbreaks and land tenure changes was
tangible, but somewhat oblique. In England, for instance, piecemeal disintegration of common
rights and open-field farming dated back to the thirteenth century. By the mid-eighteenth
century, “informal” enclosures (as the shift from common to individual ownership of land was
known) had changed land tenure rights of at least half of the land area of England. Subsequent
enclosures were sanctioned by the parliament and almost 20% of the remaining land was
enclosed between the 1760s and 1830. And yet, although the pattern against common rights was
set long before, parliamentary enclosures were not completely independent of the revolutionary
episodes of the time. By contributing to raise the prices of corn, wars and revolutions helped to
create the conditions that facilitated further enclosures. At least in part, many farmers saw rising
food prices as an incentive to end common rights and open-field practices.15
In India, changes in the existing land tenure regimes were also not entirely detached from
the revolutions of the Atlantic world. The American Revolution provided the British yet another
reason to focus on their interests in Asia and thus promote a more direct rule in the region. In the
late eighteenth century, after the thirteen colonies had obtained their independence, the British
and their allies established new tax systems in the areas of India controlled by the East India
15
See, John Chapman, “The Extent and Nature of Parliamentary Enclosure,” The Agricultural History Review 35,
no. 1 (1987): 25-35; Michael Turner, “Parliamentary Enclosures,” in ReFRESH 3 (1986), accessed January 14,
2013, http://www.ehs.org.uk/ehs/refresh/assets/Turner3b.pdf; Roger J. P. Kain, John Chapman, and Richard R.
Oliver, The Enclosure Maps of England and Wales, 1595-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 146.
27
Company (the ryotwari and the zamindari systems). The goal was to increase the incomes of the
Crown (one of the reasons that had sparked the American Revolution) and not to end or change
common rights per se. Yet, in order to establish certain uniformity and thus theoretically
facilitate the collection of revenues, the new systems bypassed the many subtleties of the existing
land tenure arrangements and brought about significant alterations in the way people hitherto
owned, transferred, and used the land.16
The revolutions had a more direct and important impact in other areas of the world. In
continental Europe, for instance, especially in the places taken over by French revolutionary and
Napoleonic armies. And also in the Americas, undoubtedly one of the world regions where
revolutions most clearly shaped the transformation of common rights. There, east to west and
north to south, the revolutionary outbreaks played an instrumental role in creating the conditions
that defined the pace and the way land tenure systems changed during the nineteenth century.
On the one hand, revolutions galvanized long-standing and ongoing conflicts between
settlers and indigenous people. The undoing of common rights, indeed, had begun since the very
early days of European colonization in the late fifteenth century and continued thereafter even
where, as in the Spanish America, common rights over land became a fundamental piece of the
empire-building process. The revolutions, however, altered the delicate balance between, settlers,
indigenous people, and imperial agents, mainly (but not exclusively) in North and South
16
See, John F. Richards, Edward S. Haynes, and James R. Hagen, “Changes in the Land and Human Productivity in
Northern India, 1870-1970,” Agricultural History 59, no. 4 (1985): 523-548; David E. Ludden, An Agrarian History
of South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 130-140; The comparative history of land tenure
systems on a global scale during the nineteenth century is strikingly scarce.
28
America. The balance did not always work, but it often restrained full scale confrontation and,
more significantly, always considered indigenous common rights over land a key part of
negotiations, alliances, and compromises.17 On the other hand, revolutions took down the very
foundations that had made possible the legal existence of common rights, especially in the
Spanish America. There an entire new edifice of norms and institutions came out of the wars for
independence of the 1810s and early 1820s. That edifice was expressly created to end the
language, conventions, and social relations supporting indigenous common rights over land. At
least from a political and legal point of view, the revolutionary period marked a truly epochal
shift.
Imperial Reforms
The imperial crises of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were the product of
intensified geopolitical rivalries between European powers and the attempts of empires to cope
with the burdens of such rivalries. Beginning with the War of Spanish succession (1700-1713),
European transoceanic empires—mainly the Spanish, British, French, Portuguese, and Dutch—
periodically waged war against each other throughout the eighteenth century. Two centuries of
oceanic trade and colonization had made overseas control of territories, resources, and labor a
17
See, for instance, James H. Merrell, “The Indians' New World: The Catawba Experience,” in The William and
Mary Quarterly 41, no. 4 (1984): 538-565; Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in
the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Virginia DeJohn Anderson,
“King Philip's Herds: Indians, Colonists, and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England,” in The William and
Mary Quarterly 51, no. 4 (1994): 601-624; Jeremy Adelman and Stephen Aron, “From Borderlands to Borders:
Empires, Nation-States, and the Peoples in between in North American History,” The American Historical Review
104, no. 3. (1999): 814-841.
29
fundamental aspect of inter-imperial affairs. Wars, however, covered much larger latitudes than
in the past—they were fought in regions spread across the planet from India to New France—and
started to grow out of all proportion. Technological developments in killing and navigation
devises fueled even more imperial rivalries leading to a military race that, in turn, spiraled war
expenditures. More men, firearms, ships, fortresses, and wartime subsidies revealed the fiscal
vulnerability of empires. The bigger the wars, the larger the armies, the greater the debts. The
predicament soon became clear. In the long-run, sovereigns could not afford the costs of war, but
war was the means to either seize or defend imperial domains and maintain geopolitical power.
The Seven Years War (1756-1763) provided the final evidence that wars put an inexorable
pressure on imperial treasuries. Thereafter, efforts to reform the running of empires, already in
progress, turned all the more the pressing.18
Comparable pressures gave way to similar modes of conceiving the transformation of
empires. Broadly speaking, imperial reforms aspired to achieve two sets of fundamental goals.
On the one hand, they sought to reassert the authority of the Crowns over their subjects and
against foreign competitors. On the other, reforms attempted to increase imperial revenues and
stimulate commercial activities—revenues would support war efforts, commercial profits would
boost government returns through taxes. Should these two goals be accomplished empires could
continue fighting for global dominance and survival.
18
See, Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 88-92; Gat Azar, War in Human Civilization (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 456-511; David Abernethy, The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas
Empires, 1415-1980 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 45-80; and J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic
World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 292-295 and 301-302.
30
Asserting the authority of kings and central authorities meant assuming direct political
and administrative control of the overall machinery of empires. In the case of the Spanish empire
(but also in the Portuguese and French and to a lesser extent the Dutch and British) this implied
undermining the ascendancy of a great number of provincial and local authorities and
oligarchies. Such was purpose of earlier measures against the autonomy of Aragón, Valencia,
and Cataluña after the end of the War of Spanish Succession. Subsequent administrative reforms
furthered the centralizing impetus. New secretarías, whose tasks were more clearly defined and
specified, gradually displaced the old consejos. In 1749 the Crown introduced new provincial
officials, the intendentes (intendants), who were only responsive to Madrid. The new officials
deepened a period of administrative rationalization signaled by the implementation of land
surveys, a more scrupulous examination of revenue accounts, and the introduction of new real
estate and income taxes.19 Carlos III (1759-1788) and his ministers and advisors not only
continued, but broadened the extent and scope of previous reforms. Virtually all aspects of
government and civic life, from the army and the navy to the education system and dressing
codes, experienced some reform. Fiscal and economic policies, in particular, gradually modified
much of the legislation and the administrative apparatus built under the Habsburgs—the House
of Bourbon had secured the rule of the Spanish empire with the Treaties of Utrecht (1713) and
Rastatt (1714).
19
Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 17591789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); and Richard Herr, “Flow and Ebb, 1700-1833,” in Spain:
A History, ed. Raymond Carr (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 173-203.
31
High-ranking officials and advisors close to the king—individuals such as Campomanes,
Bernardo Ward, Jovellanos, Esquilache, the Count of Aranda, and his rival the Count of
Floridablanca—were all familiar with and fond of the economic arguments of the Enlightenment.
Despite the persistence of censorship, enlightened ideas and principles circulated more or less
freely among intellectuals and men in power. A utilitarian vision of commerce, industry, and
agriculture thus informed the reforms these men conceived and, at least in part, implemented.
The reformers saw political and administrative centralization as a means to sponsor new trades,
protect already lucrative enterprises, build roads, loosen commercial restrictions and, indeed,
change property rights and land uses. This meant that all individuals, possessions, and activities
considered unproductive according to the new standards could no longer count on the favor of
the king. In practice, this affected, among many others, the lower nobility (the hidalgos),
segments of the Catholic Church and their possessions, entailed estates such as the mayorazgos,
and the common rights of villagers and peasants. Royal patronage was now reserved, to an
important degree, to the industrious and the diligent, that is, to the money-spinners.20
Reforms in Spanish America
All the major figures behind the reforms knew that any imperial reorganization needed to address
the relationship between the Crown and its overseas territories. Hence the fundamental role that
the reformers ascribed to the New World. The changes they recommended pursued the very
20
Ibid. See also, Anthony Pagden, Lords of all the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France
c.1500-c.1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) 120-125.
32
same goals of previous and ongoing reforms in the Peninsula: increase royal revenues and
strengthen royal authority. The reforms, accordingly, focused on maximizing the potential of the
Spanish New World to enliven the finances of the empire and on keeping in check the threat of
other overseas powers to the Crown’s domains. Protecting the New World was crucial for
keeping the Spanish Crown financially viable and politically powerful. The Crown had lost most
of its remaining European possessions in the first-half of the eighteenth century to other
European powers. The New World under the Bourbons, now more than ever, was a central piece
of the empire. Without the New World the Spanish empire would be no more.21
A reforming impetus thus swept Spanish America during the last third of the century. It
was exceptionally strong from 1765 to 1785 and sought to alter the purpose, make-up, and
workings of the Spanish New World. As in the Peninsula, the reforms targeted all the major
spheres of the economy and the government. There was, of course, the ever indispensable
silver—the fuel of the empire. By the mid-eighteenth century it was clear for the Crown and its
rivals that silver meant primarily (but never exclusively) New Spain. There, silver mining was an
already thriving business. Royal measures came right after production in general slowed down
and after a period of decline in Guanajuato (1750s to mid-1760s), the single most important
mining center of the empire. The objective was to facilitate as much as possible the extraction
and refining of the mineral and to improve the collection of royal excises. The Crown provided
mine owners with a new code, financial institutions, low mercury prices, tax breaks on essential
21
See, John Tutino, Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajío and Spanish North America (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2012); and Elliot, Empires of the Atlantic World, 307-308.
33
supplies, and a mining school. It also established a new mining court and guild, a privilege
hitherto reserved only to prominent merchants. The Crown thus would obtain closer supervision
over silver production; mine owners, in exchange, would gain a prominent forum to shape the
policies affecting their industry.22
Commerce and other major profit-making industries also experienced important
modifications. The end of the fleet system and the Cadiz monopoly (1778) terminated a series of
restrictions over transoceanic commerce established under the Habsburgs. Instead of periodic
and large convoys arriving in few authorized ports (Veracruz, Callao, Cartagena, Portobello), the
Crown permitted small fleets and individual vessels to carry out commerce in a much wider
variety of ports spread around the empire. In part, the end of the restrictions was a response to
widespread contraband—involving the French and British, among several others—and the
growing complexity of transoceanic commercial networks. The reform, in that sense, just
sanctioned practices that were rapidly becoming the norm. Yet it also introduced new ground
rules and fed emerging rivalries between old and new merchant groups. The powerful merchant
houses of Cadiz, Lima, and Mexico City would have to face increasing competition from other
merchant guilds. Such competition, the ministers of the king expected, would stimulate
commerce at the same it would undermine the ascendancy of powerful cliques. In other words, it
would contribute to the program of political centralization ambitioned by the Crown.23
22
See, David A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763-1810 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1971) 129-168; and Tutino, Making a New World, 171-183 and 549-550.
23
David A. Brading, "Bourbon Spain and its American Empire," in The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol.
1. Colonial Latin America, ed. Leslie Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 409-418; Stein and
Stein, Apogee of Empire, 119-304.
34
While some monopolies were broken, others were created. In New Spain, in particular,
the Crown assumed control of gambling games such as cards and cock fighting and turned them
into state monopolies. It also established new taxes on stamped papers—a mandatory
requirement to fulfill countless legal and official procedures. More importantly, the Crown
created a tobacco monopoly—the famous estanco. Few agricultural and manufacturing industries
in the New World found extensive royal support. The reforms actually discouraged the formation
of and provided little incentive to any industry that could threaten the manufactures and
commercial activities of the Peninsula. American domains were increasingly considered by
officials in Madrid as suppliers of raw materials and markets for products made in Spain.
Enterprises such as sugar mills in the Caribbean (the ingenios of Cuba and Puerto Rico) and
tobacco in New Spain were exceptions to this rule. The Crown, in fact, encouraged the
development of these trades because they did not pose any challenge to other industries
(peninsular or otherwise). What is more, they offered important stimulus to commerce between
Spain and the overseas provinces and provided the monarchy with important (and needed)
returns. In the case of tobacco in New Spain, the Crown did not simply fostered production—as
it was doing with mining. In the course of a decade (from 1765 to 1775), it actually took control
of each and every aspect of the tobacco industry (from cultivation to sale). The tobacco business
and monopoly, indeed, proved to be a remarkable source of revenues for the Crown.24
24
See, Susan Deans-Smith, Bureaucrats, Planters, and Workers: The Making of the Tobacco Monopoly in Bourbon
Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992); Enrique Florescano and Margarita Menegus, “La época de las
reformas borbónicas y el crecimiento económico (1750-1808),” in Historia General de México (Mexico: El Colegio
de México, 2000), 377-379; Dorothy Tanck de Estrada and Carlos Marichal, “¿Reino o colonia? Nueva España.
1750-1804,” in Nueva historia general de México (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 2010), 323-324; and Carlos
35
The economic policies envisioned by the ministers and advisors of the king could not
conceivably work without extensive administrative and fiscal reform. Effective centralization
and tax-collection required a new system of data gathering. Inquire about things and people,
condense and sort the information, use tallies and reports to build a set of protocols with which,
in turn, to affect the way things work and how people behave: such were the guiding principles
cherished by Bourbon reformers—and, for that matter, by increasingly large numbers of
administrators around the world. Bourbon ministers saw nothing but disarray in the Habsburg
machinery. Bringing order to the administration was thus fundamental if the Crown were to
regain full control of the empire and its government.
One chief way to achieve this was through forming a powerful, educated, and technically
competent administrative elite, loyal primarily to the king and not to other established powers
(the Church and merchant cliques, for instance). None of the Crown’s envoys to Spanish
America epitomized this new type of official better than José de Gálvez. A determined and
resourceful man, protégé of the count of Floridablanca (chief minister of Carlos III from 1777 to
1792), visitor-general to New Spain from 1765 to 1771, and minister of the Indies from 1776 to
1787, Gálvez and men like him (some, his own protégés and relatives) became the main
enforcers of the reforms in the New World. Through them and their disposition to embrace
Marichal, “La economía de la época borbónica al México independiente, 1760-1850,” in Historia económica
general de México, ed. Sandra Kuntz Ficker (Mexico: El Colegio de México / Secretaría de Economía, 2010), 185187.
36
administrative rationalization, the Crown attempted to expand its authority and tap the resources
of the New World all over again.25
The scope of the changes in the government was as wide as the ambition of the Crown
and the managerial zeal of its agents. The reforms reshuffled the entire administrative layout of
the Spanish America. The viceroyalty of La Plata was created in 1776 with parts of the
viceroyalty of Peru—the mines of Upper Peru included. The measure furthered a policy initiated
decades earlier with the establishment of the viceroyalty of New Granada in 1739. Both moves
attempted to establish a tighter military and commercial grasp over the coasts and fringes of the
empire and were designed to limit the threats posed by the Crown’s imperial rivals and the
financial losses caused by contraband. The introduction of intendencias during the 1780s, for its
part, altered the administrative map of the provinces and localities of New Spain, Peru, and the
recently created La Plata. A compact group of intendants (assisted by subdelegados) replaced
hundreds of local magistrates and officials known as corregidores and alcaldes mayores. The
measure helped to end the common practice of offering for sale public posts to the highest
bidder. Equally important, the measure was essential to dismantle the commercial bonds between
local magistrates and the merchant houses of Lima and Mexico City. Merchants provided the
credit and funds that paid for many local magistrates’ posts. Through them, merchants could
place goods on the remotest village and simultaneously get a hold of local produces, thus,
25
Elliott, Empire of the Atlantic World, 302-304.
37
controlling a great deal of the internal market.26 Local magistrates thus owed allegiance to the
merchants as much as to the Crown. The intendencia system was in part meant to end this
ambiguity. As in the Peninsula, the Crown attempted to create in the New World a base of
salaried and career officials that could provide the king and his ministers with a body of loyal
and competent agents against the power of entrenched interest groups.27
Changes in personnel also aimed to support shifts in exchequer matters. The Crown
aspired to improve the revenue system and regain responsibilities previously delegated to private
hands. Here too old posts were replaced by new ones and filled by fresh officials who were
expected to provide the collection and management of royal revenues with a professional
foundation. Some steps had been taken towards this goal in the early 1750s when the Crown
cancelled some of the contracts that charged merchant guilds with the task of collecting sales
taxes in exchange of a previously agreed annual sum. By the second half of the 1770s, a small
army of salaried officials and accountants covered large areas of New Spain and Peru directly
managing royal revenue affairs. As part of this effort of rationalization, officials retrieved and
attempted to consolidate a wide range—and often inconsistent—body of fiscal laws and decrees.
The introduction of new accounting techniques, the double entry method in particular, simplified
royal accounts and made them easier to be monitored. The Crown, through Gálvez, even tried to
undermine the fiscal powers of the viceroys by means of transferring their treasury
26
In New Spain at least, the practice, known as reparto de mercancías, was banned in 1751 only to be subsequently
reestablished and regulated until it was finally prohibited in 1786.
27
Horst Pietschmann, Las reformas borbónicas y el sistema de intendencias en Nueva España (Mexico: Fondo de
Cultura Económica, 1996); Brading, Merchants and Miners, 33-92 and “Bourbon Spain and its American Empire,”
401-406.
38
responsibilities to a group of newly appointed high-ranking officials—if only for a brief period
of time, until 1787. All in all, fiscal measures sought to turn exchequer matters into a more
specialized and cogent sphere of the government—which in turn, reformers anticipated, would
give the Crown unequivocal control over the excises and revenues collected across the New
World domains.28
Fiscal and administrative shifts both reinforced and were motivated by the defensive
reorganization of the empire. Fortifying inland and coastal boundaries, as mentioned above, was
of critical importance to the Crown—a lesson that Carlos III and his ministers learned only too
well after the British besieged and then occupied Manila (1762-1764) and Havana (1762-1763)
during the Seven Years War. There were, as well, continuous melées over imperial boundaries in
South America against the Portuguese. Up north, imperial rivalries between the Spanish, French,
and British often coalesced with a number of local and entrenched disputes between settlers,
missionaries, and indigenous polities and groups. The response of the Spanish Crown was to
send permanent regiments to strategic areas particularly vulnerable to foreign attacks. Cuba was
first, but then other many locales in New Spain, New Granada, Peru, and La Plata followed suit.
It was, indeed, an unprecedented move. Thus far, the Spanish New World had not had a regular
army. The creation of local militias was the other great innovation of the Crown’s defensive
reforms. In principle, militias not only would reinforce permanent regiments in case of an
occupation, but also would contribute to the policing of the provinces. In other words, militias
28
See, Brading, “Bourbon Spain and its American Empire,” 406-409; Florescano and Menegus, “La época de las
reformas,” 366-375; Tanck and Marichal, “¿Reino o colonia,” 321-327; and Marichal, “La economía de la época
borbónica,” 187-194.
39
and regiments intended to increase the powers of coercion of the Crown against both internal and
external enemies.29
Overall, the reforms strove to give the Spanish New World a new place within the
general framework of the empire. It is still a matter of debate whether they fully managed to
instigate the transformations that the Crown and its ministers envisioned. The reforms, indeed,
were full of inconsistencies and improvisations.30 Yet they were not entirely deprived of logic
and purpose. They were the result of the increasing financial and military pressures posed by
world-wide competition between several transoceanic empires. As rulers and high-ranking
officials tried to cope with ongoing changes in the world economy and politics, the measures
they devised contributed to altering many of the previous assumptions and practices directing the
finances and governance of the empire. The changes ended up transforming the foundations of
the relationship between the Crown and its subjects. At the heart of this newly reshaped
relationship was one central question: how could subjects serve better the Crown and the empire.
Serving the Crown and the empire, indeed, became everyone’s duty. Each subject must
contribute to the grand effort of remodeling the empire—and everybody had something precious
with which they could collaborate in what reformers saw as the higher task of restoring the
power and greatness of the Spanish monarchy. Even the humblest, the ones legally considered
29
J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 298-301; Brading, “Bourbon Spain and its American Empire,” 400401 and 408; and Peter Bakewell, A History of Latin America: c. 1450 to the Present (Malden: Blackwell, 2003),
285-294.
30
John Fisher, “Soldiers, Societies, and Politics in Spanish America,” in Latin American Research Review 17, no.1
(1982): 217–222.
40
minors and susceptible to tutelage: indios and their pueblos.31 They too were asked to assist in
the process of imperial reform for they possessed one significantly valuable resource, one that
most ministers of the king considered the main source of wealth in the empire. Pueblos de indios
possessed land.
The Reform of pueblos de indios in New Spain
Imperial fiscal needs and the search for new sources of wealth thus motivated the first
comprehensive reform of pueblos de indios in New Spain in many generations. The reform
significantly changed how pueblos managed their own funds and possessions; in the process,
some new ground rules concerning indigenous people's holdings were established. During the
last third of the eighteenth-century and until the imperial crisis of 1808, wars against the French
and the British required all possible sources of revenues to be at the disposal of the Crown. The
reform of indigenous municipalities limited the spending of pueblos and pressed them to keep
savings and augment their incomes. Then royal officials assumed control of the surpluses and
diverted the funds to support the defense of the empire. In limiting spending, forcing savings,
increasing returns, and assuming control of surpluses, the reform also modified the very basic
conditions under which land was held by indigenous municipalities thereafter: it established the
principle according to which communal lands became valuable primarily insofar as they could
produce wealth and revenues; it linked land and municipal reform to moral reform; and finally, it
31
See, Woodrow Borah, Justice by Insurance: the General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of
the Half-Real (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 82-119.
41
introduced the idea that local indigenous autonomy was counter to the general improvement of
society and the management of the government.
From the late sixteenth century, when Spanish authorities implemented a massive
relocation policy known as congregaciones or reducciones, indigenous people had not
experienced such a full-fledged intervention on the part of the Crown. Under the Habsburgs,
internal affairs were mostly left to local officials and indigenous authorities. Conflicts surfaced
all the time, but were generally handled through special courts and well-established informal
compromises. It was a fragile and knotty order in which the actual capacity of the Crown to
assert its authority depended on reinforcing the autonomy of local and regional cliques. The
whole empire had been built in that way. That is, by acknowledging that the Crown would only
have a limited control over its subjects and admitting that it was impossible to rule without
entrusting others many of the burdens and responsibilities of the empire. The power of the
Spanish monarchy thus was the result of a wide network of interdependent interests in which
Madrid comprised but one of its ends.32 A fragile and knotty order, indeed, but not unwieldy. It
was operative enough to provide everybody with an incentive to maintain the status quo.
Indigenous authorities, significantly, were legally entitled to manage the funds and holdings of
their pueblos.
Pueblos de indios was the name with which indigenous municipalities were known in the
New World. Pueblos held a distinct legal status within the political and administrative
organization of the empire. As lawful members of the Spanish monarchy, the Crown endowed
32
Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492-1763 (New York: Perennial, 2004).
42
them with certain prerogatives. Chief among them was the right to possess, use, and derive
benefits from lands specially allocated to pueblos by royal instruction. These lands could not be
legally sold and were held in common. Yet they were enjoyed and worked in different ways. One
portion was designated for the benefit and discrete use of families and individuals, while another
one was assigned to the sustenance of pueblos as a whole. Pueblos gave common lands a wide
variety of uses and purposes: from grazing and planting to hunting and gathering. Often they also
rented common lands to neighboring landowners and other pueblos or to individual tenants that
could or could not officially belonged to the pueblo—that is, be considered a tributario, broadly
speaking, a taxpayer. The proceeds of these activities supported the local government, provided
part of the funds to pay royal taxes, and formed a common reserve utilized in public repairs,
periodic civic and religious celebrations, as well as recurrent misfortunes (droughts and
epidemics, for instance). Pueblos also invested common proceeds in acquiring new possessions
and in making loans to landowners, small cultivators, and cattle-raisers. Together, funds and
holdings comprised what late eighteenth-century Bourbon authorities labeled as bienes de
comunidad.33
In exchange for having the benefit of handling their own resources, pueblos were
obligated to pay tributes and taxes to the Crown. This also meant providing labor for commercial
and public enterprises—working in the mines or building roads and aqueducts, for instance.
Spanish authorities policed and supervised pueblos, and provided mediation and justice relying
33
Dorothy Tanck de Estrada, Pueblos de indios y educación en el México colonial, 1750-1821 (Mexico: El Colegio
de México, 1999) 17-74; ; Felipe Castro Gutiérrez, Los tarascos y el imperio español (Mexico: UNAM /
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 2004), 120-132 and 196-208.
43
on a set of norms and institutions specially designed to deal with indigenous municipalities.
Pueblos assumed responsibility of internal affairs and had direct control of how to use local
funds and holdings. Repúblicas and cajas de comunidad, in that sense, comprised the twin pillars
of pueblos de indios. Repúblicas were a local council constituted by elected authorities who,
among other things, decided over the management of common funds and holdings. Cajas de
comunidad were chests in which indigenous authorities kept funds, account records, and
documents backing landed and non-landed possessions. Cajas de comunidad, in other words,
constituted the treasury of pueblos de indios. Indigenous councils, the repúblicas, often
administered the resources of pueblos in consultation with former república members and nonofficial authorities such as the elders of each pueblo or the priest. Spanish officials could also
oversee and interfere with the decisions taken by indigenous authorities. Conflicts among the
members of indigenous councils and between councils and their local rivals were common. In
spite of this, pueblos generally enjoyed ample economic and administrative autonomy.34
Bourbon reformers began to see the administrative and economic autonomy of pueblos
disapprovingly. It stood in the way of the concentration of authority and the search for revenues
sought by the Crown’s ministers. Autonomy was no longer seen as a reliable instrument of
governance, but as a dubious mechanism thwarting the proper running of the government. A
clear evidence of how much terrain the Crown had ceded and how much it would have to
reclaim, reformers protested. According to them, administrative independence fostered and even
endorsed carelessness. More importantly, it made the supervision of local funds difficult and
34
Ibid.
44
deceitful. Economic autonomy, for its part, encouraged wastefulness and idleness; resources that
may otherwise be put to work and yield returns remained underutilized if not entirely inactive.
This, ministers and high-ranking officials argued, could do nothing but limit royal revenues. The
meager the output, the smaller the incomes. The intervention of the Crown was thus deemed
necessary. As one of the major intellectual figures influencing the overall reform of the empire,
Joseph del Campillo y Cosío, stated back in the early 1740s: “todo lo que sea aumentar la
Agricultura, las Artes y el Comercio en un Reyno, es darle un nuevo tesoro al Real Erario."35
Everything, and above all, political and administrative centralization.
In New Spain, the two major instruments of centralization and reform of indigenous
municipalities were the Contaduría General de Propios, Arbitrios y Bienes de Comunidad and
the reglamentos de bienes de comunidad. The creation of the Contaduría General in 1766, under
the supervision of José de Gálvez, was part of the larger effort of the Crown to centralize and
reorganize the entire imperial revenue system. One key aspect of this effort consisted in giving
central authorities direct control of municipal accounts. It was the first time that royal officials
had such a wide and penetrating ascendancy over local finances. The measure was initially tried
in Spain beginning in 1760, but it soon grew into a universal policy affecting municipalities
throughout the New World. The Spanish municipalities of New Spain were the first to
experience the reform. Yet beginning in 1773 concrete steps dealing with the financial
organization of pueblos de indios were also taken. That year the Contaduría General elaborated
35
Joseph del Campillo y Cosío, Nuevo sistema del gobierno económico para la América. Con los males y daños que
le causa el que hoy tiene, de los que participa copiosamente España; y remedios universales para que la primera
tenga considerables ventajas, y la segunda mayores intereses (Madrid: Imprenta de Benito Cano, 1779 [1743]), 109.
45
the first reglmento de bienes de comunidad. By 1784, reglamentos already organized the
finances of at least 1,600 pueblos de indios—around 35% of the total.36
The enactment of the Real Ordenanza de Intendentes in 1786—the piece of royal
legislation establishing the intendencia system in the New World—furthered the influence of
central authorities over indigenous municipalities. The Ordenanza not only endorsed the
measures thus far taken by Gálvez and contadores generales, but extended the number of royal
officials entitled to oversee the finances of pueblos de indios. The Contaduría General now relied
on intendants and subdelegados to implement the reglamentos de bienes de comunidad. The
Ordenanza also created the Junta Superior de Real Hacienda. The Junta Superior became the
highest fiscal institution in New Spain. Yet the Contaduría General remained the operative center
of royal fiscal policies. Thus, on the eve of the 1810 Hidalgo insurrection, around 70% of the
almost 4,500 pueblos de indios of New Spain conformed to the reglamentos de bienes de
comunidad—pueblos without reglamento, it should be noted, complied with the requirements of
central authorities through alternative channels and regulations.37
The reform of indigenous municipalities was a patent expression of the rationalizing
impetus permeating all other imperial reforms. Land surveys, censuses, and tallies were the
newfound weapons with which royal officials were equipped to carry out the reform. Collecting,
assembling, sifting, and contrasting information provided the Crown with seemingly innocuous,
but powerful and insightful tools to keep track of the finances of pueblos de indios. The
36
37
See, Tanck, Pueblos de indios y educación, 22.
Ibid, 27.
46
procedure did not change significantly during the two main periods of the reform—that is,
previous and after the Ordenanza de Intendentes of 1786. Officials in Mexico City instructed
local authorities to carry out a detailed inspection of the accounts and holdings of pueblos de
indios (in time, this inspection and the resulting reports were supposed to be conducted
annually). The inspection involved at least three types of surveys. First, a survey of all municipal
holdings, that is, all bienes de comunidad (real estate, livestock, money). Second, a survey of
expenses and incomes supplemented by receipts and information specifying whether there were
missing funds or surpluses. Finally, a survey of the excises placed upon municipal holdings.
Accountants both in Mexico City and the provinces revised the information, noted down errors
or oversights, and then devised individual reglamentos for each pueblo de indios.38 It was,
indeed, an echo in the New World of the great survey and census implemented in Spain under
Fernando VI in the late 1740s and early 1750s—the famous Catastro de Ensenada.
Reglamentos marked a significant shift in the management of pueblos de indios
resources. They drastically limited and reorganized the spending of indigenous municipalities.
Notably, the funds destined to religious celebrations and some of the prerogatives associated
with occupying a seat in the local council (the república) experienced major cuts. The expenses
of most pueblos de indios—but also the expenses of most Spanish municipalities—were usually
greater than their incomes. Pueblos spent large sums in honoring their patron saints and other
religious figures. Some pueblos performed several ceremonies, processions, and feasts during the
year—not unlike Spanish towns. Fireworks, candles, compensations given to priests, common
38
Ibid.
47
meals, and the annual number of festivities were rationed. Pueblos, the new regulations
mandated, should instead spend part of their common funds in the establishment of schools. This
was, in fact, one of the few expenses authorized by royal accountants outside of the strictly
necessary for the running of the local government. Indios, it was established, should learn how to
write and read and take lessons on Christian doctrine. Tellingly, lessons should be imparted in
Spanish and not in indigenous languages as missionaries had done ever since the early sixteenth
century. Means of communication should too serve the financial ends sought by the Crown;
languages must be adapted to the idiom of administrative uniformity.
Decisively, reglamentos established unprecedented forms of policing common lands.
Royal accountants not only specified how funds should be spent. They also set a policy of forced
savings and determined how exactly pueblos should employed their common lands. Cutting
expenses was not enough. Cajas de comunidad should show positive numbers annually.
Moreover, pueblos ought to increase as much as possible their returns. The reglamentos thus
turned to the lands that pueblos typically granted on lease to others and the lands that, from the
point of view of royal officials, remained unoccupied or inactive. Indigenous authorities and
royal officials should take note and report the existence of all such lands. Once identified and
registered, “idle” common lands must be rented out, preferably but not necessarily to the locals.
Tenancy, in any case, was always favored over customary usages, that is, usages that did not
render surpluses. As for lands already on lease, pueblos should explicitly notify royal officials
48
and accountants about their existence and, more importantly, should give written form to what
were otherwise customary oral agreements and transactions.39
The reform, indeed, echoed the utilitarian rationale with which the Crown’s ministers and
officials had come to measure all lands in the empire. Most reformers agreed with Campillo y
Cosío when he asserted that agriculture was the “matrix and principal key of everything.”40 Yet
Campillo y Cosío, and many others after him, also insistently argued that lands were of no use if
standing idle—neither for the Crown nor for the individuals and social bodies holding the lands.
Landed properties were important only on the condition that they created wealth and yielded
revenues and this would only occur if they were used and cultivated. Extending as much as
possible arable fields became a central motto of the reform both in Spain and the New World.
Lands must be put to work.
This view was in part the result of an effort by royal officials and ministers to make sense
out of ongoing changes across the intendencias of Spain—especially, but not exclusively, in the
south and center. In particular, the pressures created by demographic growth, increasing grain
prices, and demands for more arable land against cattle-raising and livestock right-of-way—
pastoralists, grouped in the powerful guild known as Consejo de la Mesta, customarily counted
on the favor and protection of the Crown. High-ranking officials and reformers such as Cicilia
Coello, Manuel Sisternes y Feliú, and Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes saw the changes as an
opportunity to prompt a more drastic reform of the countryside. They began to see lands in the
39
40
Ibid.
Campillo y Cosío, Nuevo sistema del gobierno económico para la América, 145.
49
hands of the Church and municipalities (tierras concejiles), not to mention all unclaimed lands
(tierras baldías), as valuable yet neglected resources. Even royal lands (tierras realengas) not
yet conceded for its use by the king should be turned active.41
Such were, too, the principles guiding the reform of indigenous municipalities and their
common lands. The New World, according to Campillo y Cosío, was a place of plenty “caudales
muertos en manos de Comunidades y particulares.”42 Hence the urgency of reform. Carrying out
surveys and keeping reliable fiscal and financial records was essential to figure how to make
common lands yield more revenues. Insisting on leasing and cultivating the common lands of
pueblos was also, according to the reformers, key to make indios valuable members of the
empire. The Crown, Campillo y Cosío contended, did not need talented men. "Basta que sepa
trabajar el mayor número, siendo pocos los que deben mandar, que son los que necesitan de luces
muy superiores."43 The main question thus was how to turn indios into “vasallos útiles.”44 The
answer given by Campillo y Cosío and, later on, by the reglamentos de bienes de comunidad was
crystal clear: "que ninguna tierra quede sin fructificar, ni el Indio sin el debido fomento ácia el
trabajo, ni sin beneficio razonable y seguro."45
The appropriation of the common funds of pueblos by the Crown and the restriction of
local autonomy were the corollary of the reform of indigenous municipalities. Not only did
41
Felipa Sánchez Salazar, “El reparto y venta de las tierras concejiles como proyecto de los ilustrados,” 123-141;
Sergio García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas en Michoacán. Un largo camino hacia la privatización de la
tierra, 1765-1835 (Morelia: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas-Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de
Hidalgo, 2009).
42
Campillo y Cosío, Nuevo sistema del gobierno económico para la América, 147.
43
Ibid, 91.
44
Ibid, 90.
45
Ibid, 95.
50
indigenous councils face increasing pressures on the part of royal officials to submit detailed
reports of all bienes de comunidad; repúblicas also lost significant ground in the management of
common funds. Technically, almost no expenses could be made without the sanction of central
authorities. Sometimes, not even without the authorization of local officials. Pueblos ought to
petition authorities the release of funds specifying how exactly they would employ the moneys.
Accountants in Mexico City and the capital cities of the provinces (intendencias after 1786)
assessed whether expenses conformed to the austerity policies of the Crown. The members of the
Junta Superior de Hacienda and the High Court (real audiencia) of New Spain then had the last
word. Deciding over the use of common funds was no longer a prerogative of indigenous
councils. As a result, pueblos in general lost much of their previous (if always relative and
negotiated) administrative and economic autonomy.
From the early 1780s until 1808, the Crown made copious use of the funds coming from
cajas de comunidad. In this period, the Crown received from pueblos de indios more than 2.3
million silver pesos. It was a small amount compared to the approximately 250 million sent from
all the royal treasuries of New Spain to the Caribbean, the Philippines, and Spain during roughly
the same time span. Small, but not irrelevant. Especially considering that the Crown was
constantly at pains to secure every possible income to face escalating wars, first against the
British (1779-1783), then against revolutionary France (1793-1795), and then again against the
British (1796-1802 and 1805-1808).46
46
Tanck, Pueblos de indios, 137; Tanck and Marichal, “¿Reino o colonia?,” 327.
51
The Crown drew on the funds of cajas de comunidad in a variety of ways. The reform
gave royal accountants and central authorities ample capacities to retain most of the surpluses
produced every year by cajas de comunidad. These surpluses were supposed to be destined to
fulfill the needs of pueblos de indios and provide relief in the event of emergencies and crises
(shortages of food, natural disasters, epidemics). With every coming war, however, the Crown
experienced major contingencies of its own. Royal officials thus devised various stratagems to
get a hold of pueblos de indios moneys. Sometimes the Crown simply resorted to forced loans.
On other occasions, royal accountants invested the proceeds in the newly created Banco de San
Carlos, or the Company of the Philippines, or later on, the Consolidación de Vales Reales. Every
so often, pueblos de indios—some willingly, some reluctantly, some against their will or
knowledge—formally donated their funds to the Crown.47 Thus, by the turn of the century, as
Dorothy Tanck sums up, “la escuela era más importante que la fiesta religiosa; la obtención de
un caudal sobrante tenía prioridad sobre la escuela y la fiesta, y las exigencias financieras de la
monarquía predominaban sobre las necesidades de los pueblos en lo referente al uso del dinero
sobrante.”48 Practically speaking, imperial conflicts had turned common funds into yet another
war excise.
Overall, the reform set three major precedents whose influence lasted for many decades
after most of Spanish America had separated from the monarchy. First, the insistence on
47
Natalia Silva Prada, “Contribución de la población indígena novohispana al erario real. El donativo gracioso y
voluntario o ‘rigorosa pensión’ de 1781 y su impacto en recaudaciones posteriores,” in Signos Históricos 1, no. 1
(1999) 28-58.
48
Tanck, Pueblos de indios, 336.
52
transforming the “character” of indigenous people. From the late eighteenth century on, most
reforms felt back on the argument that no prosperity could be achieved without simultaneously
changing the “ways” and “temperament” of indigenous people. That is, without turning them
into useful and industrious members of the polity or, as many reformers considered being the
same, economically rational creatures. This, Bourbon reformers argued, required more than just
an economic change. It also entailed a moral transformation, a drastic shift in how indigenous
people behaved and what they did outside of the workplace. Second, the idea of changing the
“purpose” of indigenous people’s holdings. The lands and possessions of pueblos de indios,
reformers stipulated, should primarily serve useful and productive ends. Pueblos, as a whole,
must be turned into profitable and revenue-making institutions. Third was the questioning of
local autonomy. Who should decide over the holdings of indigenous municipalities? Subsequent
reforms and policies cast the same doubt as Bourbon reformers on the managerial and economic
convenience of local autonomy. It was not enough to make pueblos profitable and indigenous
people industrious. Local governments should also conform to the requirements set by central
and regional authorities.
The late eighteenth-century reform of indigenous municipalities also had unforeseen
consequences. For all their managerial zeal and penchant for centralization, reformers could not
always (and frequently did not even try to) contravene the age-old practices driving the modus
operandi of the empire. Asserting the authority of the king and enforcing reforms still depended
to a great extent on local and regional cliques. The Crown may have succeeded in creating a
stratum of reliable high-ranking officials and accountants, but middling and lower authorities
53
remained deeply attached to the many compromises that had long shaped governance on the
ground. Differences between central authorities and local officials continually surfaced. Many
subdelegados (the new and allegedly more trustworthy local officials created by the Ordenanza
de Intendentes of 1786) still acted with ample independence. Complaints on the part of royal
accountants about the behavior of local officials were, in fact, very common; particularly,
regarding the mismanagement of municipal common funds.49
Indigenous authorities, for their part, found a number of stratagems to deal with the new
criteria established by municipal reform. Many indigenous councils, when possible, misreported
the available funds and holdings in their pueblos. The transference of municipal resources and
lands to religious brotherhoods (cofradías) in order to avoid the financial checks of royal
accountants also became customary. When central authorities began to regulate cofradías,
repúblicas started to allocate common lands to families and individuals, although usage and
proceeds remained surreptitiously communal. In general, time-honored bargaining between royal
officials and indigenous authorities persisted. Subdelegados and indigenous authorities still
exchanged favors and threats, and sometimes kept mutual settlements out of the sight of topranking officials. Intendants complied with the mandates of the Junta Superior de Hacienda, but
always tried not to upset regional power balances. Thus, in spite of the growing coercive and
administrative capacity of the Crown, a great deal of implicit understandings and informal
barters continued mediating between the king and its subjects. All in all, the reform of
49
Iván Franco Cáceres, La Intendencia de Valladolid de Michoacán: 1786-1809. Reforma administrativa y exacción
fiscal en una región de la Nueva España (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica / Instituto Michoacano de Cultura,
2001), 128-183.
54
indigenous municipalities accommodated as much as it contributed to change the old local
compromises that once had helped to create the empire. Subsequent reforms would follow a very
similar pattern. Reformers would dictate a series of policies and local conditions would
determine the course and extent of the reforms.50
Seeds of Land Reform
Significantly enough, Bourbon reforms did not question the principle of communal landholding.
They curtailed the right of pueblos de indios to manage their funds and dictated how pueblos
should use their lands. Yet the reforms did not alter property rights. Pueblos remained the
collective holders of lands and other assets. Plans and initiatives to replace property rights,
however, were in no way absent. Intellectuals and reformers, both in Spain and the New World,
began to advocate for ending corporate land tenure. Calls for a drastic and comprehensive land
reform became stronger. Individual property rights, it was finally argued, was the ultimate and
necessary step towards the regeneration of the countryside. The irruption of Atlantic-wide
revolutions would offer reformers the chance to turn their ideas into concrete actions. Yet
revolutions also precipitated a radical political shift. Powerful forces once contained within the
framework of the empire were liberated. Plans of reform would come about against a landscape
of major political conflicts and struggles to keep the empire together.
50
See, Tanck, Pueblos de indios; Brian Hamnett, “Obstáculos a la política agraria del despotismo ilustrado,” in
Problemas agrarios y propiedad en México, siglos XVIII y XIX, ed. Margarita Menegus (Mexico: El Colegio de
México, 1995) 1-21.
55
Arguments in favor of a profound land reform, first in Spain and later on in the New
World, gradually added more advocates during the second half of the eighteenth century.
Campillo y Cosío had previously recommended distributing in small fractions the uncultivated
lands of the New World to indios—including part of the adjacent lands surrounding
municipalities and settlements (especially the moorlands or tierras montuosas).51 The Consejo de
Castilla in Madrid had also been gathering information on agricultural matters since at least
1752. Yet reforming ideals really began to take off when a number of intellectual associations
known as sociedades económicas de amigos del país (Economic Societies of Friends of the
Country) were formed. Sanctioned by Carlos III and sponsored by Pedro Rodríguez
Campomanes (one of the most influential ministers of the king), the first of these associations
appeared in 1764. From then on, sociedades económicas became leading centers of intellectual
discussion and promotion. As part of their activities, sociedades económicas sponsored a number
of studies and reports on agrarian subjects. The goal was to provide the Crown with a set of
recommendations that would serve as the basis of a new agrarian law and a comprehensive land
reform.
It was in the midst of this animated intellectual milieu that the idea of replacing existing
forms of corporate landholding with individual property rights took hold. Rodríguez
Campomanes himself published in 1765 an uncompromising vindication of “el uso de la
autoridad civil, para impedir las ilimitadas enagenaciones de bienes raíces en Iglesias,
51
Campillo y Cosío, Nuevo sistema del gobierno económico para la América, 83-87, 92-99.
56
Comunidades, y otras manos muertas" (as the long subtitle of his treatise stated).52 Later on, in
1786, the powerful sociedad económica of Madrid (an initiative of Rodríguez Campomanes)
published Manuel Sisternes y Feliu’s outline of a new agrarian law. Sisternes y Feliu condensed
what was becoming a growing consensus among many intellectuals and officials working for the
Crown. A disproportionate accumulation of lands by few hands, Sisternes y Feliu believed, was
the main cause of the ruinous state of Spain’s agriculture. The main purpose of a new agrarian
law, he argued, was thus “la división de terrenos en suertes proporcionadas a las facultades del
cultivador.”53 Smallholding and individual property would be the twin pillars of a new
agriculture. The law, in that sense, should allow individuals to fence their properties. Moreover,
the law should grant the right to buy municipal and uncultivated lands. Once acquired, Sisternes
y Feliu concluded, “quedarán los dueños de tierras en plena libertad de cultivarlas por sí, darlas
en enfiteusin, ó arrendarlas como tuvieren por mas conveniente."54
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, head of the sociedad económica of Madrid for some
years, took these ideas to a more drastic conclusion. Like most Spanish reformers, Jovellanos
considered agriculture as the single most important source of wealth and cultivation as the main
and more productive of all agrarian activities. As a result, not unlike Sisternes y Feliu, he saw the
project of an agrarian law as a means to foster smallholding and look after the interest of
cultivators. Yet Jovellanos conceived this interest in strictly individualistic terms. Drawing on
52
See, Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes, Tratado de la regalía de amortización (Madrid: Imprenta Real de la Gaceta,
1765). See also, Brading, Orbe Indiano, 544-546.
53
Manuel Sisternes y Feliu, Idea de la ley agraria española (Valencia: Oficina de D. Benito Monfort, 1786), 3.
54
Ibid, 44.
57
Adam Smith, he linked personal fortune to general prosperity. The overall performance of the
economy depended upon the pursuance of self-interest. The less restrictions personal interest
had, Jovellanos believed, the greater the chances of improving the economy and creating an
orderly society. The “continua lucha de intereses,” he asserted, “establece naturalmente un
equilibrio que jamás podrían alcanzar las leyes.” As a consequence, an agrarian law should
above all encourage cultivator’s “fortuna particular hasta el sumo posible” and “remover los
estorbos que se oponen a libre accion del interes de sus agentes.” 55 According to Jovellanos (and
most advocates of land reform after him), among the greatest of these hindrances there were all
the forms of ownership that maintained limits to the “free” purchase and selling of lands by
individuals—that is, the corporate land rights of the Church, aristocrats, and municipalities, as
well as the right-of-way and grazing prerogatives of the cattle raising guild of the Mesta. Turning
lands into buyable and saleable goods, letting supply and demand dictate the right distribution of
lands, and giving individuals full property rights, Jovellanos finally and unambiguously argued,
were the Crown’s best chances of revitalizing the agriculture of the kingdom.56
The history of how exactly these ideas—the ideas of classic economic liberalism—
circulated across the Spanish empire is yet to be written. It is nonetheless clear that by the last
decade of the eighteenth century they had already resonated with many intellectual circles in the
New World. Manuel Abad y Queipo is one of the best and more lucid examples of this. Abad y
55
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Informe de la sociedad económica de esta Corte al Real y Supremo Consejo de
Castilla en el expediente de ley agraria (Madrid: Imprenta de Sancha, 1795), 10.
56
Ibid, 141-149. See also, David Brading, Orbe Indiano, 550-551; Aurora Gómez Galvarriato and Emilio Kourí,
“Las reforma económica, finanzas públicas, mercados y tierras,” in Nación, Constitución y Reforma, 1821-1908, in
ed. Erika Pani (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica / CIDE / Conaculta / INEHRM / Fundación Cultural de la
Ciudad de México, 2010), 96-99.
58
Queipo was familiar with the ongoing efforts of creating a new agrarian law in Spain and was
well-acquainted with the writings of Adam Smith and the French physiocrats. His ideas about the
economy and agriculture, however, also stemmed directly from having worked many years in
New Spain for the bishop of Michoacán fray Antonio de San Miguel—Abad y Queipo arrived in
New Spain in 1786 and was himself elected bishop of Michoacán in 1810. Like Sisternes y Feliu
and Jovellanos had done for Spain, Abad y Queipo concluded that the root of agricultural
problems in New Spain was the unequal (and unfair) distribution of lands of the kingdom.
Following Campillo y Cosío, he recommended apportioning to indios and castas all uncultivated
royal lands. The unused lands of large estates should also be put to work by means of
establishing long-term leasing agreements between landless people and landowners.
Furthermore, Abad y Queipo argued in favor of “la abolicion general de tributos en las dos clases
de Indios y castas” and the “libre permision de avecindarse en los pueblos de Indios, y construir
en ellos casas y edificios pagando el suelo, a todas las clases españoles, castas e indios de otros
pueblos.” Notably, he also recommended dividing and distributing communal lands among the
members of pueblo de indios.57
Once situated in the context of the New World, arguments in favor of land reform had
thus taken an entire new direction. As Abad y Queipo clearly understood, altering property rights
57
Manuel Abad y Queipo, "Representación sobre la inmunidad personal del clero, reducida por las leyes del nuevo
código, en el cual se propuso al rey el asunto de diferentes leyes, que establecidas harían la base principal de un
gobierno liberal y benéfico para las Américas y para su metrópoli," in José María Luis Mora, Obras completas, vol.
3 (Mexico: Instituto Mora / Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1986), 60-61. Abad y Queipo utilized the
general and ambiguous expression of tierras de comunidades de Indios. It is thus unclear whether he meant
distributing all communal lands, the communal lands already allocated to families and individuals, or the communal
lands devoted to the common use and benefit of the pueblos.
59
also meant significantly changing the general legal framework regulating the status of pueblos de
indios. Practically speaking, the end of tribute, as Abad y Queipo had advised, would make the
category of indio useless. The notion of indio was intimately linked to the payment of tribute.
Paying tribute was an obligation and a mark of social subordination. Yet tribute also turned
indios into members of the polity entitled to concrete legal prerogatives as lawful subjects of the
Crown. Without tribute, the legal status of indios would drastically have to change. Similarly, the
legal end of residence restrictions, conceived by Abad y Queipo as a way to end the isolation of
indios, would render the notion of pueblos de indios meaningless—such restrictions, it should be
noted, were never entirely observed, especially during the eighteenth century. Finally, by
removing corporate rights over land, the division of communal lands would also make the
category of pueblos de indios ineffectual. Without corporate rights, the incentive of belonging to
a pueblo would gradually disappear. Indios, according to Abad y Queipo, would then be freed
from all the constrictions impeding their full insertion into society and would finally be able to
come out of indigence and degradation. Together, Abad y Queipo’s propositions entailed the
abolition of nearly all administrative and legal distinctions between indios, castas, and
españoles. Abad y Queipo never explicitly talked about universal or natural equality in the
manner of the American and French revolutionaries. His arguments and reforming ideas,
however, clearly pointed in that direction.
By linking land policies to the question of equality, Abad y Queipo suggested that land
reform in the New World would also have to be a political and social reform. None of the main
reformers in Spain had previously considered such possibility. The peculiar conditions of
60
Spanish America—the presence of thousands of pueblos de indios—had given the question of
land redistribution an unforeseen dimension. Any significant change in land rights would almost
certainly require changing the legal status of indios. Agrarian problems were not solely
economic, Abad y Queipo implied; they were problems of social and political inequality. Land
reform, in that sense, would be more than a matter of creating “vasallos útiles” and turning lands
productive. The creation of wealth was not the only issue at stake. Such had been the viewpoint
informing municipal reforms in Spain and New Spain.58 At stake was the very nature of the
entire legal system that had set indios apart from the rest of society. Land reform would then be a
means to achieve higher ends. It would be a tool to mitigate the poverty and material privations
of pueblos de indios. Yet it would also be an instrument to offer indios a new status, a new place
within the body politic. Indios, Abad y Queipo argued, would lose their old prerogatives, but
they would too get rid of the burdens they were forced to endure. Their obligations and
entitlements would be those of the rest.59
58
Although some of his arguments coincided with the spirit of the municipal reform of pueblos de indios, Abad y
Queipo was very critical of it and he actually saw in the reform yet another reason to implement a thorough land
reform: “Circunscriptos en el circulo que forma un radio de seiscientas varas, que señala la ley a sus pueblos, no
tienen propiedad individual. La de sus comunidades, que cultivan apremiados y sin interés inmediato, debe ser para
ellos una carga tanto mas odiosa, cuanto mas ha ido crecediendo de dia en dia la dificultad de aprovecharse de sus
productos, en las necesidades urjentes que vienen á ser insuperables po la nueva forma de manejo que estableció el
código de intedencias, como que nada se puede diponer en la materia sin recurso a la junta superior de Real
Hacienda de Mejico.” (55).
59
For an example of similar arguments discussed in another area of Spanish America see, Adolfo Bonilla Bonilla,
Ideas económicas en la Centroamérica ilustrada, 1793-1838 (San Salvador: FLACSO El Salvador, 1999), 117-214.
61
Imperial Crisis and the Birth of Land Politics
In the years to come, the nexus between land and political reforms would be definitely
established. The great crisis of 1808 gave new life to the arguments in favor of a comprehensive
imperial reform. Previous calls for changing property rights and claims for removing the legal
distinctions that divided royal subjects into different classes (estamentos) gained a remarkable
impetus. Neither an agrarian law nor a coherent land policy came about before the Spanish
empire collapsed. Yet the crisis galvanized all previous initiatives in favor of changing the land
tenure regime of pueblos de indios. Instructions dictating the partial conversion of communal
into private property were finally issued in the fall of 1812 and winter of 1813. Earlier, in March
of 1812, unprecedented measures affecting the legal status of indios were also taken. The crisis
drastically transformed the political makeup of the empire. A single constitution, meant to rule
over all Spanish domains without distinction, was promulgated. The constitution implicitly
conferred indios the same status as the rest of the Spanish subjects and granted them the right to
become citizens (a measure that applied only to men). Land and politics had inextricably come
together.
These measures came about in the middle of the most extraordinary events. From 1793 to
1825, people from all across the Spanish domains experienced a number of conflicts and
exceptional circumstances that would eventually lead to the fragmentation of the empire and
would bring centuries of Spanish rule over vast areas of the Americas to an end. Years of
international warfare resulted in the creation of an extraordinary space of debate and an
unprecedented expansion of political participation. Imperial conflicts, also gave way to a struggle
62
for liberation against an occupying army in the Spanish peninsula and to civil war and
widespread popular disobedience in the Americas. Debates and armed conflicts on both sides of
the Atlantic caused many to challenge received notions of authority. Equally important, the crisis
made politics the business of everyone—intellectuals, military officers, government officials,
priests, but also indios, castas, and slaves.
Alternative and competing views of political participation—previously forbidden or
unimaginable—thus surfaced. The new alternatives enabled vast possibilities of
enfranchisement and popular empowerment. They also brought along a number of dilemmas.
Political agitation had reached nearly all social ranks within the monarchy. Egalitarian claims,
representative institutions, and the rights associated with the notion of citizenship resonated very
differently with each of the old classes and groups of the empire. Individual property rights over
land and enfranchisement turned out to be as much as an audacious solution to the disparities of
the old regime as a deep source of disputes and disagreements. The fall of the empire did not
settle the question opened by decades of reform, wars, and political struggles. It only marked the
beginning of a long history of conflicts around communal property and the place of indigenous
people in the new order.60
60
See, Jaime E. Rodríguez O., "We are now the true Spaniards": Sovereignty, Revolution, Independence, and the
Emergence of the Federal Republic of Mexico, 1808-1824 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012); Jaime E.
Rodríguez O., The independence of Spanish America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); John Tutino,
From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 1750-1940 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1986); John Tutino, "Soberanía quebrada, insurgencias populares y la Independencia de México la
guerra de independencias," in Historia Mexicana 59, no.1 (2009), 11-75; Alfredo Ávila, En nombre de la nación. La
formación del gobierno representativo en México, 1808-1824 (Mexico: Taurus / CIDE, 1999); Mónica Quijada,
"Una constitución singular. La carta gaditana en perspectiva comparada," in Revista de Indias 58, no. 242, (2008):
15-38; Eric Van Young, The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Mexican Struggle for
63
In the fall of 1807, a combined army of Spanish and French forces invaded Portugal. The
occupation turned out to be a disaster for the Spanish Crown. Taking advantage of ongoing
rivalries between Carlos IV and his son and heir Fernando, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the
invasion of Spain. Fernando’s followers rioted in Madrid fearing this was an act in favor of
Carlos IV. As a result, the king renounced to the throne, although he later claimed the abdication
was done under coercion. Napoleon, however, made his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain
after having summoned and captured both Carlos and Fernando (now known as Fernando VII) in
Bayonne, France. The French emperor also ordered the writing and enactment of a constitution
for Spain. It was a neat and almost perfectly performed move. An exhibition of power by
Napoleon. But it backfired and gave way to the largest political mobilizations ever witnessed in
the Spanish empire.
In May 2, 1808, people in Madrid revolted against the French government and its local
allies. The repression of the revolt triggered further uprisings across Spain. Then, something
unexpected happened. A number of recently formed regional assemblies, known as juntas, began
to argue that in the absence of the king sovereignty reverted to the people. Juntas, so the
argument ran, were entitled to govern on behalf of Fernando VII until he could return to Spain.
Different juntas came into contact with one another and formed a general assembly called Junta
Suprema Central Gubernativa. As representatives of popular sovereignty, the members of the
Independence, 1810-1821 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); Jeremy Adelman, "An Age of Imperial
Revolutions," in American Historical Review 113: (2008), 319-340; Jeremy Adelman, "Iberian Passages: Continuity
and Change in the South Atlantic," The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760-1840, eds. in David Armitage
and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), 59-82; C.A. Bayly, "The Age of Revolutions in
Global Context," in The Age of Revolutions, 209-217.
64
new assembly proclaimed, the Junta Central was the only legitimate authority of the land and
would thus take charge of the government. The emergence of local guerrillas, acting
independently from the Spanish army, accompanied the formation of the Junta Central. The
foundations of the Spanish monarchy had begun to fall apart.
Equally groundbreaking developments on the other side of the Atlantic pushed even
further the rapid transformation of the empire. The crisis in Spain provided many American
subjects (especially in the largest cities) with the occasion to advance demands that had hitherto
remained publicly undeclared: equality between the American domains and Spain, autonomy in
the running of local governments, and greater participation in the management of the monarchy.
From 1809 to 1810, efforts to form regional juntas (comparable to the ones in Spain) came to
light in several provinces of Spanish America. These efforts, however, faced increasing
opposition on the part of numerous high-ranking royal officials and conservative groups for
whom yielding to any change represented a threat to the pre-1808 status quo. Early in 1809,
forced by the circumstances, the Junta Central acknowledged the equality between overseas
domains and Spain and invited American subjects to send representatives to the Junta. Yet the
question of autonomy remained a very contentious point. The seemingly incapacity of the Junta
Central to stop Napoleonic troops from completely taking over Spain, as well as growing official
hostility towards autonomist initiatives in America, finally resulted in open armed
confrontations. Civil war broke out all across Spanish America.
The strife between autonomist movements and royal authorities unleashed even deeper
conflicts. Disputes over the legitimate nature of authority gave local and regional actors a space
65
in which to advance their own particular claims. Political fragmentation set free long-standing
rivalries that once the institutions of the monarchy restrained. Claims for new rights and power
struggles came together, sometimes inextricably. Rivalries between regional cliques contributed
to shape ongoing calls for provincial autonomy, as well as eventual demands for independence.
In the absence of a strong central authority, a number of competing factions fought one another
all across Spanish America for supremacy within their own regions. These factions sometimes
opposed any attempts to consolidate insurgent movements under a single command (as it
happened in the viceroyalties of New Granada and Rio de la Plata). Such opposition had
important political and ideological motivations. At the same time, it also favored the ramification
of clientelist networks under control of small groups and strongmen.
Political and military struggles between elites also permitted popular groups to advance
their grievances and pursue their own ends. Large numbers of slaves joint both royalist and
patriot armies to obtain freedom through military recruitment.61 Deprived of many of the
prerogatives of other classes, indios laboríos (indios not legally attached to a pueblo), people of
mixed origins (castas), and disenfranchised Spaniards rose in revolt massively (as it was the case
in New Spain). The unsettling conditions created by armed conflicts provided pueblos with the
occasion to bolster self-rule and settle old accounts. Old antagonisms between neighboring
pueblos now tended to burst into violence very swiftly. Numerous pueblos stormed against rival
landowners, royal officials, and other local notables. Long-standing conflicts over local
61
Peter Blanchard, Under the Flags of Freedom. Slave Soldiers and the Wars of Independence in Spanish South
America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008).
66
resources, taxes, and local dominance fed this hostility; wartime uncertainty created the
conditions to either act upon deep-rooted grievances or seek personal rewards. Intestine disputes
also pervaded many pueblos indios. Often, the defense of community bonds and local autonomy
and factional competition over internal rule conflated. The imperial crisis offered exceptional
political openings in notably unequal societies; along the way, it also set regions, classes,
communities, and families apart.
Major initiatives affecting pueblos de indios transpired amid political turbulence. Forced
by the French army, the Junta Central withdrew to southern Spain and finally disbanded in
January of 1810. Before dissolving, the Junta named in its place a regency council and instructed
the implementation of elections to a parliament (known as the Cortes). Over the spring, a decree
issued by the regency exempted indios from paying tribute. The decree, notably, also gave orders
to collect information on the existing state of pueblos de indios and ordered the distribution of
lands among the neediest of them—without adding further details about which lands in particular
would be distributed. In the following months, in an effort to rally the support of popular groups,
royal authorities and insurgent leaders promoted additional measures. In New Spain, the viceroy
extended tax exemptions to all castas. The rebels, headed by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, not only
declared the end of tributes, but proclaimed slavery abolished, the equality of all men, as well as
the elimination of cajas de comunidad and the restitution of pueblos’ direct control over
communal proceeds.62
62
García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas en Michoacán, 185-195, 213-232.
67
Earlier plans of wide-ranging imperial reform also crystallized and engendered more
political agitation. The call for convening a parliament motivated an impressive wave of political
debates and mobilizations. The appearance of a clear alternative to civil war and popular
insurrection encouraged many middling groups and elites to partake in the process of electing
representatives to the Cortes. The prospect of participating in the making of a constitution for the
empire and influencing the running of the monarchy provided a unique stimulus for autonomist
claims in the New World. Napoleon had previously attempted (without success) to marshal a
similar support in favor of the Bayonne constitution, but his bid was perceived as an act of
imposition. The Cortes, instead, represented an independent initiative. They represented the
occasion to turn the newfound faith in popular sovereignty into reality and a forum to
accommodate the voice of numerous Spanish subjects. In principle, overseas and peninsular
subjects could exchange ideas on an equal footing for the very first time. Representation in the
Cortes actually favored delegates from Spain and the upper and middling classes from both sides
of the Atlantic. The exceptional opening created by the Cortes, however, could hardly be
restricted to few small cleavages. The Cortes offered provincial Americans the chance to defend
their autonomist claims and regional interests. Inadvertently, they also provided already
mobilized grassroots groups with additional means to pursue their particular aspirations and
ambitions.
From September of 1810 to September of 1813, the Cortes devised a number of landmark
initiatives that reshaped the administrative and political layout of the empire almost in its
entirety. The most ingenious and remarkable of them all was the constitution of 1812 (enacted in
68
Cadiz while French troops laid siege to the city port and already controlled most of Spain’s
territory). Unlike the American constitution of 1787 and the French constitutions of 1793 and
1795, the Spanish chart preserved a monarchical form of government. Yet it established
important limits to the power of the king. Significantly, it endorsed popular sovereignty,
embraced representative government through elections, and endowed the Cortes with legislative
powers. Imperial-wide elections, the constitution mandated, would take place periodically.
Equally important, the celebration of regular provincial and local elections was included. The
constitution, in that sense, provided the bases for a notable expansion of enfranchisement and
political participation through institutional channels. Decisively, the equality of all parts of the
monarchy was also acknowledged. The constitution, moreover, replaced the codes that thus far
had ascribed specific obligations and prerogatives to different classes. One code for all the
peoples of the monarchy, the constitution established the principle of equality before the law.
The principle of legal equality, as once Abad y Queipo foresaw, was one the main aspects
of the constitution that most clearly and directly had an impact upon pueblos de indios. The
abolition of tribute in 1810 had challenged the relevance of the category indio; the constitution of
1812 tacitly eliminated it. The chart referred to all legitimate members of the monarchy, from
both hemispheres, as españoles. Indios, accordingly, were now Spaniards, members of single
Spanish nation comprised, in principle, by equals. Moreover, as Spaniards and members of the
nation, indios potentially qualified as citizens. Being an indio granted no rights for rights were,
by definition, a quality not of corporate groups or classes, but a quality of individual citizens. As
a result, virtually speaking, the category of indio ceased to have any legal or administrative
69
effect. It had become incompatible with the new kind of political community envisioned by the
Cortes and of which the constitution was the blueprint.
Pueblos de indios were also divested of their legal powers and prerogatives, but not
without alternatives. The constitution recast municipalities according to the principle of legal
equality. Since all lawful members of the monarchy were now considered españoles, the
constitution made no distinction between indigenous and Spanish municipalities. Many
indigenous councils found ways to refashion repúblicas under the new rules marked by the
constitution. Many other struggled to retain authority against indigenous and non-indigenous
adversaries alike. In yet other instances, subordinated localities (known as sujetos) saw the
chance to fight for their own autonomy and become ayuntamientos in their own right against
traditionally dominant head towns (cabeceras). Barrios and families also attempted to either
assert or subvert the ascendancy and influence of municipal councils. Ayutamientos sometimes
reinforced and sometimes undermined the autonomy of pueblos. This depended on factors such
as the density of indigenous population in a given area (the constitution stipulated a minimum of
residents to form ayuntamientos) and local balances of power. In all cases, however,
ayuntamientos became centers of exceptional mobilization. The crisis of 1808 and its
consequences had already given long-standing rivalries and conflicts an entire new dimension;
the constitution of 1812 added a political significance that local quarrels had never had before.
Political changes had a direct impact on the question of communal lands and plans of
land reform. The constitution of 1812, at least in part, blurred the line between communal and
municipal holdings. Then, in November of 1812 and January of 1813 respectively, the Cortes
70
enacted two decrees that further affected communal landholding. The first decree granted lands
to indios (the use of the term persisted) who were either married or over 25 years old. Neither
private domains (dominio particular) nor community lands (tierras de comunidad) should be
used for that purpose, the decree stated. The allocation of lands would draw on the nearby lands
surrounding pueblos—a measure that echoed the early suggestion of Campillo y Cosío. Yet, the
decree immediately added, up to half of tierras de comunidad may be distributed wherein lands
were considered abundant in relation to the local population. The ultimate goal, as the decree
asserted, was to foster private landholding among indigenous population and create the material
bases to start building civil equality.
The second decree enshrined an initiative long sought by Bourbon reformers. Vacant and
common lands (tierras baldías and terrenos comunes), it instructed, must be turned into dominio
particular. By “vacant lands,” the decree mainly referred to royal or uncultivated lands and by
“common lands” it primarily referred to propios y arbitrios, that is, lands and holdings destined
to the maintenance of municipalities. It also made it clear that ejidos (pasture lands and lands
used for other common activities) would remain as a domain of the pueblos. In practice,
however, since the constitution had replaced the figure of pueblos de indios by that of
ayuntamientos, the distinction between common lands (terrenos comunes), community lands
71
(tierras de comunidad), municipal lands (propios y arbitrios), and ejidos remained an open
question.63
The constitution and decrees (including that of January of 1810) thus introduced
significant changes in the formal structure of pueblos de indios and communal land tenure.
Legally, municipal lands were turned into public domains and thus could later on be apportioned
to individual owners. The allocation of municipal lands, in addition, depended on provincial
authorities and ayuntamientos which were now open to internal and external competition. For the
most part, community lands (tierras de comunidad), family parcels included, remained in
indigenous hands. These lands, however, may also be converted into dominio particular
depending on how sizeable community holdings were in a given pueblo. What is more, given the
intricate nature of communal landholding, even ejidos and other common lands could be subject
to future claims (and disputes). And now, according to the decrees, land claims could be made by
anyone who promised lands would be used for cultivation—pueblo residents, in the first place,
but also tenants, landless individuals, and even veterans of war. Finally, the implementation of
these changes was left, almost entirely, to regional and local authorities—precisely in a time
when regional and local politics had become fiercer. Not only did provincial and local authorities
attain wide legal capacities to oversee agrarian measures. Wars had, to an important extent,
transferred power from the center to the provinces and localities. Changes in land would thus be
settled on the ground, attached to local and regional interests.
63
A transcription of the decrees can be found in García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas de Michoacán, 383-389.
See also, 200-209 for García Ávila’s comments on the decrees; and François-Xavier Guerra, México: del Antiguo
Régimen a la Revolución, vol. 1 (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), 263-264.
72
For the most part, unlike ayuntamientos and the abolition of tribute, land changes
(specifically regarding pueblos de indios) only rarely came to fruition before the breakdown of
the Spanish empire. In general, the decrees of 1812 and 1813 remained scarcely known and were
not implemented in any systematic way—Félix Calleja, the head of counterinsurgent efforts in
New Spain, chose not to do so in order to preserve the loyalty of pueblos de indios against
insurgents. Then in May of 1814, months after returning to the throne, Fernando VII annulled the
constitution and declared the Cortes illegal. As a result, all decrees enacted in the absence of the
king were too nullified. From 1814 to 1820, Fernando VII tried to reverse things to what they
had been before Napoleon. During these years, no major initiative concerning communal
landholding and pueblos de indios took place; only the slow and fragmentary restitution of old
institutions (including tribute and cajas de comunidad). Yet restoration turned out problematic
and ultimately ineffective. In 1820, facing increasing opposition in Spain and unable to eradicate
the insurgencies of Spanish America, Fernando VII was forced to accept the reestablishment of
the constitution. By then, however, neither the constitution nor the authority of the king seemed
as enticing as they had once been. In the following years, with few exceptions, American
domains effectively claimed their independence from the Spanish empire.
The years of crisis and civil strife, nonetheless, had outlined land policies and land
politics for generations to come. The constitution and the decrees issued by the Cortes had, at
last, legally sanctioned the views of Bourbon and American reformers concerning land, corporate
landholding, and pueblos de indios. From then on, all across Spanish America land reforms
would express the economic, political, and social ideal that later on would be associated with
73
liberalism—an ideal created during long decades of imperial reform, international warfare, and
civil conflicts. Equally important, the legal redefinition of land rights and pueblos de indios came
hand in hand with another crucial innovation prompted by the turmoil that began in 1808.
Neither the restoration of 1814 nor independence could contain the forces that had been
unleashed by civil wars and political crisis. A revolution of sorts had happened. Not only did
land rights have been formally redefined, but they had become debatable and disputable. The
link between land and politics became thereafter virtually indissoluble. In the decades to come,
land rights would serve a wide variety of interests and goals—including those of indigenous
people.
74
CHAPTER 2
ECOLOGY, ECONOMY, AND COMMUNITY IN THE PURÉPECHA H IGHLANDS
The examination of the ideological and legal roots of liberal land reforms is crucial to understand
the rationale and professed goals of the reformers. Yet it does little to explain how indigenous
community life and communal land uses and rights actually worked. Earlier analyses of
nineteenth-century land reform tended to base their explanations on the content of liberal laws
and extrapolate from it the possible impact that the implementation of land policies had on
communal land tenure and indigenous communities. Land rights, social dynamics, and material
conditions were also inferred not from empirical evidence, but from rough theoretical
generalizations. Such approach, naturally, had some important limitations, the most important of
which was that it divested communities of their actual complexity. Understanding this
complexity is, however, of fundamental importance if we are to explain how land policies came
to happen (beyond what reformers and lawmakers imagined them to be) and why they brought
about such unexpected and even paradoxical results.
What follows is a comprehensive analysis of the meseta (the first of its kind) and its
indigenous communities in the nineteenth century. It shows how communal land tenure and land
use were closely connected to the environmental conditions of Michoacán’s central-west
highlands, a region characterized by a peculiar combination of flat terrains, mountains, forests,
and an uneven distribution of water bodies. The analysis reveals that, in general, communities’
land base was significant enough to cover the basic needs of most community members and to
75
allow modest to sizeable commercial activities. In fact, communities sustained a significantly
diversified economy that included the cultivation of a wide variety of produces and the making
of wooden crafts and textiles. The influence of large estates, so prominent in many standard
interpretations of liberal land reform, was far from overwhelming. Haciendas had a limited
presence in the meseta and in some areas were completely absent, a fact that undoubtedly
contributed to the relative soundness and autonomy of community production. There were,
however, important material disparities between communities and among community members.
Resources (water, land, forests) were by no means equally distributed and this would greatly
contribute to shape future developments when liberal land policies came about.
A Stretch of Hilly Country
Parangaricutiro. Cherán. Charapan. Nahuatzen. Jucutacato. There were around forty purépecha
communities in the central-northwest highlands of Michoacán by 1872, the year Manuel Rosales,
the peasant from Tancítaro, became an official property owner according to the government of
Michoacán. Around fifty, if some of the nine barrios of the city of Uruapan—the largest
settlement of the region and one of the five largest of the state of Michoacán—are counted as
separate communities in their own right. Formally, highland purépecha communities were
grouped in what at the time was known as the district of Uruapan. Administrative boundaries,
however, offered little orientation to the observer before the last quarter of the nineteenth
century. Not until then did governmental limits begin to coincide with the more permanent, if
also vaguer, natural contours of the highlands and its environs.
76
The region is, in fact, hard to define. Depending on the emphasis that one wants to put, it
is either called a sierra or a meseta, a highland or a plateau. One underlines the presence of
numerous hills and mountains; the other stresses the relative flatness of the lands standing inbetween natural elevations. Both, in any case, refer to the fact that the region rises more or less
abruptly from the contiguous areas (the valleys to the north, the hot-country or tierra caliente to
the south) reaching a comparatively higher altitude. Together mountains and upland terrains give
this land its characteristic irregular look.
Two other features are essential to understand the makeup (both natural and social) of the
region: forests and an unequal distribution of water bodies and streams. Contemporary accounts
consistently offered praising descriptions of the meseta. Mountains, waterways, and the forest
cover, as rule, stood out. Alfonso Luis Velasco, journalist and author of a number of landmark
geographic and economic monographs of several states and populations of Mexico, assured to
his readers that the “district of Uruapan occupies one of the most beautiful regions of the world.”
"El bosque,” he eloquently wrote about the district’s landscape in 1895, “se dibuja a lo lejos y el
sol quiebra sus rayos sobre la linfa plateada del río, cuyas ondas se mueven en dulce vaivén,
como si fueran cuna de gasas trasparentes que se agitasen al soplo del viento."64
Eduardo Ruiz, a lawyer and writer who was born in the meseta and came to be attorney
general of the nation (1882-1900), made similar exalting remarks:
64
Alfonso Luis Velasco, Geografía y estadística del estado Michoacán (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San
Nicolás de Hidalgo / Centro de Investigaciones y Desarrollo del Estado de Michoacán, 2005 [1895]) 164-165. For
Velasco’s work see, in this same edition of his monograph of Michoacán, Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, "Alfonso Luis
Velasco y sus aportes a la geografía y la estadística en México," xi-xxx, and María Eugenia Arias Gómez, "Alfonso
Luis Velasco y su obra histórico-geográfica," Ulúa 10 (2007): 73-98.
77
Por el sur, el airoso cerro de las ventanas; por el oriente la cuesta de Taretan; por el norte el elevado pico de
la Cruz y por el poniente la inmensa mole de Acahuato [Tancítaro], cuya elevada frente ciñe el invierno con
nívea diadema de luciente escarcha. Allí, sobre un trono de flores, reina soberana la madre naturaleza. El
sol lanza sus rayos de oro, fecundando el prolífico seno de la tierra. Y por la noche, los pálidos rayos de la
luna, se quiebran en las hojas de los árboles y se deslizan en la linfa de los ríos.
The center of this enticing scenery, at which point Ruiz stood, was the city of Uruapan. For him,
as for many others before and after, no other place summarized so patently the charm of the
meseta. The “paradise of Michoacán,” he called it. Writing in the late nineteenth century, Ruiz
used the same words that Juan José Martínez de Lejarza had employed to describe the city back
in the 1820s when he finished the first statistical work of Michoacán after independence.65
Beautiful words and an inspiring landscape, however, frequently obscured the intricate
and uneven arrangement of watercourses, trees, and surfaces in the meseta. Carl Lumholtz, a
Norwegian explorer and anthropologist who travelled several times to Mexico from 1890 to
1910, noticed an imperfection in the otherwise faultless “Sierra de los Tarascos,” as he called it.
A skeptical and often condescending man, Lumholtz was also enticed by the landscape before
his eyes. He described the highland as “a stretch of hilly country […] broader than it is long” and
65
For Ruiz’s quotes see, Eduardo Ruiz, Álbum de Uruapan (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de
Hidalgo, 2000), 23-24. Ruiz actually republished extracts of an earlier text printed in 1891 in this work. For Eduardo
Ruiz’s biographical info see the introduction of this 2000 edition of his Álbum de Uruapan: José Napoleón Guzmán
Ávila, "Las raíces uruapenses de Eduardo Ruiz," ix-xxii. See also, Álvaro Ochoa Serrano and Martín Sánchez
Rodríguez, Repertorio michoacano, 1889-1926 (Morelia: El Colegio de Michoacán / Casa de la Cultura del Valle de
Zamora / Morevallado Editores / Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, 2004), 360. For other praising descriptions of
Uruapan see, Francisco Miranda, Uruapan (Morelia: Gobierno del Estado de Michoacán, 1979), 15-26, and Juan
José Martínez de Lejarza, Análisis estadístico de la provincia de Michoacán en 1822 (Morelia: Filmax Publicistas,
1974), 139-140.
78
took notice of the remarkable altitude of some its mountains. The sierra, he pointed out,
“includes the lofty peak of Tancítaro (elevation, 13,669 feet) at its southern extremity, and Pico
the Quintzeo (elevation, 10,908 feet).” Overall, however, he found the landscape “more pleasing
and idyllic than imposing or magnificent.” On occasions, he concluded, “it seemed as if
mountains, fields, and trees had been arranged by some artistic landscape gardener for the
express purpose of delighting the eye”. Lumholtz, nonetheless, was a keen observer. He could
not help but notice that there was a missing element in the Sierra de los Tarascos “to make its
charm perfect.” Up in the highlands, he remarked, “there are no rivers.”66
An Uneven Distribution of Water: The Upper and Lower Meseta
Forest cover, volcanic soils, and escarpments combined to make water distribution fairly
imbalanced in the meseta. The rainy season generally started in June and lasted until October,
although every now and then it could begin a little earlier and persist a little longer.
Occasionally, there was some precipitation during the winter, but very little by comparison.
During the wet season, rains were frequently heavy and, as a rule, very constant—“every day,
commencing about noon” recorded Lumholtz.67 Much of this rainfall, however, did not result in
the formation of large bodies of water. Not in the upper lands of the meseta.
66
Carl Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico: A Record of Five Years' Exploration among the Tribes of the Western Sierra
Madre; in the tierra caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and among the Tarascos of Michoacan, vol. 2 (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1902), 362.
67
Ibid., 364.
79
By means of retaining humidity, transpiration, and evaporation, the forest contributed to
bring a good amount of rain to the region. Yet the forest (mostly composed of different species
of pine and oak trees) also consumed large amounts of the water it helped to generate and,
consequently, inhibited the accumulation of groundwater. Tree canopies prevented much of the
rain from reaching directly the ground (although the degree of rainfall interception depended on
things such as the shape of leaves and the height of trees). The water that managed to reach the
forest floor, either because it was not intercepted by tree canopies or because it eventually ran
down the stem of trees and plants, was captured by a layer of vegetation that further prevented
the surface from being covered by water. Instead, water gradually infiltrated the ground.
Volcanic soils, characteristic of the plateau, facilitated infiltration because of their high degree of
permeability, porosity, and drainage. This also contributed to minimize surface runoff and,
equally important, soil erosion. Reduction of soil erosion was beneficial when forest trees were
cleared for cultivation since soils retained much of their nutrients and minerals. Yet relatively
high infiltration also contributed to reduce annual water yields. On sloping lands, also
characteristic of the plateau, gravity did the final work. Both leftover water on the surface and
underground water ran down eventually reaching the streams, rivers, and lakes that formed on
lower lands.68
68
See, Fernando Guevara Fefer, "Los factores físico-geográficos," in Historia general de Michoacán, vol. 1,
Escenario ecológico y época prehispánica, ed. Enrique Florescano (Mexico: Instituto Michoacano de Cultura,
1989), 7-34; Ian Calder, Thomas Hofer, Sibylle Vermont and Patrizio Warren, “Towards a new Understanding of
Forests and Water,” Unasylva 58, no. 229 (2007): 3-10; Martha A. Works and Keith S. Hadley, "The Cultural
Context of Forest Degradation in Adjacent Purépechan Communities, Michoacán, Mexico," The Geographical
Journal 170, no. 1 (2004): 22-25; José María Pérez Hernández, Compendio de la geografía del estado de
Michoacán de Ocampo (Mexico: Imprenta del Comercio de Nabor Chávez, 1872), 32-35 and 28-31; Roberto Quirós
80
Bishopric of Michoacán, 1863
Source: Mapoteca Manuel Orozco y Berra
Thus, despite receiving a good amount of rain during the wet season, many areas of the
meseta in central-northwest Michoacán could not preserve much of its water and actually lost
part of it to less elevated terrains. Upper lands, in this fashion, contributed to recharge the
streams and rivers next to places such as the city of Uruapan, Periban, Los Reyes, and
Martínez, "Michoacán, sus elementos de riqueza," Irrigación en México. Órgano oficial de la comisión nacional de
irrigación 3, no. 4 (1931): 368-388; Patricia Ávila García, Escasez de agua en una región indígena. El caso de la
Meseta Purépecha (Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1996), 47-88 and 136-138; Jaime L. Espín Díaz, Tierra fría,
tierra de conflictos en Michoacán (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán / Gobierno del Estado de Michoacán, 1986),
12-13, 33-60; Ralph L. Beals, Cherán: A Sierra Tarascan Village (Washington D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1946), 4-7.
81
Parangaricutiro—places that collected abundant water during the rainy season. Yet loftier
localities such as Nahuatzen, Paracho, Cheran or Charapan managed to procure only limited
sources of water for themselves. No major water bodies embellished the landscape of the upper
lands. Only a cluster of springs spread across the highland, brimming with water during the
summer, but slowly drained after the end of the rains. By springtime, the peak of the dry season,
many of these mountain springs were notably reduced in size or fully exhausted. When rainfall
cycles experienced some disruption and ensuing droughts came, as it inexorably happened from
time to time, the upper areas of the plateau were the most hurt.69
A survey conducted in the mid-1880s clearly captured the water imbalance of the meseta.
Although at times fragmentary, overall, the survey provides a comprehensive picture of water
courses (from rivers to lakes to marshes and springs) of the state of Michoacán in its entirety.
Eighteen rivers and an almost equal number of streams (arroyos) ran through the district of
Uruapan. According to the local officials that collected the data, most of them flowed
continuously throughout the year: none, however, on the higher areas of the plateau. The
municipality of Uruapan alone (elevation, c. 5460 feet) encompassed three streams and three
rivers—River Cupatizio, located in the city of Uruapan, being the most important. The
municipality of Taretan (elevation, c. 3700 feet), southeast of the city of Uruapan, comprised
three rivers, one stream, and six springs. Los Reyes (elevation, c. 4320 feet), northeast of Taretan
and Uruapan, had at least five rivers and seven springs. By comparison, the northern
69
See, Ávila García, Escasez de agua; Espín Díaz, Tierra fría; and Works and Hadley, “The Cultural Context of
Forest Degradation.”
82
municipalities of Nahuatzen and Cheran (elevation, c. 9100 and c. 8579 feet respectively) relied
on about twenty springs, all permanent, but of different sizes and limited capacity. Some places,
such as Paracho (c. 6273 feet), reported no water sources, although some neighboring settlements
(Quinceo or Aranza, for instance) did have access to some springs.70
A Three-part Make-up: Urban, Agricultural, and Forest Lands
The distribution of water, flat terrains, and forested areas in the meseta played a significant role
in defining settlement patterns of the region. At first appearance, settlements seem not to follow
a particular order. They seem arbitrarily scattered across the landscape. Yet a closer examination
reveals a more consistent arrangement. Although not all of them managed to benefit from the
main water bodies of the region, settlements tended to be located in places where people could at
least have some access to the existing water sources. This, in some cases, still meant people
(preponderantly women) had to walk several miles to get water, particularly on the upper lands
and during the dry season. There, procuring minimum year-round water requirements was
generally a challenge, although some localities experienced more difficulties than others.71
Overall, however, whether water sources were scarce or abundant, the location of settlements
70
“Noticas hidrograficas,” in Memoria sobre los diversos ramos de la administración pública, leída ante el
congreso del estado de Michoacán en la sesión del día 25 de mayo de 1886, por el secretario del despacho Lic.
Francisco Perez Gil (Morelia: Imprenta del Gobierno, 1886), 39-43, 58-59, and 87-90. There is a facsimile edition
of the survey: Noticias hidrográficas de Michoacán 1886 (Morelia: CIDEM / UMSNH / El Colegio de Michoacán /
Gobierno del estado de Michoacán / CONAGUA / CEAC, 2007). See also, Vicente González Méndez and Héctor
Ortiz Ybarra, Los Reyes, Tinguindin, Tancítaro, Tocumbo y Periban (Morelia: Gobierno del estado de Michoacán,
1980), 35-36; Velasco, Geografía y estadística, 166-167 and Ávila García, Escasez de agua, 60-61 (chart 2.4 in
particular).
71
See, Ávila García, Escasez de agua.
83
responded to the necessity of making the most out of the possibilities and limitations posed by
the peculiar natural conditions of the plateau.
Securing access to the forest and agricultural lands, in that sense, was as important as
procuring water sources. The arrangement of mountains and relative plane grounds in the plateau
thus had an equally important effect on local settlement patterns. As a rule, settlements were
located at the base or in the proximities of mountains and hills. This offered a double benefit. On
the one hand, people could take advantage of flat terrains and use them as cultivation and pasture
lands either by cutting forest trees off or simply by using stretches of land with lesser vegetation.
On the other, mountains and hills could serve as forested areas from which people could obtain
basic supplies of wood for construction, cooking, and craftworks.
Pueblo of San Felipe, Municipality of Charapan, c. 1870
Source: AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 8, n.p.
84
The relocation and colonizing policies that gave settlements in the region their shape
under the Spanish rule probably took these environmental factors into account.72 The colonial
layout of towns and villages, at any rate, turned out to be fairly compatible with the way in which
the natural physical features were distributed in the plateau. That explains, in part, why
settlement patterns did not change significantly during the nineteenth century and persist, with
some variations, until the present day.
Typically, settlements comprised three sets of areas. There was an urban core, the builtup area where public buildings, residences, and the main square or plaza were located. Late
colonial and nineteenth-century officials sometimes referred to this area as fundo legal.
Bordering the residential compact and extending outwards in different directions there was a
second area of open land planted with crops or pasture (depending on the month of the year and
the cultivation cycle). Agricultural lands were divided into multiple plots distributed among
families. Characteristically, no fences separated the plots, but often a strip of trees and lesser
72
Many settlements in the meseta had Mesoamerican backgrounds. Before the Spanish arrived in the region, the
plateau formed part of the area of influence of one of the most powerful polities in Mesoamerica—a polity that the
Spaniards, early on, referred to as the “reino de Mechuacán” (kingdom of Mechuacán) and whose dominant ethnic
group they eventually labeled as tarascos (Tarascans). The center of this “kingdom,” however, was located in the
Lake Pátzcuaro region. In part because of this, research has tended to neglect the highlands and, instead, has focused
on the Lake Pátzcuaro basin. In general, the “Tarascan” region has received much less public attention than, for
instance, the Maya or the Aztec. Some important works are: Hellen Pollard, Tariacuri’s Legacy: The Prehispanic
Tarascan State (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993); Brigitte Boehm, ed., El Michoacán antiguo. Estado
y sociedad tarascos en la época prehispánica (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán / Gobierno del estado de
Michoacán, 1994); Benedict Warren, The Conquest of Michoacán: the Spanish Domination of the Tarascan
Kingdom (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985); Marcia Castro-Leal, Clara L. Díaz, and María Teresa
García, "Los Tarascos", in Historia general de Michoacán, vol. 1, Escenario ecológico y época prehispánica, ed.
Enrique Florescano, 191-303; Hellen Pollard, “El gobierno del Estado tarasco prehispánico,” in Autoridad y
gobierno indígena en Michoacán. Ensayos a través de su historia, vol. 1, eds. Carlos Paredes Martínez and Marta
Terán (Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán / CIESAS / INAH / UMSNH, 2003), 49-60; Rodrigo Martínez Baracs,
“Etimologías políticas michoacanas,” in Autoridad y gobierno, vol. 1, eds. Paredes Martínez and Terán, 61-90;
Carlos García Mora, “Gobierno de Charápani en el siglo XVI,” in Autoridad y gobierno, vol. 1, eds. Paredes
Martínez and Terán, 105-129.
85
vegetation or human-made ditches marked the boundaries between different portions of land.
Families worked and took care of plots separately, although land as a whole was still considered
a possession of the pueblo and the timing of planting, harvesting, and grazing was often
coordinated with local authorities. The area, in general, was sometimes referred to as tierras de
común repartimiento. Locally, it was known as planes or “plains,” in reference to the relatively
even consistency of the surface where lands were situated.
Nineteenth-century Uruapan
Source: Mapoteca Manuel Orozco y Berra
The third area consisted of a combination of more open fields and forested lands. This
area was also communally held. Yet unlike the first set of agricultural lands, it was not
subdivided to form family plots and was entirely managed by common authorities—in principle,
for the benefit of the whole community. Local authorities usually leased supplementary fields
86
and residents used portions of them as pastureland. These additional lands were often contiguous
to family plots, but sometimes they rested behind nearby mountains and hills. Mountainous
areas, for their part, concentrated most of the forested areas on the upper part of the meseta.
Forest cover in the lower parts to the south was somewhat more extended and also comprised
patches of comparatively flat terrains. A certain legal ambiguity frequently surrounded this
common area. Sometimes, the legal term ejido encompassed both ancillary fields and forested
lands. On other occasions ejido solely referred to the open fields and forests were considered
apart as montes. Further ambiguities came with the reform of indigenous municipalities
beginning in the early nineteenth century and the subsequent problem of distinguishing between
communal and public holdings—or, in more technical terms, between bienes de comunidad and
propios y arbitrios.73
Settlement Hierarchy
A well-established hierarchy structured settlement arrangements across the meseta. Colonial and
nineteenth-century officials alike commonly distinguished differences of status between
73
On settlement and land patterns see, García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas en Michoacán, 49-62; Castro
Gutiérrez, Los tarascos y el imperio español, 75-120 and 305-315; Felipe Chávez Cervantes, Antiguo pueblo de
Jauaneto, K’umbutsio o Parikutin (Morelia: Morevallado Editores, 2010), 11-34; Carlos García Mora, “La
constitución purépecha de Charapan,” accessed September 26, 2013, <http://tsimarhu.blogspot.mx>; Carlos García
Mora, “El ámbito novohispano de Charápani,” accessed September 26, 2013, <http://tsimarhu.blogspot.mx>; Carlos
García Mora, “La continuidad y el cambio cultural en la sierra de Michoacán,” accessed September 26, 2013,
<http://tsimarhu.blogspot.mx>; Rodrigo Martínez Baracs, "Los inicios de la colonización," in Historia general de
Michoacán. La colonia, vol. 2, ed. Enrique Florescano (Mexico: Instituto Michoacano de Cultura, 1989), 37-73;
Beals, Cherán, 20-21, 59, and 92; Pablo Sebastián Felipe, Cumanchen. Santa María Comachuen, una mirada al
pasado (Morelia: Morevallado Ediitores, 2010), 41-47; Claude Morin, Michoacán en la Nueva España del siglo
XVIII. Crecimiento y desigualdad en una economía colonial (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1979), 293;
Jennie Purnell, Popular Movements and State Formation in Revolutionary Michoacán: The Agraristas and Cristeros
of Michoacán (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 31-32.
87
settlements by looking at the size of the population—although, as we shall see, political and
economic factors were often just as an important. At the bottom, there was a group of localities
usually branded as rancherías comprised by a small number of dwellers—few dozens, perhaps
few hundreds at the most. Agua Nueva, home of the Rosales family, was the perfect example of
this type of settlements. Further up, there were a collection of pueblos and villas which were by
definition larger than rancherías (few thousand residents) and concentrated most of the
population in the meseta. At the top of this hierarchy was Uruapan, as pointed out the major
settlement and, beginning in 1858, sole city of the region with a population of several thousand
since at least the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The number and status of pueblos, villas, and ciudades in the meseta remained fairly
constant during the nineteenth century and until the breakout of the Mexican revolution in 1910.
Over the decades, only a handful of settlements achieved a different urban status than the one
they had right after the end of the wars of independence in the early 1820s. Namely, Los Reyes,
Taretan, Periban, Tancítaro, and Paracho—the five promoted from pueblos to villas and all but
Paracho located in the lower lands of the meseta. Pueblos thus remained the home of most of
purépecha communities throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.74
As a rule, smaller and less populated localities gravitated around larger and more
populated settlements. The ranchería of Agua Nueva, together with an extensive number of
74
See, Pérez Hernández, Compendio de la geografía, 126-128; Memoria presentada a la legislatura de Michoacán,
por el secretario del despacho, en representación del poder ejecutivo del estado, en las sesión del día 31 de mayo de
1883 (Morelia, Imprenta del Gobierno, 1883); and Índice alfabético de la división territorial del estado de
Michoacán de Ocampo, en orden de municipalidades, tenencias, haciendas y ranchos comprendidos en la ley de 20
de julio de 1909 (Morelia: Escuela Industrial Militar, 1912).
88
other minor localities and the pueblo of Apo, for instance, orbited around the larger villa of
Tancítaro. During the first decades after independence, the direct area of influence of the city of
Uruapan (then a villa) encompassed the pueblos of Jicalan, Jucutacato, and San Lorenzo, an area
that later on, towards the last quarter of the century, also included the pueblo of Capacuaro and,
for a brief period, the pueblos of Parangaricutiro, Paricutin, and Angahuan. Up in the highlands,
Cheran exerted its own dominance over the pueblo of Cheran-Atzicurin, and Charapan did the
same throughout most of the nineteenth century over the pueblos of San Felipe de los Herreros,
and Cocucho. Overall, from independence to the revolution, between eight to eleven centers
presided over the majority of pueblos and many of the lesser localities of the meseta.75
The continuous shifts in administrative and political boundaries, characteristic of
nineteenth-century Mexico, did not change the basic structure of settlement arrangements in any
major way. Although some alterations did take place over the course of the years, administrative
divisions tended to either sanction or simply accommodate to the existing organization of the
75
Martínez de Lejarza, Análisis estadístisco; José Guadalupe Romero, Noticias para formar la historia y la
estadística del obispado de Michoacán presentadas a la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística en 1860
(México: Vicente García Torres, 1862), 36-39; “Noticia número.16,” in Memoria leida ante la legislatura de
Michoacán en la sesion del dia 30 de Julio de 1869 por el secretario de gobierno del estado, Lic. Francisco W.
González (Morelia: Imprenta de O. Ortiz, 1869), 124-125; Anselmo Rodríguez, Índice de los pueblos del estado de
Michoacán de Ocampo, con explicación del distrito político y rentístico á que pertenecen, el número de sus
habitantes y las etimologías de varios de sus nombres formado por Anselmo Rodríguez (Morelia: Imprenta de O.
Ortiz, 1873), 11-138; “División Territorial: Cuadro Número 9" in Memoria presentada a la legislatura del estado de
Michoacán de Ocampo, por el secretario de gobierno C. Lic. Nestor López, en la sesión del día 31 de Mayo de 1882
(Morelia: Imprenta del Gobierno en Palacio, 1882); "Noticia estadística número 1: Cuadro que manifiesta el número
de habitantes del estado, con algunas clasificaciones importantes," in Memoria sobre los diversos ramos de la
administración pública, leída por el secretario del despacho, Lic. Francisco Pérez Gil, ante la diputación
permanente del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo, en las sesiones de los días 12, 13, y 14 de septiembre de 1889
(Mexico: Litografía de la Escuela de Artes, 1889); Velasco, Geografía y estadística, 164; Amador Coromina,
Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares que se han expedido en el Estado de Michoacán formada
y anotada por Amador Coromina director del archivo general y publico del estado, vol. 36, (Morelia: Talleres de la
Escuela Industrial Militar Porfirio Diaz, 1903) 342-347; Índice alfabético de la división territorial del Estado de
Michoacan de Ocampo, 1-3 and 4-9.
89
meseta. For about five decades after independence, frequent and numerous political conflicts
prevented any institutional layout from lasting more than few years in Michoacán (as elsewhere
in the country). Not until after 1867, when the last major civil and international conflict of the
nineteenth-century ended, did administrative and political institutions begin to take a more
regular shape. Thereafter, if only formally, Mexico was ruled according to a republican and
federal system of government.
Michoacán then divided into intermediate units known as districts, which, in turn, divided
into municipalities. Under this system, traditionally dominant population centers functioned as
the seat of municipal governments keeping administrative control over subordinated pueblos.
Such type of organization closely resembled other previous experiments conducted from 1824 to
1835 and then again from 1849 to 1850 and from 1855 to 1864. Furthermore, it resembled the
old colonial division between cabeceras and sujetos, that is, head towns and dependent pueblos.
Even the terms coincided, except for the fact that nineteenth-century officials preferred to use the
term tenencias instead of that of sujetos.76
Similarly, just as under the Spanish rule, tensions between head towns and tenencias
surfaced from time to time over land boundaries, political representation, and margins of
autonomy. Sometimes, in part as a result of these tensions, a tenencia could become a
76
See, Juan Carlos Cortés Máximo, De repúblicas de indios a ayuntamientos constitucionales: pueblos sujetos y
cabeceras de Michoacán, 1740-1831 (Morelia: Universidad Michaocana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 2012); Gerardo
Sánchez Díaz, “Introducción. Un acercamiento al Porfiriato en Michoacán,” in Pueblos, villas y ciudades de
Michoacán en el Porfiriato, ed. Gerardo Sánchez Díaz (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de
Hidalgo, 2010), 13-28; Rodolfo Pastor and María de los Ángeles Romero Frizzi, "Integración del sistema colonial,"
in Florescano, Historia general de Michoacán, vol. 2, 123-160; Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, "Los vaivenes del proyecto
republicano," in Enrique Florescano (coordinador general), Historia general de Michoacán. Siglo XIX, vol. 3,
(Mexico: Instituto Michoacano de Cultura, 1989), 7-37.
90
municipality in its own right or simply become part of a different municipality. The pueblo of
Paricutin, for instance, was alternatively a tenencia of the municipalities of Uruapan and
Parangaricutiro from 1869 to 1910. For its part, the pueblo of Tingambato, once subordinated to
Taretan, became a municipality by around 1882 with its own tenencia (the pueblo of San Angel).
The opposite could happen too. The seat of the local government could be taken away from one
locality and placed in a different one. Such was the fate of Zacan and Parangaricutiro, although
the latter eventually regained its traditionally higher status. This type of administrative shifts,
however, did not constitute the rule. While important, they did little to subvert the underlying
and enduring organization of the region.77
Three-Part Households
In stark contrast to the surrounding irregularity of the landscape, residential areas in the meseta
stuck to a more orderly design. As if looking to a grating, a pattern of vertical and horizontal
lines crossing one another to form well-defined squares and rectangles parceled out urban
layouts. The grid expanded more or less uniformly across the space, although it tended to get
blurrier towards the external boundaries of the built-up perimeter.
Clusters of blocks and houses grouped together to form barrios or, roughly speaking,
quarters. Many barrios had their own parish and all of them were named after a patron-saint or a
representation of Mary, although ordinarily the main church was located next to the principal
square and held the image of the main patron-saint of the pueblo. The autonomy and rivalry
77
See, footnote 12.
91
between barrios varied from one place to another. Rivalries tended to surface when access to
lands, forests, and water were at stake, as was the case at times among the different barrios of
Uruapan—especially against the larger barrio of San Francisco. In contrast, when things
remained more or less in balance between barrios, the urge to act independently diminished.78
City of Uruapan, c. 1900
Source: AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Municipios, Uruapan, “Portal Florentino,” c.a. 1900.
78
Juan Manuel Mendoza Arroyo, Historia y narrativa en el ejido de San Francisco Uruapan, 1916-1997 (Mexico:
El Colegio de Michoacán / Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 2002), 49 and 55-59; José
Napoleón Guzmán Ávila, “Uruapan del Progreso,” in Sánchez Díaz, Pueblos, villas y ciudades, 275-281; Miranda,
Uruapan, 64 and 73; Alejandra Ceja Macnaught, Historia gráfica de Uruapan (Morelia: Conaculta / Gobierno del
estado de Michoacán / Dirección de Fomento y Desarrollo Cultura de Uruapan / Cocidecur, 2010); González
Méndez and Ortiz Ybarra, Los Reyes, 124-126; Beals, Cherán, 92; Jesús Castillo Janacua, Paracho durante la
Revolución. Estampas, y relatos, 1890-1930 (Morelia: Balsal Editores, 1988), 9-13; Chávez Cervantes, Antiguo
pueblo, 21-24; Sebastián Felipe, Cumanchen, 47-57; Carlos García Mora, “Instauración del orden corporativo,”
accessed September 26, 2013, <http://tsimarhu.blogspot.mx>.
92
The distribution of the space inside households also responded to a well-organized
layout. In general, individual families (often extended families) occupied at least one piece of
land within the built-up area of pueblos (the fundo legal). There people erected their homes,
stored their crops, raised some farm animals, and performed other productive activities including
some small-scale cultivation and woodworking. Lotes or lots, as housing lands were known,
divided into three distinct sections, each corresponding to specific uses attached to the everyday
needs of families.
First, there were the trojes. Carl Lumholtz described them as “squares houses built of
heavy pine planks well fitted together and topped with a four-pitched, shingle-covered roof
projecting far enough beyond the walls to take in spacious porches on all sides.”79 Trojes were
sleeping, storage, and working spots simultaneously. There were no bedrooms inside, only a
single room with no windows and one door. Between the wooden ground floor and the wooden
ceiling there was usually an attic-like space (known as tapanco) employed for storing grains,
generally maize. There was also the porch which usually served as both a social and a working
place, especially for handcrafting and woodworking.
A single lot could accommodate up to four generations and, as a result, sometimes
encompassed more than one troje. Married sons and their children frequently remained with their
parents after marriage and under the relative authority of the father who acted as the main head
of the household. When possible, however, land was subdivided to form independent lots for
each family. That in part explains the characteristic movable and easily adjustable structure of
79
Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, 365.
93
trojes. Ordinarily, it took a minimum of 30 days to build a troje from the scratch—choose and
cut the right pine trees, transport the wood, carve out the beams and planks, and put together the
house piece by piece. Yet it only took between one to two days to dismantle it and assemble it
again in a different place. As with many other things in the meseta, housing rules and
construction techniques and materials had been tailored according to a combination of human
resourcefulness and the specific environmental conditions of the region.
The kitchen and an open space locally called ekuarho constituted the other two main
sections within lots. Ideally, there was a kitchen house for every troje. Cooking was exclusively
done by women. During the nights, kitchen houses, always erected independently of trojes, could
also serve as sleeping quarters. The ekuarho had many different purposes too. This open space
included small enclosures or corrales for confining farm animals such as pigs, sheep, and
chickens. Ovens for making charcoal and cooking were also placed outdoors together with water
troughs and outhouses or privies. As the other two areas of the household, the ekuarho was an
essential working family space. Sometimes woodworking took place there too. More generally,
families devoted some space to keep orchards and vegetables gardens—usually overseen by
women. Commonly known as solares or tarhetarhu, these small parcels were fundamental for
the overall household economy. Even some maize, extensively cultivated in the open fields next
to the urban core, was grown in them. Lotes, in sum, together with montes and planes (forested
94
areas and agricultural fields, respectively), comprised the basic compound upon which most
families in the meseta relied to make a living.80
Distribution of Land Shares in Built-up Areas
Pueblos and villas shared a number of core commonalities across the region. Contrasts, however,
were also very important. The value, size, and quality of lotes, for instance, differed from barrio
to barrio, from one pueblo to another. By the late nineteenth century, according to the standards
set by the government of Michoacán, the material conditions of almost five in every ten houses
in the district of Uruapan were so precarious that it was not worth assessing an approximate
value of these properties for tax purposes. By comparison, the uppermost echelon—properties
valued above one hundred, but worth less than five thousand pesos—constituted less than 15%
of all houses.
Variations stood out in some places more than others. In the small pueblo of Angahuan,
fiscal officials considered the value of all but one property insignificant. The majority of the lots
80
This section draws on: Eugenia María Azevedo Salomao, ed., La vivienda purépecha. Historia, habitabilidad,
tecnología y confort de la vivienda purépecha (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 2008);
Ralph L. Beals, Pedro Carrasco, and Thomas McCorkle, Houses and House use of the Sierra Tarascan
(Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1944); Berenice Aguilar and Valeria Pacheco, "La Troje: tipología de
vivienda Purepecha," in Miles Lewis, et al., Vernacular Architecture (Munich: International Council on Monuments
and Sites, 2002), 60-61; Carlos García Mora, El troje purépecha. Asiento, granero y oratorio del grupo doméstico
(Mexico: Tsimarhu Estudio de Etnólogos, 2012); Carlos García Mora, La cocina purépecha de Charapan. Espacio
femenino (Mexico: Tsimarhu Estudio de Etnólogos, 2013); Juan Fernando Bontempo, "Elementos mudéjares en la
arquitectura vernácula de Michoacán: el troje p'urhepecha," in Arquitectura vernácula en el mundo ibérico, ed. Ana
María Aranda Bernal (Sevilla: Universidad Pablo Olavide, 2007), 184-192; Juan Fernando Bontempo, “Un análisis
del troje purépecha,” in Hacia una antropología arquitectónica, ed. Mari-Jose Amerlinkc (Guadalajara: Unviersidad
de Guadalajara, 1995), 145-155; and Eugenia María Azevedo Salomao, “Espacios urbanos comunitarios durante el
periodo virreinal en Michoacán,” in Arquitectura y urbanismo virreinal, ed. Marco Tulio Peraza Guzmán (Mérida:
Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, 2000), 109-123.
95
in Charapan and San Francisco Periban (around 80% and 70% respectively) did not qualify as
adequate either. Nonetheless, while comparatively modest in relation to other settlements in the
meseta, no major disparities characterized these pueblos. By comparison, in the larger pueblo of
Nahuatzen (comprising 510 lots) six in every ten houses conformed to the standards
acknowledged by government officials. The same pattern prevailed in the pueblo of
Parangaricutiro. Housing conditions were perhaps better in these places, but inequalities were
also more noticeable. Things were much more even in Cheran wherein nine in every ten lots
were considered acceptable. Circumstances were very similar in the villas of Tancítaro and Los
Reyes, except for the fact that comparatively more valuable properties constituted almost 80% of
the total in Los Reyes and only 11% in Tancítaro. The city of Uruapan had the single most
expensive residential lot in the district worth no more than 10,000, but at least 5,000 pesos—the
kind of money that the average inhabitant of the meseta would never see in his life. Nearly all the
remaining houses in the city fell in the category of modest, but valuable properties.81
Lotes, and particularly the solares or parcels in them, also differed from family to family.
Whereas the distribution and use of the space inside households was very similar in all places,
there were variations in terms of the number of properties one particular family could held. By
the time the first comprehensive liberal land reform took place in the district of Uruapan (1872),
the Valladares of Tancítaro, for instance, occupied at least 13 solares and the Rodrigues eight.
81
See, "Noticia Estadistica Numero 5. Noticia de la propiedad urbana del Estado [Distrito de Uruapan]," in Memoria
de Michoacán de 1889. See, Appendix 2.
96
These were unusual amounts considering that many other families, such as the Prisingulas,
Morenos, Lucas, or Vasques carried on with only one or two solares.
The number of solares, of course, was not the only thing that varied or mattered.
Differences in dimensions and quality of the properties were common and significant too. The
average solar held by a purépecha family in a place like Tancítaro probably was about 66 varas
in width and 87 in depth (about 0.40 hectares or one acre). Some families, however, held
properties three times the size of this. The Sanchez, for instance, occupied what may have been
two of the largest solares held by purépecha families in Tancítaro. One was 158 varas in width
and depth, while the second was 140 in width and 148 in depth (about 1.75 and 1.45 hectares
respectively or 4.32 acres and 3.58 acres). The solar of Manuel Rojas and his family had similar
dimensions, about 234 varas in width, 81 in depth (roughly 1.33 hectares or 3.28 acres). Yet
neither the Sanchez’s nor the Rojas’ solares seemed to have been of an extraordinary quality. A
much smaller, but sounder solar of about 0.60 hectares (one and half acres) such as the one held
by the Torres family could be worth almost twice in cash.82
Seen from above, from a distant and panoramic standpoint, these differences may not
seem particularly pronounced. Small inequalities, however, gained greater importance in a
context in which people shared almost the same type of resources and lived under more or less
the same conditions. Gaps may not have been unbridgeable, not necessarily, not among most
82
These remarks are based on a small sample of 54 families for which data on solares was available. See, "Padron
de terrenos de la Seccion 3a del Sur en Tancítaro Año 1872," in Archivo General Histórico del Poder Ejecutivo de
Michoacán (AGHPEM , hereafter), Distrito de Uruapan, Hijuela, Tomo 2, ff. 78b-179b; "Padron de terrenos de la
Seccion 4a del Poniente en Tancítaro Año 1872," in AGHPEM, Distrito de Uruapan, Hijuela, Tomo 14, ff. 1-65b;
and "Padron de terrenos de la Seccion 1a del Norte en Tancítaro Año 1872," in AGHPEM, Distrito de Uruapan,
Hijuela, Tomo 2., ff. 14bis-77.
97
purépecha families. Yet they mattered and, if seen from the viewpoint of local standards,
mattered significantly. It was not only that lotes and solares came in a variety of widths, depths,
qualities, and numbers. Such variations expressed inequalities in wealth and, equally important,
in status—which is to say, they were power differences.
Distribution of Agricultural and Forest Lands
Variations within a general pattern of comparable material conditions also characterized the
broader land arrangements of pueblos and villas in the meseta. At the turn of the eighteenth
century, a majority of the 254 pueblos de indios of Michoacán still held the minimum allocation
of lands granted by the Crown for their maintenance and were in possession of at least some of
the ancillary lands also considered in royal ordinances.83 According to a survey including 220 of
these pueblos, almost 49% of them preserved the whole (or about the whole) of their residential
and family plots, while maintaining partial possession of grazing and other common areas. At the
top, pueblos with relatively ample residential, family, and common lands and holdings
comprised 26% of the total. The remaining 25%, in contrast, struggled to carry on with an
83
In particular, the royal ordinance of 1695 (in force by the late eighteenth century) stipulated a minimum allotment
of 600 varas on each of the four compass points measured from the church of the pueblos (some 100 hectares in
total). The ordinance also considered 1100 additional varas (some 85 hectares) for a buffer zone standing between
pueblos and surrounding properties. These additional varas, however, were to be measured from the church of the
pueblos as well, actually adding only 500 varas (some 17.5 hectares) to the minimum of 600 varas. See, García
Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas en Michoacán, 56-57. My calculations. See also, Rodolfo Pastor and María de los
Ángeles Frizzi, “Integración del sistema colonial,” 137 and Rodolfo Pastor and María de los Ángeles Frizzi,
"Expansión económica e integración cultural," in Florescano, Historia general de Michoacán, vol. 2, 170-171.
98
inadequate allotment of lands for family parcels and without supplementary lands. The
lowermost 3% did so without even enough terrains for residential areas.84
All thirty-nine pueblos in the meseta included in the survey were in possession of at least
a basic share of lands, whether it was for housing, cultivation, or other purposes. Some pueblos,
however, had a little more. About four in every ten, to be precise, clearly surpassed the minimum
allocation of lands specified by the Crown, supplementary lands included. The holdings of these
pueblos encompassed ranchos, dozens and sometimes hundreds of heads of livestock, horses,
grazing lands on lease, surplus funds, as well as additional holdings managed by cofradías or
brotherhoods. Such was the case, for instance, of Tingambato, Tancítaro, Paricutín,
Parangaricutiro, and the barrios of Uruapan (considered as a single unit). By comparison, the
holdings of pueblos such as Sevina, Sicuicho, Nurio or Tanaco were more limited. The lands and
resources of these pueblos were still enough to secure sustenance and additional funds (at least,
in principle). Yet their cultivation fields and pasture lands, the number of horses and livestock
84
My calculations, based on García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas en Michoacán, 68-71, 75-77, 83-91, and 96102 (tables 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively). García Ávila provides different percentages. According to him, pueblos
missing part of their residential and family lands accounted for 22%, pueblos without supplementary lands
accounted for 21%, pueblos missing part of their supplementary lands comprised 45%, and pueblos with complete
or surplus lands comprised 26% for a misleading total of 114%. His otherwise fine research mistakenly duplicates
some pueblos in two different categories. García Ávila also overlooks the possibility that pueblos with apparently
insufficient residential plots, for instance, actually could hold relatively large pieces of agricultural and
supplementary land. As a result, García Ávila’s tables offer the inaccurate number of 291 pueblos de indios,
although his percentages are actually based on a total of 254. His evidence, however, only accounts for 220 pueblos.
Hence the inaccuracy of the numbers. For the number of 254 pueblos de indios in Michoacán see, Dorothy Tanck de
Estrada, Atlas ilustrado de los pueblos de indios: Nueva España, 1800 (Mexico: El Colegio de México / El Colegio
Mexiquense / Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas / Fomento Cultural Banamex, 2005),
126. See also, Morin, Michoacán en la Nueva España, 286-288.
99
they owned, and the surplus funds they could normally obtain were comparatively smaller and
fewer.85
Fig. 1. Land Values c. 1869 (in pesos)
Quinceo
Turicuaro
Capacuaro
Comachuen
Pomacuaran
Urapicho
Paracho
Sevina
San Francisco Periban
San Felipe
Ahuiran
Corupo
Cheran
Charapan
Nahuatzen
Paricutin
Cochuco
Tanaco
Nurio
Cheran-Atzicurin
Arantepacua
Aranza
Angahuan
San Lorenzo
Parangaricutiro
Jucutacato
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
Source: “Noticia Num. 16,” in Memoria leida ante la legislatura de Michoacán en la sesion del dia 30 de Julio de
1869 por el secretario de gobierno del estado, Lic. Francisco W. González (Morelia: Imprenta de O. Ortiz, 1869),
124-125.
Although the evidence is unfortunately scarce and patchy, there are some indications that
this uneven distribution of resources among the pueblos of the meseta continued throughout
much of the nineteenth century. By 1869, right before the first wave of liberal land policies came
85
Based on, García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas en Michoacán, 83-91 and 96-102 (Tables 3 and 4).
100
about, places such as Uruapan, Tancítaro, and Apo were still comparatively more affluent than
the rest of the pueblos in the region. According to the rough estimates provided to the
government of Michoacán by local officials, agricultural lands in the hands of purépecha
families living in seven barrios of the city Uruapan were worth around 36,000 pesos. For their
part, Tancítaro and Apo held properties worth the outstanding sum of 40,000 and 25,000 pesos
respectively. The average value of the properties of a typical pueblo in the meseta was, however,
much more modicum; probably some 2,100 pesos as a minimum. Pueblos that had traditionally
depended on limited lands continued having fewer resources. The properties of Urapicho,
Turicuaro, and Capacuaro, for instance, amounted to no more than 1,000 pesos. This type of
pueblos comprised at least 15% of the total in the meseta.86
A similar pattern distinguished the tenure of common areas, particularly that of the
woodlands. In the mid-1880s, purépecha communities had almost 45% of all forested areas in
the meseta. That is, 152,475 hectares of the 349,895—or 376,776 acres out of 864,609—that
were officially reported as comprising the woodlands of the region in the first comprehensive
survey of the forests of Michoacán.87 Probably all communities in the meseta had access to
86
My calculations based on, “Noticia número.16,” in Memoria de Michoacán de 1869, 124-125. The data includes
28 pueblos and the city of Uruapan as a whole. The estimation of the average value of the properties of pueblos in
the meseta does not include Uruapan, Tancítaro, and Apo. See appendix 3 of this dissertation.
87
The number of hectares in indigenous hands was in likelihood greater. The estimation of 152,475 hectares does
not include Tancítaro. There, by around 1885 when the survey was conducted, numerous purépecha families and
individuals most certainly still possessed a sizeable part of the local woodlands (some 73,571 hectares in total), but
possession was in most cases private, in partnerships, or formed part of ranchos managed by the community or some
community members—and not, as in most other pueblos, part of communal lands strictly speaking.
These estimations and the following section are based on: “Catastro de los bosques y montes del Estado,
que se formó en cumplimiento de los dispuesto en la fraccion II del artículo 2° de la ley número 50 de 18 de
Diciembre de 1882”, in Memoria sobre los diversos ramos de la administración pública, leída ante el Congreso del
Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo, en las sesiones del 21 y 23 de mayo de1885, por el secretario de despacho, Lic.
101
forests, but local officials provided data for only thirty one of them. As with lots and agricultural
lands, the distribution of forested areas among pueblos was all but even.
In fact, there were three clearly discernible groups. The first one, comprised of a majority
of communities (55%), had between less than half and 30 hectares (74 acres) of forest lands. The
second group, constituted by a smaller collection of ten communities (32%), held substantially
more woodlands—between 900 and 9,000 hectares (or about 2,200 and 22,000 acres). The last
group consisted of four or seven communities (13%), depending on whether three of the barrios
of the city of Uruapan for which there is data available are counted as one community. The
forested areas of this top group ranged between 20,000 and 50,000 hectares (or some 49,400 and
123,550 acres respectively). Thus, by the late nineteenth century 17 communities concentrated
nearly all of the montes formally surveyed and recognized by the authorities of Michoacán as
belonging to the purépecha population of the meseta. Within this cluster of communities a tight
group actually accumulated 80% of the total—some 122,000 hectares or almost 300,000 acres.
These are, of course, approximate estimations; they are, nonetheless, very illustrative.
Some communities may have misreported and local officials may have failed to report on many
forested areas upon which people in the pueblos conventionally relied. Loose boundaries
between public and communal domains may have also caused some misrepresentation,
especially since the management of forested areas was at the time a responsibility of local
Francisco Pérez Gil, Morelia, 1885 (Morelia: Imprenta del Gobierno a cargo de José R. Bravo, 1885), 95-110.
There is also a facsimile edition of the survey: Primer inventario de los bosques y montes de Michoacán, 1885
(Morelia: CIDEM / UMSNH / Gobierno del estado de Michoacán / Fundación PRODUCE / CONAPOR, 2006).
See, Appendix 4 of this dissertation.
102
municipal authorities. Yet it seems that the overall distribution of woodlands among the pueblos
of the meseta was, for the most part, very well-defined. A minority of pueblos enjoyed a
considerably more advantageous position over the rest, followed by a cluster of pueblos with
lesser but still substantial montes, and a majority living on with limited woodlands—of which the
ones at the bottom struggled the most. In other words, a community such as Parangaricutiro
could hold over 23,000 hectares of forest distributed in 15 fifteen different montes (some 56,834
acres), and one such as Tingambato possess over 2,000 hectares in eight different places (about
5,000 acres), but a community such as Cocucho barely have over one hectare.
The imbalance was no different among privately owned forests. Feliciano Vidales had
almost 70,000 hectares of woodlands (a little more than 170,000 acres), distributed in five
properties and comprising at least five different montes—mostly in the municipality of Uruapan,
but also in his hometown Tanaco.88 No other single pueblo, individual, or group of individuals
controlled such a large area of forest in the meseta. Two other prominent landowners
concentrated over 50,000 hectares (about 123,550 acres); Juan Yausi was the owner of 40,800
hectares in Uruapan, while Ramon Sotomayor held 11,679 hectares in Taretan (about 100,000
and 30,000 acres each). Combined, the properties of these three individuals accounted for nearly
61% of all privately owned woodlands—the equivalent to almost 80% of all forests held by
purépecha communities in the region.
A majority of landowners held significantly smaller areas of forest. Many, in fact, were
probably smallholders. In the municipality of Los Reyes, for instance, the average property was
88
Miranda, Uruapan, 31, mentions Vidales was originally from Tanaco.
103
less than one hectare per individual, while in Periban it was less than ten hectares (that is, less
than 2.4 and 24.7 acres respectively). Aside from Vidales, Yausi, and Sotomayor, few
individuals actually held more than 1,000 hectares of woodlands (c. 2500 acres). What is more,
most properties over 100 hectares (250 acres), which comprised just about 38% of all private
forested areas, were owned by individuals grouped together in partnerships. On the whole, a very
small number of landowners individually controlled vast areas of forests, a significantly larger
number of partnerships held very sizeable stretches of woodlands, and an even larger number of
smallholders owned only small portions of the meseta forests.89
Interestingly enough, most privately owned forests were situated in the lower meseta. As
a rule, pueblos in the upper meseta faced considerably less competition from local landowners.
In fact, large landowners were virtually absent there. The exception was, perhaps, Nahuatzen,
wherein an individual called Francisco Alvelo held about 30% of the officially registered local
woodlands. Things were substantially different in the lower meseta. There pueblos split forested
areas with an important number of smallholders and landowners—some of which, the largest
forest-owners of the region. Feliciano Vidales and Juan Yausi were certainly the concern of
many among the barrios of Uruapan and the surrounding pueblos of Jicalan, Jucutacato,
Arantepacua, and San Lorenzo. Vidales himself and other three major landowners were
prominent in the municipality of Taretan, wherein there were no reports of the local purépecha
community holding forests.
89
See, Appendix 4.
104
Conditions were similar, but less polarized in other municipalities of the lower meseta. In
Periban, Los Reyes, and Tancítaro, pueblos and landowners also competed for forested areas, but
concentration was not as pronounced as in Taretan. The pueblo of San Francisco, for instance,
held about a quarter of all the surveyed woodlands in Periban, while a group of fourteen
individuals (some of them partners) owned the remaining three quarters. The pueblo of San
Gabriel held a modest 4% of the inventoried forests of the municipality of Los Reyes, while a
dozen local landowners and smallholders split the rest in relatively even and fairly small
fragments—none, as pointed out above, larger than one hectare. In the municipality of Tancítaro,
a large collection of smallholders divided up a sizable area of woodlands of almost 74,000
hectares or c. 183,000 acres. The area occupied by common forest comprised but 1.70 hectares
(or 4 acres). Yet many smallholders were in all likelihood local purépecha families who, either
on their own or in association with other landholders, collectively held a significant part of all
local forest lands.90
Haciendas and Ranchos in Nineteenth-century Michoacán
The relative small number of large landowners and the significant presence of middling and
small landholders in the meseta, in fact, corresponded to the general distribution of landed
properties in Michoacán. Ranchos, not haciendas, were the predominant and most common form
of land tenure across the state—a pattern that probably stretched back to the eighteenth century,
90
The peculiar case of Tancítaro will also be examined in the next chapter.
105
despite the fact that during this century (especially its second half) haciendas and large-scale
commercial agriculture witnessed an unprecedented growth.91
Fig. 2. Haciendas and Ranchos in Michoacán, 18221910
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
1822
1849
1857
1877 1880-82 1887
Ranchos
1900
1910
Haciendas
Sources: Martínez de Lejarza, Análisis estadístico de la provincia de Michoacán; Memoria de Gobierno de
Michoacán, 1849; Romero, Noticias para formar la historia y la estadística del obispado de Michoacán; Memoria
Fomento de 1865; Memoria del Gobierno de Michoacán de 1869; "Cuadro 47. Haciendas y ranchos existentes en las
entidades federativas. Años 1877 a 1910," Estadísticas Sociales del Porfiriato; "Noticia Número 23," in Memoria de
Gobierno de Michoacán, 1890; AGN, Fomento y Obras Públicas, Agricultura, Leg. 2, Caja 8, Exp.1, Mich., 1910.
From independence to the Mexican revolution, the number of ranchos in Michoacán
remained above the thousand and, in fact, accounted for several thousand towards the turn of the
nineteenth century. Indeed, there were substantially more ranchos in 1910 than there were in
1821. For over three decades, since the early 1820s, ranchos experienced a slow but steady
increase, reaching the figure of 1,617 by 1857. By the late 1870s, this number had slightly
91
See, Morin, Michoacán en la Nueva España; and more recently Jorge Silva Riquer, La producción y los precios
agropecuarios en Michoacán en el siglo XVIII (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo / El
Colegio de Michoacán, 2012).
106
dropped, but it then skyrocketed during the 1880s—the number of ranchos more than doubled
that of early 1820s. By the turn of the century there was, apparently, a very significant drop. Yet,
on the eve of the Mexican revolution, ranchos reached an historical high of 5,407.
There were more haciendas in 1910 than in 1821 too. Yet, after having peaked during the
first two thirds of the nineteenth-century, they could not parallel the extraordinary proliferation
of ranchos. In 1822, there were approximately 333 haciendas in Michoacán. Over the next three
decades they more than doubled, climbing to an all-time high of 759 in the late 1850s. By 1865,
however, haciendas faced a significant fall and were 40% fewer than in 1857. From roughly
1877 to 1900, the number of haciendas experienced a series of fluctuations. In 1880, it dropped
to its lowest point since the early 1820s, but then notably recovered by the end of the decade.
There was another drop in the 1890s, followed once more by an increase during the first decade
of the twentieth century. By 1910, there were 442 haciendas in Michoacán, about 33% more than
in 1822. An important increase, no doubt, but significantly smaller compared to the almost 300%
upswing of ranchos over the same period.
Fig. 3. Number of Ranchos and Haciendas in Michoacán
Year
1822
1849
1857
1865
1877
1880
Ranchos
Haciendas
1,356
1,529
1,617
No data
1,527
3,695
107
333
752
759
445
496
352
1887
1900
1910
3,437
2,354
5,407
503
359
442
Sources: See Fig. 2.
Ranchos, indeed, consistently outnumbered haciendas in Michoacán throughout the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the early 1820s, there were approximately four times
more ranchos than haciendas. The disparity diminished by 1850, but there were still twice as
many ranchos as there were haciendas—a ratio that persisted over the decade. During the 1870s
and 1880s, ranchos outstripped haciendas by about 10 to 3 and at some point (c. 1880) by about
10 to 1. By the turn of the century, the imbalance once more lessened, but only briefly. In 1910,
for every hacienda there were approximately twelve ranchos—a significantly higher ratio
compared to almost a century earlier.
The number of ranchos in Michoacán was also very high compared to other regions of
Mexico. In fact, Michoacán repeatedly ranked among the top three states with the most ranchos
in the country. In 1857, for instance, there were 36% fewer ranchos in the state of Mexico than
in Michoacán (1,033 and 1,617 respectively). What is more, the ranchos of Michoacán tripled
the number of all the ranchos existing in Veracruz, Sonora, and Guerrero together.92 By 1877,
only the nearby state of Jalisco eclipsed Michoacán. Almost a quarter of a century later, in 1900,
Jalisco continued to hold the largest collection of ranchos in the republic and Michoacán now
92
See, Memoria de la secretaría de estado y del despacho de Fomento, Colonización, Industria y Comercio de la
república mexicana, escrita por el ministro del ramo C. Manuel Siliceo. para dar cuenta con ella al Soberano
Congreso Constitucional (Mexico: Imprenta de Vicente García Torres, 1857) 12-13.
108
ranked third after its neighbor Guanajuato—an still remarkable position considering that the
number of ranchos in northern states such as Coahuila or Sinaloa had multiplied by ten since the
late 1870s. A decade later, as ranchos mushroomed in most states of the country, Michoacán
regained its numerical ascendancy over Guanajuato and once again ranked second after the ever
dominant Jalisco.93
Although unquestionable, the predominance of ranchos in Michoacán actually entailed a
somewhat more complicated reality than what their extraordinary numerical incidence shows. As
many authors have pointed out, the category of rancho was very flexible and even ambiguous.
Many of the ranchos of Michoacán were nothing but small settlements inhabited by a small
number of people who may or may not own the small parcels they tilled—that is, they were in
reality rancherías. In some other cases, ranchos described individual or family-owned
smallholdings of few hectares; independent properties dedicated more often than not to
subsistence agriculture and to supply local markets. On occasions, by ranchos people also meant
dependent parts of haciendas occupied by a wide variety of people, from peones to
sharecroppers to tenants. The opposite was sometimes true as well. Although a minority, some
ranchos were virtually undistinguishable from small and middling haciendas; they were
individually owned and commercial-oriented productive units with permanent wage laborers,
sharecroppers, and tenants of their own. A majority, however, corresponded to the more
conventional view of ranchos as middling landed properties ranging between few hundred and
93
See, “Cuadro 47. Haciendas y ranchos existentes en las entidades federativas. Años de 1877 a 1910,” in
Estadísticas sociales del porfiriato, 1877-1910 (Mexico: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación,1956), 41.
109
one thousand hectares (around 2,470 acres). Ran by individuals, families, and partnerships,
commercial-oriented, these ranchos supplied local and regional markets, although with more
limited means and workers than most haciendas.94
The haciendas of Michoacán, for their part, tended to be of relatively medium size. By
1910, the vast majority ranged between 1,000 and 10,000 thousands hectares (the equivalent to
roughly 2,470 and 24,710 acres), a fairly moderate extent compared to some of the cotemporary
latifundia of several northern states of the country, where aridity led to a focus on extensive
grazing. In fact, haciendas of less than 5,000 hectares alone (some 12,355 acres) probably
comprised 50% of the total in Michoacán.95 There were, of course, a number of extraordinarily
large properties there. Most of them, located in areas of comparatively scarce population—
especially in the heart of tierra caliente.96 Large haciendas, however, did not necessarily entail
94
See, François-Xavier Guerra, México: del Antiguo Régimen a la Revolución, vol. 2 (México: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 1991), 473-490; Meyer, "Haciendas, ranchos, peones y campesinos en el porfiriato,” 477-509; Purnell,
Popular Movements, 40-44; Juan Carlos Cortés Máximo, El valle de Tarímbaro. Economía y sociedad en el siglo
XIX (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nic olás de Hidalgo, 1999), 94; Christopher Boyer, Becoming
Campesinos: Politics, Identity, and Agrarian Struggle in Postrevolutionary Michoacán, 1920-1935 (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2003), 58-59; Luis González y González, Pueblo en vilo: microhistoria de San José de
Gracia (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1995), 71; Herón Pérez Martínez, “El vocablo rancho y sus derivados:
génesis, evolución y usos,” in Rancheros y Sociedades rancheras, eds. Esteban Barragan López, Odile Hoffmann,
Thierry Linck and David Skerritt (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán / Centre d’Etudes Mexicaines et
Centramericaines / Institut Français de Recherche Scientifique pour le Développment en Coopération, 1994), 33-55;
and also in this volume the brief but insightful contriution of David Brading, “A 25 años del encuentro con
‘rancheros’,” 329-334; John Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1986), 228-240.
95
See, "Cuadro 61. Superficie de las haciendas de algunas entidades federativas. Año de 1910," in Estadísticas
sociales del Porfiriato, 64-65. This data is based on a sample of 100 landed properties, about 22% of the total in
1910. In the valley of Tarímbaro, for instance, near the city of Morelia, the largest haciendas did not surpass 6,500
hectares or some 16,000 acres (see, Cortés Máximo, El valle de Tamrímbaro, 61-92.
96
For land tenure in tierra caliente see, Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, El suroeste de Michoacán. Estructura económicosocial, 1821-1851 (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1979); Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, El
suroeste de Michoacán. Estructura económico-social, 1852-1910 (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás
de Hidalgo, 1988).
110
steady or ever-expanding large economic operations. Indeed, the performance of haciendas,
whether small or big, varied considerably over the decades.
The Ebbs and Flows of a Rural Economy
The preponderance of smallholdings and ranchos in Michoacán was intimately related to the
economic ebbs and flows of haciendas. As Margaret Chowning has shown, the overall economy
of Michoacán, particularly the one based on rural properties, went through several different
cycles: "growth in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; collapse in the 1810s and
early 1820s; more-or-less full economic recovery by midcentury; another depression in the 1860s
and 1870s; and, finally, the Porfirian boom."97 Indeed, as in many other once thriving former
New Spanish regions, commercial agriculture (and other large-scale activities) in Michoacán
emerged from the wars of the 1810s severely damaged. Economic contraction continued during
the first decade after independence. Yet signs of recovery began in the early 1830s as mining
revived in Zacatecas and accelerated in the 1840s when silver stimulated markets at nearby
Guanajuato). Soon haciendas were once again making substantial profits—to the extent that
some of them became even more prosperous than during the late colonial period.98
The economic resurgence of the 1830s and 1840s, however important, did not result in an
unchallenged ascent of hacendados. As a matter of fact, a great part of the old colonial landed
97
Margaret Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico: Michoacán from the Late Colony to the Revolution
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 9.
98
See, Margaret Chowning, "Reassessing the Prospects for Profit in Nineteenth-Century Mexican Agriculture from
a Regional Perspective: Michoacán, 1810-1860,” in How Latin America Fell Behind. Essays on the Economic
Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914, ed., Stephen Haber (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 179215.
111
elite was forced to sell their properties to a rising new generation of landowners of (initially)
moderate wealth. Lacking the capital and unable to rely on the Church’s traditional credit (which
had been disrupted), the new landowners turned to an also emerging group of local merchants to
reestablish the operation of their newly acquired haciendas. Merchants, not landowners, had the
upper hand in these dealings. Eventually some landowners managed to overcome their
dependence on merchants, but trade constituted to be a much more profitable business than
husbandry. Many landowners, in fact, systematically resorted to cash tenancy and sharecropping
in order to “bring fields back into production with as little cash outlay as possible.”99 Some
others turn to livestock rearing instead of cultivation or simply rented stretches of hacienda lands
so others could use them for pasturage. Despite all efforts, some lands often remained without
commercial use for relatively long periods of time.100
Moreover, although haciendas became profitable, markets continued to be limited. For
the most part, haciendas supplied local and regional markets or specific areas within the
neighboring states of Guanajuato, Querétaro, Jalisco, and the state of Mexico—all of which
experiencing economic challenges of their own. Trade with Mexico City (a three days’ ride
away) was limited to few products (such as red meat and some sugar-based products) and
merchants normally took the lion’s share of the business—local merchants, at first, but then large
foreign commercial houses based in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Tampico, Colima, and Veracruz.
99
Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico, 165.
Ibid., 144-151, 160-197. See also, Mayté Nava García and Ramón Alonso Pérez Escuria, La hacienda de Los
Laureles, Michoacán. Siglos XVI-XX (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo / Morevallado
Editores, 2005); Gerardo García Díaz, "Tenencia de la tierra, agricultura y ganadería," in Florescano, Historia
general de Michoacán, vol. 3, 232-250.
100
112
Despite being the largest city of Michoacán and still at the time one of the largest in the country,
Morelia did not become the engine of a state-wide economic transformation. As most other cities
in Mexico during the first decades after independence, its population and connections to the
wider world were not extensive enough so as to exert a major gravitational pull. The influence of
Morelia was, in reality, fairly regional. Other urban centers of Michoacán such as Zamora or
Uruapan (as mentioned earlier, a city only until 1858) played similar roles, but their influence
was even more restricted.101
Transportation and roads also kept a relatively tight rein on the ongoing, but curbed
commercial reactivation that began in the 1830s. Secondary roads had changed little since the
late colonial period—and thus the means of local and regional trade, as well as their underlying
difficulties, remained more or less the same than in past decades. Efforts to create a railroad
network in Michoacán began in the 1860s and 1870s, but it was not until the 1880s that rail lines
were finally set in place. Furthermore, as one official lamented in 1849, Michoacán had no
“medios de comunicacion directa con algun pais extrangero por la falta de un puerto.”102 Indeed,
despite having thousands of miles of coastline on the Pacific, the long-desired project of building
a major port to connect the state with the international circuits of commerce had proved to be
very elusive. The early 1870s would witness how the last important attempt in many years to
101
Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico, 219-222; José Alfredo Uribe Salas, “Morelia durante el
Porfiriato," in Michoacán en el siglo XIX. Cinco ensayos de historia económica y social (Morelia: Universidad
Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1999), 165-205; and José Bravo Ugarte, Historia sucinta de Michaocán
(Morelia: Morevallado Editores, 2007), 449.
102
Memoria que sobre el estado que guarda en Michoacán la administración pública en sus diversos ramos,
presenta al honorable Congreso del mismo el secretario del despacho Lic. Jesus M. Herrera en 2 de enero de 1849
(Morelia: Imprenta de I. Arango, 1849) 16.
113
turn Michoacán into a privileged passage point between the Atlantic and the Pacific fell apart.
Several members of a surveyor team sent by the federal government to conduct preliminary
topographic studies for the construction of a rail line ended up sick or even dead as a result of the
harsh conditions they encountered on the coast town of Bucería where they were based.
Michoacán still had no major port by 1910 and thus its long-distance trade relations remained
limited and dependent on far-off commercial houses and port cities.103
While landowners in general benefited from the recovery, some fared better than others.
During the 1820s and 1830s, high prices of sugar and sugar-based products (sweets and alcoholic
drinks, for instance) contributed to reboot production in the southern region of tierra caliente
(the hot-country), a traditionally commercial-oriented area wherein the cultivation of cash crops
such as indigo, rice, and cotton (in addition, of course, to sugarcane) had long dominated.
Environmental factors—mid to low altitudes, high temperatures, dry weather, together with
humid soils and abundant waterways—had made it more suitable for these crops to be grown
than wheat or maize. Cash crops, however, were also more expensive to cultivate. They required
more capital, more infrastructure (especially in irrigation projects), and more labor (usually
scarce given the traditionally low population of the tierra caliente). Yet, as long as prices
remained high (as they did after independence) profits could soon be very high too.104
103
José Alfredo Uribe Salas, "Michoacán y los proyectos de comunicación en el occidente de México, 1850-1874,"
in Michocán en el siglo XIX, 43-90; and José Alfredo Uribe Salas, Empresas, comunicación interocéanica y ramales
ferroviarios en Michoacán, 1840-1910 (Moreila: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 2008).
104
Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico, 161-162; and Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, Los cultivos tropicales
en Michoacán. Época colonial y siglo XIX (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo / Centro
de Investigación y Desarrollo de Michoacán / Morevallado Editores / Fundación Produce, 2008).
114
Less profitable, but a securer business in the uncertain times that came after
independence, wheat and maize cultivation prevailed in much of the upper lands and the valleys
of Michoacán. It took longer for the prices of these staples to recover. As a result, tierra fría
(cold-country) landowners lacked the advantages of their peers in tierra caliente. Yet, unlike the
cash crops of the hot-country, cereals could be cultivated with relatively modest investment,
labor, and infrastructure. Natural conditions also favored cereal production over tropical crops. It
was certainly easier to grow wheat or maize when water scarcity made large irrigation projects
unfeasible. Where water was abundant, the weather and the altitude made it harder to grow such
sun- and energy-demanding crops as sugarcane. Not surprisingly, it was in the cereal-producing
regions of Michoacán where sharecropping, cash tenancy, livestock grazing, and joint
partnerships became more extended.105
The reactivation of the economy peaked in the mid-1850s. It was enough to reestablish
hacienda production and bring plenty of wealth to a new group of merchants and landowners.
Yet, as Chowning points out, it “was not an economy that was obviously poised to move much
beyond recovery; there were limits to its potential for expansion.”106 Contraction and depression
characterized the following two decades. Not until the 1880s did the economy of Michoacán
began to take off again.
105
106
Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico, 162-168.
Ibid., 248.
115
A full-scale civil war from 1858 to 1861 and then a major international war from 1864 to
1867 disrupted the bases of the early recovery.107 Triggered by the immediate need for funds to
support the war efforts of the liberal federal government, the nationalization of church assets in
1859—including its many unredeemed loans—brought unforeseen negative consequences to
many of those who had benefited from the relative prosperity of previous years. Unable to
redeem their old debts all at once (now in the hands of the government or second-party
creditors), numerous smallholders and landowners faced bankruptcy and foreclosure. The value
of landed properties and rent prices dropped. The price of agricultural products and commodities
also fell, limiting landowners’ profits and their ability to improve their properties (not to say
expand them). Trade was regularly disrupted, transport costs (always high) soared, and capital
(always in short supply) became scarcer. The destruction of property and roads also exacted its
economic costs, although probably to a lesser degree compared to the 1810s and 1820s.108
One important consequence of the economic downturn that began in the late 1850s was
the fragmentation of haciendas. Indeed, roughly speaking, from 1860 to the mid-1880s dozens of
large haciendas were subdivided in smaller sections and sold to hundreds of individuals.
Although this process still awaits a more detailed study, the partition of haciendas in all
107
See, ibid. 261-284 and 292-303; Álvaro Ochoa Serrano and Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, Breve historia de Michoacán
(Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, 2003), 122-146; Gerardo Sánchez Díaz,
"Desamortización y secularización en Michoacán durante la reforma liberal 1856-1863," in Historia general de
Michoacán, vol. 3, 39-60; Carlos García Mora, "Guerra y sociedad durante la intervención francesa, 1863-1867," in
Historia general de Michoacán, vol. 3, 61-100. Eduardo Ruíz, Historia de la guerra de intervención en Michoacán
(Morelia: Morevallado Editores, 2008 [1881]); Bravo Ugarte, Historia sucinta, 412-431, 446-449.
108
Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico, 271-278.
116
likelihood contributed to the proliferation of ranchos across Michoacán, perhaps more notably
during the late 1870s and early 1880s when the number of ranchos skyrocketed.
The fragmentation did not lead to the entire displacement of the landed elite formed
during the 1830s and 1840s. Many of the buyers were already established landowners. Yet
hacienda subdivisions probably boosted the formation of a middling rural strata composed by
numerous mid-landowners and smallholders. In the mid-run, the partition of haciendas may have
also benefited surviving landowners who had first sold parts of their properties to avoid total
foreclosure, but then found themselves with more manageable and less indebted properties
beginning in the mid-1880s when the economy started to recover again. All in all, however, the
two and a half decades that began with the last major national civil war before the Mexican
revolution set great limits to the expansion of large-scale agricultural activities in Michoacán.109
The Chronic Limits of Hacienda Dominance and Commercial Expansion
The economic recovery of the 1830s-1850s and the slump of the next two decades were not
without consequences for pueblos. Some faced important challenges and experienced drastic
changes, especially during the years of commercial recovery. The expansion of commercial
agriculture in some cases resulted in the enlargement of landed properties at the expense of
pueblos. Such was the case, for instance, of the haciendas of Mariano Villaseñor and Francisco
Plancarte in the Jiquilpan and La Piedad areas in northwestern Michoacán. Both Villaseñor and
Plancarte took advantage of the ongoing reactivation of large-scale economic activities to acquire
109
See, Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico, 285-290; and Purnell, Popular Movements, 26-30.
117
pueblo lands, sometimes by means of buying large stretches of lands from individuals who
claimed to be spokespersons of a particular pueblo, but mostly through separate and multiple pity
purchases of relative small plots over the course of the years.110 During the fall of 1857, in the
valley of Tarímbaro near the capital city of Morelia, a group of indigenous dwellers rose in
revolt demanding lands and water rights previously lost to the neighboring haciendas of La
Magdalena and Guadalupe.111
Yet, for the most part, these enlargements tended to happen among pueblos that were
already facing important difficulties. That is, among pueblos that were already encircled by
nearby haciendas and ranchos. Not surprisingly, this was more frequently the case in areas
where haciendas and ranchos had established their economic predominance since the late
colonial period and sometimes since well before—places such as Jiquilpan, La Piedad, and
Tarímbaro, but also the tierra caliente. In these areas, indigenous populations had been gradually
shrinking, constituted a clear minority, and pueblos represented solitary isles amid an
archipelago of estates and smallholdings. Overpowered by local landlords and usually internally
divided, many of these pueblos faced significant problems or had almost entirely lost the
material and moral impetus to prevent the selling and buying of communal lands (be they
common areas or family plots), not to mention other perhaps murkier land acquisitions.112
110
Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico, 224.
Cortes Máximo, El valle de Tarímbaro, 54-55, 220-231, and 237.
112
See, Castro, Los Tarascos, 305-344; Ramón Alonso Pérez Escutia, “La política de desintegración de la propiedad
comunal en la región Oriente de Michoacán,” in Los indígenas y la formación del estado mexicano en el siglo XIX
eds. Sergio García Ávila and Moisés Guzmán Pérez (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo,
2008), 191-222; Sergio García Ávila, "Reparto y desintegración de la propiedad comunal indígena en la ribera del
lago de Pátzcuaro, Siglo XIX" (Masters diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2001).
111
118
Equally important, enlargements and land acquisitions also occurred in great part at the
expense of landowners. Wealthy merchants, for instance, sometimes bought landed properties to
diversify their economic operations and consolidate some of their fortune in what was generally
considered a safe and very stable form of investment. Landowners from tierra caliente purchased
additional haciendas and ranchos in tierra fría (and vice versa) so they could expand the range
of their marketable crops and thus have a larger share of the agricultural market. During the
1850s, when Church properties were sold and auctioned, many middling merchants, rancho
owners, hacienda administrators, and a wide collection of tenants also managed to acquire
numerous tracts of hacienda lands. As pointed out above, a similar thing happened during the
1860s and 1870s when economic downturn put haciendas under great duress. 113 Thus, the
comparatively modest size of large-scale commercial activities and the fact that land transactions
involved a relatively broad range of actors and landed properties may have limited the overall
magnitude of hacienda and rancho appropriation of pueblo lands.
Pueblos that managed to keep together their land base (or at least a significant part of it)
in the half century after independence tended to share a number of characteristics. First, they
formed clusters of settlements usually grouped together so that they constituted relatively large
nuclei of population. This gave pueblos certain collective weight and reduced the possibility of
being engulfed by neighboring haciendas and ranchos. Second, environmental conditions and
the geographical location of these pueblos restricted the expansion of large-scale commercial
activities and, thus, the drive to open new lands to production. As suggested earlier, lowlands
113
See, Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico, 222-228.
119
and valleys concentrated most large-scale agricultural production in Michoacán, whereas
highlands were likely to make more room for small-scale and subsistence agriculture. Finally,
these pueblos’ relationship with local landowners was one of mutual advantage as much as it was
one of conflict. Pueblos, haciendas, and ranchos were connected through land and labor; many
families within pueblos relied on haciendas to supplement their annual income, while
landowners relied on pueblos to get the supplementary labor and rent the additional lands that
landowners occasionally needed.114
Resourceful Pueblos
The pueblos of the meseta constituted one of the largest concentrations of indigenous settlements
in Michoacán—probably only surpassed by the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, east of the plateau.
Throughout the nineteenth century and until the collapse of the porfirian regime, haciendas never
outnumbered pueblos in the meseta. Estates probably occupied more lands in comparison
(although the evidence is fragmentary or unavailable), but pueblos congregated far more
population and consistently doubled the number of haciendas. Over the decades, the number of
pueblos and haciendas remained fairly constant. The number of pueblos, in fact, experienced
virtually no changes (always around 40) since at least the late colonial period. Occasional
administrative shifts caused minor variations, but these variations were of formal importance
only. The number of haciendas did not experience significant changes either. From 1821 to
114
See the partially passé but still illuminating suggestions of Erwin P. Grieshaber, “Hacienda-Indian Community
Relations and Indian Acculturation: An Historiographical Essay,” in Latin American Research Review 14, no. 3
(1979): 107-128. See also, Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution, 142-144 and 228-240; and Purnell, Popular
Movements, 32.
120
1910, there were as an average 22 haciendas in the meseta. Right after independence there were
28 of them, as many as they would ever be thereafter. The closest haciendas got to this number
was 25 in 1886; a quarter of century later there were only 21. Haciendas, in sum, did not entirely
dominate the rural landscape of the meseta.115
In fact, as pointed out earlier, the distribution of landed properties in the meseta closely
mirrored that of Michoacán. Decade after decade, ranchos significantly outstripped the number
of haciendas and were consistently more numerous than pueblos. In the early nineteenth century
there were about two ranchos for every pueblo and almost three for every hacienda. The numeric
difference between ranchos, haciendas, and pueblos turned greater during the second half of the
nineteenth century and the 1900s. Yet, similar to state-wide trends, the preponderance of ranchos
in the meseta needs to be taken with some caution. The majority of ranchos were in all
likelihood small properties or small and dependent settlements actually belonging to pueblos,
haciendas, and other ranchos. That explains the notable disparities in the available data.
Sometimes, ranchos and rancherías were simply grouped together in the same category. On
other occasions, rancherías could or could not be included in the surveys depending on the
personal judgment of the surveyors. Independent settlements and small- to mid-size agricultural
units, at any rate, were fairly common in the meseta.
115
See, Lejarza, Analisis estadistico, 105, 133, 144, and 154; Rodríguez, Índice de los pueblos del estado, 11-138;
"División Territorial: Cuadro Número 9," in Memoria de 1882; Memoria de 1885, 95-110; Índice alfabetico, 1-3 and
4-9; and Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), Fomento y Obras Públicas, Agricultura, Leg. 2, Caja 8, Exp.1,
Mich., 1910.
121
Fig. 4. Number of Ranchos and Haciendas in the Meseta
Year
1822
1873
1880
1886
1909
1910
Ranchos Haciendas
81
28
81
16
170
20
98
25
319
22
193
21
Sources: Lejarza, Analisis estadístico ; Rodríguez, Índice de los pueblos del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo, 1873;
"División Territorial: Cuadro Número 9," in Memoria de Gobierno de Michoacán de 1882; Memoria de Gobierno
de Michoacán de1885; Indice alfabetico de la division territorial del Estado de Michoacan de Ocampo, 1909; AGN,
Fomento y Obras Públicas, Agricultura, Leg. 2, Caja 8, Exp.1, Mich., 1910.
Landed properties spread unevenly across the meseta—a result, to an important degree,
of how water was distributed in the region. As mentioned earlier, the upper meseta had no major
estates. The absence of rivers and other major bodies of water limited the economic viability of
big properties and large-scale agriculture. For the most part, people depended on seasonal rains
to grow their crops and rains only came once a year during the summer and early fall.
Subsistence and small-scale commercial agriculture thus tended to predominate. Hence the
importance of the ekuarho, the productive space within household lots devoted to orchards and
vegetable gardens. Squash was extensively cultivated everywhere, but the harvests in places such
as Charapan, Cheran, and Paracho stood out. Peaches were also a staple in Cheran and Paracho,
as well as in the smaller pueblo of San Felipe. Nahuatzen was known for its apples and
Comachuen for its pears. In Paracho, people planted modest amounts of berries. All these
122
produces were traded in local markets and provided families with essential earnings and, for
some, even substantial gains.116
Livestock rearing was also fairly extended in the upper meseta and it too was an
important source of income. Sheep were widely held by indigenous families and pueblos; horses,
donkeys, mules, cows, and, to a lesser extent, swine were common too. Families kept a small
number of animals in corrals within their lots, mainly for domestic consumption and sometimes
for local trade. Pueblos kept their sheep and cows in mid-size ranchos and common lands. Some,
such as Siciucho, Corupo, Comachuen, and Charapan were actually among the main sheepraisers in the whole meseta. By the late nineteenth-century, their flocks amounted to several
thousand, outstripping the number of sheep held by many ranchos and haciendas. These pueblos
also possessed dozens of horses and sometimes several hundred cows.117
By comparison, rivers and streams made the presence of estates in the lower meseta
possible and feasible. Most people still depended on yearly rains to plant their crops, but
waterways facilitated irrigation and thus increased the chances of having more than one harvest a
year. Irrigation also contributed to boost fruit and vegetable production. Pueblos, haciendas, and
ranchos split the use of local watercourses. In general, haciendas and large ranchos utilized
116
See, “Noticas hidrograficas,” 39-43, 58-59, 87-90; Romero, Noticias, 123; “Catálogo de la frutas, raíces,
tubérculos que se producen y expenden en el estado de Michoacán de Ocampo,” in Memoria sobre la
administración pública del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo, leída ante la diputación permanente del congreso del
mismo por el secretario del despacho Lic. Francisco Pérez Gil en la sesión del 13 de septiembre de 1892 (Morelia:
Talleres de la Escuela de Artes, 1892), 17-18, 38, and 42. [34-35, 42, 45-46, 58-59, 61, 64-65, 71-72].
117
See, "Noticia Estadistica Numero 3. Noticia sobre ganaderia de las fincas rusticas del Estado," in Memoria de
Michoacán de 1889.
123
rivers and streams to irrigate their fields and propel wheat and sugar mills. Smallholders and
pueblos irrigated their orchards and vegetable gardens.118
Large-scale commercial agriculture and small-scale cultivation thus coincided in the
lower meseta in a larger extent than in the upper lands. As a result, competition for land, water
and other resources between pueblos, ranchos, and haciendas was also more extended. Clear
dominance of haciendas and ranchos over pueblos, however, was for the most confined to
specific areas, especially to the lowermost areas neighboring tierra caliente. There, the
abundance of water, a lower altitude, and a warmer weather enabled the cultivation of cash crops
such as sugarcane and indigo.
Sugarcane was particularly important in the municipalities of Taretan and Los Reyes. By
the mid-1880s, these two municipalities concentrated the vast majority of haciendas in the
meseta (18 out of a total of 25).119 The two local indigenous pueblos, Ziracuaretiro in Taretan
and San Gabriel in Los Reyes, were probably among the few in the meseta experiencing the very
same challenges and pressures that other pueblos faced in regions where the dominance of
haciendas was more patent. Yet, although haciendas such as Tomendan, Taretan, Santa Clara, or
San Sebastian undoubtedly ruled the local landscape, their economic sway had some limits. They
all profited from large-scale cultivation of sugarcane. Yet part of the profits came not from sugar,
but from molasses and a sweet known as piloncillo. More importantly, the market for sugar was
for the most part restricted to other regions within Michoacán, the Bajío, and other neighboring
118
119
See, “Noticas hidrograficas,” 39-43, 58-59, 87-90.
See, “Catastro de los bosques”, 95-110; and “Noticias hidrográficas,” 39-43.
124
states, while sugar sweets also supplied Mexico City. Although important and significantly
lucrative, the sugar business never managed to dominate the overall economy of the meseta and
did not disrupt the economy of most of its pueblos.120
Coffee became a paramount crop during the last third of the nineteenth century,
especially in the city of Uruapan and its surroundings. According to some contemporary
accounts there were between 200,000 and 300,000 coffee plants by 1886-1888.121 Unlike
sugarcane, however, haciendas did not concentrate coffee cultivation. In fact, coffee was for the
most part grown in small- and mid-size properties, including the ekhuaro of many indigenous
lots. In 1876 the coffee of Uruapan won some international recognition when it was awarded for
its high quality in the Centennial International Exposition held in Philadelphia. This in part
contributed to turn coffee into one of the few products of the meseta (if not the sole product) that
was sent overseas. Coffee exports, however, were never significant and the vast majority of the
production was sold to nearby places and states such as Colima. At its highest point, during the
early 1890s, coffee yields reached some 205,000 kilograms, valued in approximately 107,000
120
See, Romero, Noticias, 91; Michoacán de Ocampo: noticias históricas, geográficas y estadísticas, coleccionadas
y publicadas por la redacción del Periódico oficial del estado (Morelia: Imprenta de O. Ortiz, 1873), 61; Memoria
presentada por el ciudadano general de división Manuel González al Ejecutivo de la Unión, al del Estado de
Michoacán y a la Legislatura del mismo sobre el uso de la facultades discrecionales que le fueron concedidas para
reorganizar polítca y administrativamente dicho Estado (Morelia: Imprenta del Gobierno, 1877), 160; Memoria
presentada al Congreso de la Unión por el secretario de estado y del despacho de fomento, colonización, industria
y comercio de la República Mexicana General Carlos Pacheco, correspondiente a los años trascurridos de enero de
1883 a junio de 1885 (Mexico: Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1887),
801-803; Informes y documentos relativos á comercio interior y exterior, agricultura é industrias, vol. 8 (Mexico:
Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1886), 49-50; Velasco, Geografía y estadística, 174-175; and
Sánchez Díaz, Los cultivos tropicales, 269-308.
121
See, Informes y documentos relativos á comercio interior y exterior, agricultura é industrias, vol. 37 (Mexico:
Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1888), 171-175; and Informes y documentos relativos á comercio
interior y exterior, agricultura é industrias, vol. 41 (Mexico: Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento,
1888), 101-104.
125
pesos—almost as profitable a business as sugarcane sweets, worth some 114,500 pesos by
around the same years. In 1898, however, a plague (apparently aphids) caused severe damages
and by 1901 coffee yields fell to about 11,120 kilograms, valued in no more than 5,600 pesos.122
Coffee in the meseta did not recover from this collapse until after the 1910s and it never regained
its earlier productivity.123 The boom, at any rate, did not significantly alter the basic agricultural
practices of pueblos in the lower meseta since it was mostly the result of cultivation based upon
smallholdings. On the contrary, it may have offered important returns to many indigenous
families in the city of Uruapan, Jucutacato, Jicalan, and other nearby places.
As in the upper lands, most pueblos in the lower meseta also relied on orchards and
vegetable gardens and livestock rearing to supplement their earnings. Fruits and vegetables were
sold in local markets and only exceptionally beyond the region. Zirosto and Paricutin cultivated
modest, but valuable loads of cherries. Quince was also grown in Zirosto and pears in
Parangaricutiro. A wide variety of produces came from Periban, Tancítaro, Tingambato, and the
city of Uruapan (avocados, squashes, peaches, guavas, pomegranates, and sweet potatoes). Fig
was particularly extended in Tingambato and mamey in Jicalan and Jucutacato. Capacuaro and
Arantepacua grew different kinds of apples. Some haciendas and ranchos also engaged in fruit
122
Antonio Peñafiel, Anuario estadístico de la república mexicana 1893 (Mexico: Oficina Tipográfica de la
Secretaría de Fomento, 1894), 599 and 612; Antonio Peñafiel, Anuario estadístico de la república mexicana 1901
(Mexico: Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1902), 518.
123
See, Sánchez Díaz, Los cultivos tropicales, 202-237; and Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, Breve historia del café en
Michoacán (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo / Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de
Michoacán / Fundación Produce, 2006), 33-54.
126
cultivation, but only as a marginal activity that did not preclude small-scale production.124 By
comparison, livestock rearing among the pueblos of the lower meseta faced greater competition
from local haciendas and ranchos. The estates of Los Reyes, for instance, were known for the
high quality of their cattle. Still some pueblos such as Angahuan, Zirosto, and Zacan held
hundreds of cows and sheep. Angahuan, in particular, was among the largest sheep holders of the
lower meseta and was probably one of the few localities there that could compete with the
pueblos of the upper lands.125
The Centrality of Corn
Sugarcane, coffee, fruits, vegetables, and livestock. These were all essential pieces of everyday
life in the meseta. None, however, had such a paramount place as corn. This was equally true for
smallholdings, pueblos, ranchos and haciendas. Landowners relied on corn in times of crisis as
much as they did so in more prosperous seasons. As pointed out earlier, when things got difficult
corn kept hacienda lands productive at a relatively low cost. When things improved, corn
actually became a very lucrative business. Major landowners such as Feliciano Vidales, whose
fortune came for the most part from sugarcane estates, also obtained important gains from corn.
Wheat, the other major grain of the meseta, yielded substantially less profits than corn,
something that turned out to be even truer in periods of commercial expansion. From 1889 to
124
See, “Catálogo de la frutas,” 42, 45, 58, 64, 71-72; Informes y documentos relativos á comercio interior y
exterior, agricultura é industrias, vol. 31 (México: Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1888), 59.
125
See, Michoacán de Ocampo: noticias históricas, 37-38; "Noticia Estadistica Numero 3. Noticia sobre ganadería;”
and Informes y documentos relativos á comercio interior y exterior, agricultura é industrias, vol. 10 (Mexico:
Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1886), 146.
127
1910, during the heyday of the Porfiriato, corn profits in the meseta averaged 436,691 pesos,
while wheat gains were barely around 77,138 pesos. In 1889, corn was fifteen times more
lucrative than wheat. By 1910, the gap significantly shrank, but corn was still three times more
valuable. Just three years earlier, in 1907, corn revenues had reached the historical sum of
527,000 pesos—a sum that only sugarcane products combined may have equaled or surpassed.
Fig. 5. Grain Production in the Meseta
Year
1889
1893
1895
1907
1910
Corn
369,850
360,000
450,000
527,015
476,588
Wheat
24,661
70,000
28,800
84,490
177,740
Sources, "Noticia estadistica numero 2. Noticia de la propiedad rustica del Estado y produccion de la misma.
Distrito rentistico de Uruapan. Resumen de los cuadros sobre propiedad rustica del Estado," in Memoria de
Michoacán de 1889; Peñafiel, Anuario estadístico 1893, 566; Peñafiel, Anuario estadístico 1907, 471 and 474; and
AGN, Fomento y Obras Públicas, Agricultura, Leg. 2, Caja 8, Exp.1, Mich., 1910.
Corn was the single most important crop among mid- and small-scale growers, including
pueblos and indigenous families. Not only because it provided them with basic sustenance, but
because it was, by far, their comparatively most profitable crop. In the early 1890s, Pedro
Galvan, for instance, produced some 1,500 fanegas of corn in Charapan and San Felipe, worth
approximately 3,400 pesos. Antonio Garcia, also a grower from Charapan, produced some 40
loads of wheat valued in the much more modest sum of 100 pesos. Miguel Eiquihua from
Parangaricutiro, harvested around 4,000 fanegas of corn worth 6,000 pesos; by contrast, grower
128
Apolinar Leon, also a resident of Parangaricutiro, gained some 150 pesos from his 50 loads of
wheat. The gap between corn and wheat profits prevailed all across the meseta.126
Overall, pueblos were responsible for a very substantial portion of corn production in the
meseta and thus benefited from its selling in local and regional markets—local corn may have
also been sent to other regions within Michoacán. Yet some pueblos and individuals within them
benefited more than others. Circa 1889, for instance, Urapicho produced about 200 fanegas of
corn equivalent to some 460 pesos, while Paracho and Quinceo produced 900 fanegas equivalent
to a little more than 2,000 pesos. By comparison, Aranza, Ahuiran, and Pomacuaron produced
between 3,600 and 4,000 fanegas each, priced in about 8,000 and almost 9,000 pesos. Production
in Cheran and its tenancy Cheran-Atzicurin was among the highest and more valuable of the
meseta; it amounted to 25,000 fanegas worth some 58,000 pesos.127 According to Carl Lumholtz,
who was in Cheran in the mid-1890s, “the richest man in town was a full-blooded Indian, worth
probably $100,000.” His name was Sebastian Turja. Lumholtz estimated that Don Sebastian, as
he called him, “raised corn to the value of $2,000 every year.”128 There is evidence that more or
less at the time Lumholtz passed by Cheran, Sebastian Turja, Don Sebastian, cultivated 15,000
fanegas of corn valued in no less than 30,000 pesos.129
126
See, “Catálogo de la producciones agrícolas que se obtienen en el estado de Michaocan de Ocampo,” in Memoria
de Michoacán 1892, 94-95, 105, 108, 112, 115, 125, 127, 129, and 134-135.
127
See, "Noticia estadistica numero 2. Noticia de la propiedad rustica.”
128
Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, 391.
129
See, “Catálogo de la producciones agrícolas,” 95. On the past and present importance of corn in different regions
of Michoacán, including the meseta, see, Luis Seefoó Luján and Nicola Maria Keilbach Baer, eds., Ciencia y
paciencia campesina. El maíz en Michoacán (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán / Gobierno del Estado de
Michoacán, 2010).
129
Supplementary Activities
Corn cultivation was thus the essential occupation of most purépecha families and individuals in
the meseta. For those who did not share the same fortune as Sebastian Turja, however, auxiliary
activities remained crucial. A product of the strategic location of settlements and the early
colonial missionary campaigns (fray Juan de San Miguel and Bishop Vasco de Quiroga were, in
that sense, legendary), woodworking was as widespread as an old practice in the region. As with
many other things in the meseta, however, there were some pueblos whose reputation outshone
that of the rest. Capacuaro, Sevina, and Comachuen manufactured planks and beams for houses
and buildings; those of Capacuaro, in particular, were s Acold in many pueblos across the Bajío.
Paracho was known for its wooden boxes, chairs, and bookcases, but above all for its
instruments, especially its guitars. Corupo fabricated wooden containers specifically designed for
transporting sugar sweets or piloncillos.
Other pueblos specialized in different trades. San Felipe was actually called San Felipe de
los Herreros because of its many blacksmiths. “In order to eke out an existence the women, who
are very industrious, do a great deal of textile work,” Lumholtz noted down.130 Women in
Parangaricutiro wove highly prized wool coverlets. Wool garments also came from Paracho.
Ahuiran made tights. The making of handicrafts and other specialized articles was a common
activity too. The people of Nahuatzen made fur items and shoes. Quinceo’s saddles were reputed
to be of the best sort. Rosaries were crafted in Cocucho and Charapan where small wooden
articles such as hand mills were also made. Pottery-making was widely extended in Uruapan.
130
See, Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, 365.
130
Writing in the early 1860s, priest José Guadalupe Romero pointed out that Nurio was celebrated
“por haberse fabricado en él el sombrero del Ilustrísimo Señor Don Vasco de Quiroga después de
haber aprendido los indios bajo la pacientísima direccion de aquel prelado, el oficio de hacer
sombreros.” Quiroga’s hat, said Romero, was still kept by some nuns in Pátzcuaro and hatmaking continued to be a trademark of Nurio.131 Lumholtz noticed that people in meseta were in
general very fond of music, but it appears that the musician occupation was especially practiced
in Zirosto and Zacan.132
Peddlers and muleteers provided an essential service to the meseta. The late arrival of
railways, the uneven state of local roads, and the lack of a major port, turned them all the more
indispensable. Peddlers and muleteers were the intermediaries between landowners and merchant
houses, between artisans and small growers and retailers in and around the meseta. Peddlers,
Lumholtz observed, were “generally natives of the Sierra” and travelled “on foot as far as to the
city of Mexico in the east, Guadalajara in the west, and to the coast towns of Acapulco, Colima,
and Tepic.” They carried on “their back enormous crates (huacales) made of bamboo-sticks”
packed with merchandise, “chiefly pottery”, “brought in from neighboring villages” and “from
considerable distances”.133 Muleteers transported all sorts of items and produces, from tierra
caliente to the city of Uruapan to Morelia, the Bajío, Colima, and Jalisco. Groups of muleteers,
131
See, Romero, Noticias, 86. On trades in general see in this book: 86-87, 93-99, and 123.
See, Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, 388; and Romero, Noticias, 96.
133
Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, 368.
132
131
some of them prominent, came from specific pueblos, namely Aranza, Zirosto, Zacan, Periban,
Parangaricutiro, and Capacuaro.134
Sharecropping and seasonal labor in the sugar- and rice-producing haciendas of the lower
meseta and tierra caliente offered yet another means of securing additional income and, for
some, plain sustenance. As elsewhere in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, the
relationship between haciendas and pueblos was often contentious. Yet the fact that corn played
such a central role in the overall economy of the meseta, even for large landowners, actually
lessened tensions and reduced frontal hostilities. Sharecropping, in that sense, remained not only
feasible, but comparatively advantageous for both parties. Corn-producing haciendas, in
particular, offered families and individuals the relative certainty that lands would not be used for
planting another crop; landowners, for their part, secured additional workers without having to
deal with the expenses of keeping a large base of permanent laborers. The terms could change
from time to time, negatively affecting tenants and sharecroppers, but corn turned sharecropping
into a relatively stable and valuable system for many in the meseta.
Sugar and rice haciendas in the south did not offer lands, but they did offer attractive
wages. Rivers abounded and cash crops could grow conspicuously. Yet workers were always
scarce in these areas of traditionally low local population. As a result, landowners tended to offer
high payments in an effort to attract the laborers they chronically lacked, especially (but not
exclusively) during the harvest season when most hands were needed.
134
Romero, Noticias, 95-96 and 98.
132
The cycle of corn in the meseta actually contributed to turn seasonal labor appealing. In
most places, corn was planted in March and April and harvested in November and December.
Work in the corn fields thus subsided during the summer and most of the winter, precisely the
time when work was available in the sugar and rice fields of the southern lower lands. Sugarcane
was planted from May to July and harvested from October to April. Since irrigation allowed
more than two agriculture cycles a year, rice was both planted and harvested in the late spring
and summer (from roughly April to June) and then again during the fall (especially in November,
but in some places also until January). Many people from the meseta thus spent several weeks a
year working in tierra caliente and its bordering areas. Some, particularly the youngest who did
not possess land of their own yet, probably stayed even longer to earn a little more. Generally
speaking, corn, sugar, and rice did not preclude one another. For most families in the meseta,
they actually represented supplementary sources of income and not rival crops. That is, as long
as corn remained the mainstay of the three.135
Conclusion
Aranza. Paracho. Nurio. Paricutin. Capacuaro. Pueblos in the meseta lived within similar limits
and shared more or less the same prospects. Differences and variations, however, characterized
this world as much as its commonalities. Settlement patterns did not vary much from one place
to another and everywhere a three-part land regime underpinned basic and most auxiliary
135
See, “Catálogo de la producciones agrícolas,” 88, 111, 115, 125, 127, 128; Alfredo Pureco Ornelas, Empresarios
Lombardos en Michoacán. La familia Cusi entre el porfiriato y la posrevolución, 1884-1938 (Zamora: El Colegio
de Michoacán / Instituto Mora, 2010), 139-182; Sánchez Díaz, Los cultivos tropicales, 240-265 and 268-308. For a
general view on sharecropping and hacienda-pueblos ties see, Tutino, From Insurrection, 142-144 and 228-240.
133
activities. Yet settlements followed a well-established hierarchy within which the ascendancy of
some pueblos was comparatively greater. Pueblos employed their resources in similar ways, but
their actual holdings and funds were far from identical and in some cases actually varied greatly.
A minority of pueblos at the top enjoyed comparatively sounder conditions (more land, greater
yields, more cattle, more woodlands); another minority at the bottom was forced to get by with
significantly fewer means. A majority in the middle managed to cope with everyday challenges
and periodic contingencies relying on modest, but well-fitted resources.
A similar pattern characterized the internal composition of pueblos. Social and wealth
differences were universal. As a rule, some families and individuals experienced greater
difficulties to secure sustenance and thus “auxiliary” activities were for them actually of critical
importance. In contrast, a small number of groups and prominent individuals in each pueblo
enjoyed a comfortable life and some even a life of ease. The vast majority knew nothing about
luxuries or indulgencies and oscillated between modest security and recurring privations.
The physical features of the landscape were in general fairly similar across the meseta. Yet
differences in water access, altitude, and climate divided it into two distinct sub-regions. The
lower meseta, profuse in waterways, concentrated all large landed properties— a majority of
which in fact located in the lowermost areas next to tierra caliente. This offered most pueblos
important relief from potential pressures on the part of haciendas and large ranchos. The
importance of corn in the region’s economy provided further alleviation. Numerous and
variegated crops grew in the meseta, but none had the material and social significance of corn. It
134
did not prevent the adverse consequences of large-scale commercial activities, but corn limited
and mitigated their impact upon the livelihood of pueblos and families.
Overall, this was a surprisingly stable world. Stable. Yet not impervious to change.
Ongoing transformations stretching back to at least the early nineteenth century came to light
beginning in the 1870s. They added further complexity to life arrangements in the meseta and
eventually refashioned how pueblos and families related to each other, the government, and the
economy. The nature and magnitude of the changes turned out to be of such consequence that
they can be regarded as a distinct time in the history of the pueblos of the meseta. The time of the
reparto.
135
CHAPTER 3
THE FOUNDATIONS OF LIBERAL LAND REFORM IN THE M ESETA
A definition
Reparto: A nineteenth-century expression standing for liberal land reform. It comes from the
verb repartir which conveys both the act of dividing something into fractions and the act of
sharing out the fractions among a finite number of people. The definition of the verb “to
apportion” closely communicates what the word reparto means: to divide, assign, and distribute
proportional shares of something according to a plan. That something, in this case, was land.
Communal land in particular: the land in possession of hundreds of indigenous communities
across Mexico and Michoacán.
An Unconventional Story
The reparto has been traditionally portrayed as a lop-sided clash between liberal authorities,
on the one hand, and indigenous communities, on the other. Advocates of land reform came to
believe that public good and material prosperity, at least in part, rested upon replacing communal
with individual property rights. They then turned their beliefs into laws and made laws the tool
of reform, the means for communities to measure up to the reformers’ ideals. Unable to go about
their business and unwilling to trade communal land tenure, communities resented land reform
and opposed any attempt of enforcement. In sum, a clash between modern and traditional rights.
136
There is, no doubt, some truth in this portrait. The reparto did pit two very different
forms of understanding property rights against each other. The contest, as well, was certainly
unbalanced. It was liberals who wanted to change the ways of indigenous communities and
devised policies to replace land rights—and not the other way around. Not a single community or
community member was ever consulted in the drafting of reparto laws. Liberal land reform was
to an important degree a top-down creation of a small group of men. Lawyers, writers, highranking military officers, landowners. All members of the local congress or governors of
Michoacán. Some of them prosperous, other of moderate wealth only. No one indigenous.
A closer examination, however, reveals many more angles to this story. At least in the
meseta. There the reparto involved a wide range of overlapping parties and interests.
Communities and liberals did not form two uniform camps or followed one single course of
action.136 Enforcing the reparto required the participation of many different kinds of authorities:
municipal authorities, district authorities, fiscal officials, high-ranking officials, governors, and
federal authorities. Differences and even mutual accusations between them were not uncommon.
Federal and local authorities did not always agree in how and which laws to apply. The Supreme
Court upset decisions of the government of Michoacán. Fiscal officials complained about district
authorities and district authorities, in turn, nagged at municipal authorities, while officials in the
136
This point is also emphasized in Brigitte Boehm,“Las comunidades de indígenas de Ixtlán y Pajacuaran”, in
Estructuras y formas agrarias en México, del pasado y del presente, eds. Antonio Escobar Ohmstede y Teresa Rojas
Rabiela (México: CIESAS, 2001), 145-175; and Jennie Purnell, "With All Due Respect: Popular Resistance to the
Privatization of Communal Lands in Nineteenth-Century Michoacan." Latin American Research Review 34, no. 1
(1999): 93-94.
137
Minister of Government constantly attempted to balance and make sense out of all the different
accounts provided by regional and local authorities.
Communities, for their part, divided into different competing groups supported by
middling and lower community members and led by indigenous and non-indigenous notables,
lawyers, and legal representatives (known as apoderados). Tenants, independent smallholders,
and landowners in close contact with community notables also played a part in shaping the
course of land divisions. Authorities sometimes aided the interests of these non-community
members, but often they also attempted to keep them in check and on occasions explicitly sided
with communities when controversies over the reparto surfaced. The reparto, in sum, entailed an
intricate process of negotiation and compromises in which communities and community groups
sometimes acted as the instruments and sometimes as the sponsors of land divisions.
Six Conditioning Factors
Larger and varied forces framed and conditioned the actions of all parties immersed in this
process. First, and most obviously, an ideology and a set of legal norms that discouraged
communal land tenure and supported instead individual property rights. Throughout the
nineteenth century liberalism offered a body of principles and pragmatic directives to counter the
doctrine established under the Spanish rule which had granted pueblos communal rights over
lands. Three times the government of Michoacán enacted laws in accordance with liberal ideals:
one in January 18, 1827, one in December 13, 1851, and a last one in June 14, 1902. In June 25,
138
1856 the federal government also enacted the first national law affecting communal land tenure
all across the country.137
Significantly, the reparto in the meseta brought to light fundamental differences and even
contradictions between state and federal mandates, especially between the state laws of 1827 and
1851, on the one hand, and the 1856 federal law (the Lerdo law), on the other. Michoacán’s laws
upheld a particular version of liberalism that had stemmed from Cadiz, but gradually grew into a
more radical defense of egalitarianism. As enshrined in state codes, land policies thus entailed
more than merely undoing corporate rights, but an actual reform of the internal make-up of
pueblos by means of redistributing community lands. This sort of egalitarian and reformist bent
was absent in the 1856 Lerdo, a piece of legislation that has conventionally been seen as a
touchtone of militant liberalism in Mexico.
These differences between two coexisting and competing versions of liberalism and
reformism have been almost completely overlooked by students of nineteenth-century land
reforms in Michoacán and Mexico. They were, however, fundamental for how land divisions
took place in the meseta. Local people, including of course community members, were well
aware of this fact. It is true that laws by themselves could not prompt reforms. Yet they did more
than simply delineate an ideal or offer a background for real events to happen. On the ground,
laws provided people with concrete means to take land policies into their own hands.
137
Secondary norms, known as reglamentos, accompanied these laws and provided specific guidelines to enforce
land divisions. The reglamento of the 1827 law was issued in February 15, 1828, that of the 1851 law appeared
simultaneously with the law, and that of the 1902 law was enacted in July 4, 1902 (almost a month after the law).
139
Second, a combination of political conditions and circumstances favored the enforcement
of new land laws. The reparto supposed a firm commitment from its liberal advocates.
Dismantling communal land tenure was certainly one of the most enduring features in the liberal
political agenda. Mere commitment, however, was never enough. Enforcing reparto policies
entailed getting hold of public power and, more importantly, it entailed having enough leverage
to act effectively against political rivals and potential social discontent. Implementation of land
divisions involved mobilizing personnel and resources that governments could not always afford.
Only when liberals were able to secure a clear political advantage over their adversaries did land
reform start coming to fruition.
Third, a new fiscal policy taxed real estate property. Community lands under liberal
governments, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century, became subject to taxation.
This was one of the main and yet hitherto overlooked differences between colonial and liberal
land policies. Under the Spanish rule, indios paid tribute in a number of ways. In kind, hard cash,
or labor. Land, however, remained nontaxable. Not even the eighteenth-century reform under the
Bourbons altered this principle. The reform forced pueblos to put on lease community lands and
took common funds away from the control of repúblicas, but it never established a direct tax on
lands. Reparto policies intended to undo communal land tenure as a means to create a large base
of taxpaying property owners and alleviate the burdens of constantly struggling public finances.
Fiscal measures—a combination of tax exceptions for individual properties of modest value and
140
higher tolls for undivided lands—offered incentives and exert pressures that reparto laws alone
could not provide. Fiscal policy and land reform were fundamentally entangled.138
Fourth, local support in favor of reparto policies. Liberal land reform did not engage
uniform communities wherein resources and power were distributed evenly. A host of competing
interests defined relationships among community members and between community members
and other local actors—namely landowners, tenants, landless peasants, municipal authorities (at
times community members themselves, at times non-community members), and residents of
neighboring pueblos. Confronting communal land tenure, in that sense, necessarily entailed
upsetting more than a unified collective ethos. Reparto policies disturbed all the many interests
comprised and maintained in and around communal land tenure.139
Land reform, accordingly, did not simply pose communities with a basic choice between
resisting and complying with land divisions. Rejecting or supporting land divisions actually
depended on numerous consultations and balancing acts between all interested parties. On the
ground, the reparto became the means to achieve many, often overlapping and even
contradictory, ends. Community members, their lawyers and legal representatives, as well as
138
Margarita Menegus has been particularly emphatic about this point. See, Margarita Menegus, “Ocoyoacac—una
comunidad agraria en el siglo XIX,” in Problemas agrarios y propiedad en México, siglos XVIII y XIX, ed.
Margarita Menegus (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1995), 157; Margarita Menegus, Los indios en la historia de
México (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica / CIDE, 2006), 52 and 57; Margarita Menegus, "La desvinculación y
desamortización de la propiedad en Huajuapan, siglo XIX," in La desamortización en Oaxaca, ed. Carlos Sánchez
Silva (Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2007), 31.
139
See, Emilio Kourí, "Interpreting the Expropriation of Indian Pueblo Lands in Porfirian Mexico: The Unexamined
Legacies of Andrés Molina Enríquez," Hispanic American Historical Review 82, no. 1 (2002): 69-117. Kourí
brilliantly tested the argument of the internal causes of land divisions in his A Pueblo Divided: Business, Property,
and Community in Papantla, Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). A similar perspective informs two
equally revealing studies of pueblos in Michoacán: Purnell, "With All Due Respect," 85-121 and William
Roseberry, "El Estricto Apego a la Ley,” in Ruralidad y reformas liberales en México, ed. Andrew Roth Seneff
(Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 2004), 43-84.
141
tenants, landowners, and local authorities learned how to use land policies to their favor and
against their rivals. Land policies were equally employed to preserve, expand, and acquired
community lands. Supporting land reform was the practical result of down-to-earth decisions
made in the midst of rapidly changing power equilibriums and shifting circumstances. Practical
and short-term reasons (and fears) were behind many land divisions.
Fifth, an upward demographic trend. Short-term decisions were also informed by the fact
that many community members began to face increasing challenges to support their growing
families with more or less the same land base than that of their grandparents and great
grandparents. Population had been growing since the eighteenth century; demographic pressures
had already been causing some distress among the pueblos of the meseta and Michoacán.
Population continued to grow throughout the nineteenth century, but community lands only
occasionally augmented. In general, the size of lands remained without much change.
Demographic growth affected most pueblos and all community members. Yet increases in
population had a greater impact on pueblos and community members with already inadequate
land allocations. It also made middling groups more vulnerable. Changes in the size of
population and families did not act mechanically, but they certainly played their part when
community members faced both pressures and incentives to retain, gain, or hand over their
lands.140
140
For the unequal effects of population changes see, Jack A. Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early
Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 31-34.
142
Sixth, and last, an expansion of commercial activities. Commercial forestry and the
introduction of rail lines in the late nineteenth century precipitated one of the most significant
shifts in how pueblos and community members possessed and enjoyed their lands. As we have
seen, large-scale commercial activities were not absent in the meseta. Yet they were mostly
limited to agricultural activities. In general, forest exploitation responded to domestic and smallscale endeavors only. Customary practices started to change with an increase in the demand for
turpentine and lumber for construction. The arrival in Michoacán of the railroad, however, gave
wood extraction an entirely new dimension.
Periodization: The Two Repartos
Combined, these forces substantially recast communal property rights in the meseta. Their
influence, however, acted differently at different times. The reparto occurred in two distinct,
although related, periods. The first period covered from 1868 to roughly the early 1880s,
although some of its consequences lingered for many years afterwards. A major political shift
inaugurated this first period of reparto. The end of the main foreign occupation of the nineteenth
century—the French intervention—and what proved to be a final victory over their conservative
adversaries (c. 1867) gave liberals a momentous occasion to resume the implementation of their
reforming program. Reforms, of course, included land divisions, but also and most decisively
new fiscal policies over land. Renewed pressures by Michoacán’s liberal authorities to divide
communal lands in accordance with local reparto laws, combined with mobilization on the
ground in the meseta by indigenous and non-indigenous groups in favor of effecting land
143
divisions in accordance with the 1856 federal law. Disputes over land divisions confronted
community members, fueling long-standing rivalries and creating new sets of conflicts.
A distinct characteristic of this period was that land divisions were for the most part
restricted to family parcels and additional agricultural community lands, although in some cases
residential plots or solares and woodlands were also included. One of the most important
aftereffects of the first reparto was an increase, beginning in the late 1870s, in the selling and
buying of family parcels and apportioned community lands. The old Spanish laws did not allow
the alienation of community lands, but transactions often occurred in consonance with customary
norms. Liberal land reforms, however, further stimulated land dealings by means of granting
them full legal recognition. Land dealings, for the most part, benefitted better-off community and
non-community members, reinforcing and even augmenting social differences within pueblos.
Economic difficulties and demographic pressures (as noted, affecting more severely
underprivileged families) underpinned many of these trades.
The second reparto period began in the late 1880s and the early 1890s and lasted until
after the outbreak of the Mexican revolution in 1910. By then, liberals had already been in power
for about two decades and had lost much of their earlier militant impetus. In Michoacán, as
elsewhere in Mexico, a narrow group of individuals dominated politics and the economy. Civil
strife subsided and so did an important part of long-standing fiscal disarrays, as authorities
increased their capacity to collect taxes. Land values steadily rose since the early 1870s. Land
taxes followed suit, including taxes on the many still undivided community lands—the first
reparto wave notwithstanding. Communities and authorities engaged in a series of negotiations
144
apropos land rates—negotiations that were actually permitted and even encouraged by fiscal
laws. A compromise of a kind was established. Communities with undivided lands agreed to pay
land taxes and authorities agreed to lower rates and, implicitly, tolerate the de facto existence of
communal land tenure.
The rise of commercial activities associated with the exploitation of the forest, however,
revived the reparto question. Commercial appetite for resins and wood notably grew during the
1890s. The selling and buying of lands by community members now expanded to include
communal forested areas—something that the 1851 state law prohibited. Since some of these
transactions involved lands located in-between neighboring pueblos, they ended up unearthing
old and still unresolved boundary disputes. For a second time, communities promoted land
divisions in an effort to win land rights over disputed stretches of woodlands against community
members selling forest lands, their buyers, and neighboring pueblos. In 1902, the government of
Michoacán enacted one last reparto law, this time permitting the division of all community
lands—forests included. Communities were forced to select one representative whose final
appointment must be sanctioned by the government. Rival community groups competed to win
official approval from the government—and thus an advantage to organize land divisions.
The lumber economy continued to expand in the 1900s. Initial partnerships of local
entrepreneurs gave way to larger companies owned and managed by British and American
businessmen with ties in the financial circuits of Morelia and Mexico City. For the most part,
companies did not seek to buy or take direct control of communal woodlands. Instead, they
signed long-term leasing contracts with some communities. In exchange for regular annual rental
145
fees, communities allowed companies to extract large amounts of wood and even build local rail
lines and sawmills. Access to the forests and not property rights mattered most in the lumber
business. Possession of forest lands remained in the hands of communities. Yet land use, ever
since, drastically changed. This second reparto period had one final twist. In some cases, the
government prevented communities from obtaining the money lumber companies paid in
exchange for using communal woodlands. In practice, authorities decided when and how to use
the money belonging to the communities. Lumber revenues were ultimately treated as tax
revenues. Local autonomy dwindled away as communal land holding came to end.
Christmas Day, 1868
The governor of Michoacán sent out a notice, circular number 90, instructing local and district
authorities to publicize the reparto of community lands. Weeks earlier, in December 9, 1868, the
state congress had granted the executive extraordinary powers to promote the “prompt division
of indigenous community lands without abiding by the formalities established in the relevant
law, but making sure to observe the justly principles enshrined in it.”141 Circular 90 contained
three main points to be discussed by communities all across Michoacán: 1) an estimated time
within which community members thought they could carry out land divisions; 2) an assessment
of possible obstacles impeding land divisions; and 3) an estimation of the reasons to object the
141
Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en el estado de
Michoacán, Vol. 19 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1887) 158.
146
reparto in order to determine whether they were legitimate or based on “systematic and
interested opposition.”142
From January to March of 1869, district and municipal authorities met with hundreds of
indigenous residents of the meseta in public squares and offices. The content of circular 90 was
read out loud both in Spanish and in Purépecha. Before addressing the three main discussion
points of the circular, community members were told that land divisions intended to improve the
well-being of indigenous people and that the government was “always their friend and
protector.” The reparto would provide them with the “indispensable elements to become true
citizens” and “represent with dignity the country they belong to”; it would prevent them from
being “a class strange to the great interests” of the nation. Resisting land divisions would only
deprive community members from these benefits and make them miss the best chance they had
ever had to enjoy the “invaluable condition of property owners,” as well as expose them “to
suffer the penalties established by the law against those who without reason or justice” refused to
accept the “beneficial aims” of land divisions.143
142
Ibid, 162-166.
Ibid. For examples of local and district authorities meeting with community members, see: Archivo General e
Histórico del Poder Ejecutivo de Michoacán (AGHPEM), Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito
de Uruapan, vol.3, 206; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 4, 147;
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 11 149; AGHPEM, Secretaría
de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 11, 90, 116-118 and 162-163; AGHPEM,
Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 13, 64; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno,
Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 14; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas,
Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 174; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan,
vol. 21, 175; and AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 23, 176.
143
147
The Radical Egalitarianism of Early Liberalism
It was not the first time communities heard about land divisions. Back in 1825, the first congress
of Michoacán discussed and approved a bill requiring communities to divide their lands. The bill
was not enacted until two years later in the winter of 1827. The next winter (1828) the governor
issued an accompanying secondary law (reglamento) providing the specific guidelines for land
divisions to take place. The mandate of both laws was straightforward. Community lands had to
be divided among the “descendants of the primitive families” on equal shares. Depending on the
available resources in each community, land divisions should ideally result in every family
having a piece of arable land, a portion of pastureland, and yet another share of mountainous
land (cerros) or, given the case, even a piece of badland (or malpaís, usually remnants of lava
fields not suitable for cultivation). Land shares, at any rate, ought to be equal for all families.
Everybody would get the same portion. Even the landless. As for better-off community members
holding larger pieces of land, they would have to either relinquish their extra share to equal that
of the rest of community members or pay for it in order to keep it. Ultimately, as the 1828
secondary law bluntly put it, the overall value of community lands had to be divided “in as many
equal amounts as there are families.”144
144
For the 1827 law see, Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en
el estado de Michoacán, Vol. 2 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1886), 61-62. For the 1828
supplementary law see, Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en
el estado de Michoacán, Vol. 3 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1886), 29-35. The content of
these laws are discussed in Moisés Franco Mendoza, "La desamortización de bienes de comunidades indígenas en
Michoacán," in La sociedad indígena en el centro y occidente de México, ed. Pedro Carrasco, 169-187 (Mexico: El
Colegio de México, 1986) and Juan Carlos Cortés Máximo, "La desamortización de la propiedad indígena en una
provincia mexicana. Los fines y efectos de la ley de 1827 sobre reparto de tierras comunales en Michoacán,"
Relaciones 134 (2013): 263-301.
148
In several respects, these laws were the direct offspring of the Cadiz years. After the
experiment to create a Mexican empire collapsed in 1822, flourishing efforts to establish a
federal republic finally crystalized. The Cadiz Cortes had granted provinces with ample powers
to enforce land measures affecting communal landholding (see chapter 1). Under the first federal
republic (1824-1835), local congresses, and not federal authorities, assumed the responsibility of
planning and implementing the transformation of community lands into individual properties.
The congress of Michoacán was far from being an exception when it enacted its first reparto
laws. Its legislations were part of a larger trend across Mexico to continue with the directives
outlined by the Cortes’ edicts. More than half of the states in which the republic then divided
enacted laws sponsoring land divisions or issued some kind of measures against communal
landholding.145
Michoacán’s laws also shared the utilitarian individualism underpinning the Cadiz
decrees and the morals of earlier reformers under the Bourbons. Individual property, economic
prosperity, and moral reform went hand in hand. Ending communal landholding had the purpose
of removing the obstacles impeding indigenous people to pursue their individual interest. As
individual property owners, indigenous people would put greater care in keeping their lands busy
and productive which, in turn, would have a positive effect on the overall productivity of
agricultural activities—considered the main source of wealth by both early nineteenth-century
145
In addition to Michoacán, states included Chiapas, Chihuahua, Coahuila-Texas, Jalisco, Zacatecas, Veracruz,
Sonora, Puebla, Sinaloa, Nuevo León, and the state of Mexico. See, Donald Fraser, “La Politica de Desamortizacion
en las Comunidades Indigenas, 1856-1872,” Historia Mexicana 21, no. 4 (1972): 623, and Enrique Florescano,
Etnia, Estado y Nación. Ensayo sobre las identidades colectivas en México (Mexico: Taurus, 2000), 315-316.
149
liberals and eighteenth-century reformers. In turning community members into industrious
cultivators, land divisions would also contribute to spark in them civic virtues and
responsibilities. Just as Bourbon reformers and Cadiz lawmakers associated land reform with the
moral regeneration of pueblos de indios, liberals in Michoacán and elsewhere in Mexico saw
land policies as a means to improve the character of indigenous people. Together with education
campaigns, European migration, and miscegenation, individual property rights would gradually
make indigenous people rise to fulfill liberals’ ideal of equality.146
There was, indeed, a deep and inflexible egalitarian aspiration behind the late 1820s state
reparto laws—aspiration that would persist later on when efforts to enforce land divisions
resurfaced. The laws took all previous reforming ideas to one of its more radical conclusions.
Parceling out community lands sought to create a rural landscape dominated by numerous
smallholders, the basis of the just society sponsored by liberal ideals. Reparto laws, however,
prescribed a type of land divisions that essentially erased inequalities between community
members. Allocations, as mentioned, would result in almost identical shares of land—to the
point of suppressing all existing disparities. Forcing this kind of uniformity upon indigenous
communities entailed great difficulties. Not so much because of the thought of becoming
smallholders, but because such a radical egalitarianism (and the uniform distribution of resources
146
See, Charles Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 1821-1853 (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1968), 215-247; and Florescano, Etnia, Estado y Nación, 310-320. For a general examination of liberals’
understandings of indigenous people across Latin America see, Rebecca Earle, The Return of the Native: Indians
and Myth-making in Spanish America, 1810-1930 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), 161-183 and 280-291.
150
it supposed) did not exist or had ever existed among community members and within
communities.
The Limited Impact of Early Land Policies
The enforcement of the 1827 and 1828 laws, however, was limited and inconsistent. Laws
established a strict deadline of three months to perform the reparto. Yet almost a year and a half
after the enactment of the 1828 reglamento, during the summer of 1829, a high-ranking official
moaned about the lack of progress of land divisions. “It seems incredible,” he said, “that the
decree of January 18, 1828, concerning the allocation of community lands to the so-called
indigenous people has not had its complete observance thus far.” The “ignorance and concerns of
those who the law benefit,” he continued, “and the personal interests of many indigenous people
who by an inveterate custom almost exclusively take advantage of everyone’s lands” were to a
great extent responsible for the “great difficulties” hampering the enforcement of “such a wise
measure.” The reparto, he concluded, “has given authorities numerous troubles to the point that
the government was forced to threaten one community with sending permanent troops to have
allocations done.”147
There is, in fact, evidence that land divisions did take place in some communities.
Landowners in the northwestern Jiquilpan and La Piedad areas affirmed they had acquired lands
147
Memoria sobre el estado que guarda la administración pública de Michoacán, presentada al H.C. por el
secretario del despacho en 7 de agosto de 1829 (Morelia: Imprenta del Estado, 1829), 16.
151
from local pueblos, probably as a result of previous land partitions.148 In Paracuaro, south of the
meseta, the reparto seems to have sparked an important support from some community groups in
an attempt to take lands back from rival families and tenants. Community members in
Guarachita, Ario, Capula, Erongarícuaro, Santa Ana Maya, and other pueblos also took formal
steps to allocate their lands in accordance to the 1827 and 1828 laws.149 The reparto did not have
a major impact on the pueblos of the meseta in this period, although there are indications of land
divisions in Los Reyes and San Gabriel. Indigenous residents of Los Reyes constituted a local
minority and probably used the new land policy to secure land rights over their holdings in an
area that was traditionally dominated by ranchos and haciendas. Community members in San
Gabriel, also in Los Reyes area, may have had similar reasons, but allocations only included part
of all community lands—in 1884 community members petitioned an allotment of grazing lands
that, according to them, had not been divided by their predecessors fifty years earlier.150
Communities may have found greater problems facing the transition from repúblicas de
indios to municipalities. Building upon the rulings of the Cadiz constitution, Mexican authorities
integrated repúblicas into tenancies and municipalities after independence. As a result, part of
the lands belonging to former repúblicas sometimes ended up incorporated to municipal
holdings; especially the grazing and additional arable lands that had been mandatorily rented out
during the late eighteenth-century Bourbon reform. The line between community and municipal
holdings blurred. This kind of ambiguousness could potentially result in the loss of community
148
See chapter 2, footnote 48.
See, Cortés Máximo, "La desamortización,” 280-282; and García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas, 362.
150
Ibid. Also, AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 11, 155.
149
152
lands, depending on whether community members could control municipal posts or not.
Indigenous and non-indigenous tenants could also take advantage of the circumstances and claim
lands for themselves. It has been suggested that, in this context, some communities actually
upheld reparto laws to limit land claims and municipal influence over the management of
community lands.151
Politics against Policies
Partisan politics, primarily, conditioned the enforcement of liberal land laws and policies. In
general, continuous political swings prevented land divisions from progressing much further.
Ever since the Napoleonic occupation of Spain in 1808, long-standing power equilibriums gave
way to division and confrontation all across Spanish America. In Mexico, competing political
elites engaged in countless disputes which often resulted in short-lived national and local
governments. Disputes revolved around two main positions, one advocating a federalized form
government and another one supporting a centralized republic. Deep-rooted rivalries between
provincial and central elites (the latter typically based in Mexico City) underwrote both
positions. Years of war during the 1810s conferred military officers and individuals in command
of armed men an unprecedented influence in political affairs. Electoral politics, patronage, and
151
See, Cortés Máximo, De repúblicas de indios a ayuntamientos, 241-288; Juan Carlos Cortés Máximo, “La
comunidad de Tarímbaro. Gobierno indígena, arrendamiento, y reparto de tierras, 1822-1884,” in Autoridad y
gobierno indígena en Michoacán, vol. 2, 441-468; and García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas, 274-371.
153
the use of the force as a method of political persuasion and a means to attain public posts
coalesced.152
Events affecting national politics, including uprisings (pronunciamientos) against federal
authorities, often resonated locally, as provincial elites divided too into several competing
cliques. The first elected governor of Michoacán, Antonio Castro, resigned before finishing his
term because of his opposition to ongoing policies in favor of expelling Spanish nationals from
the country. Local congressmen forced Castro’s successor, José Trinidad Salgado, who as
congressmen had participated in the drafting of the 1827 reparto law, to step down twice because
of his allegiance to Vicente Guerrero and radical federalism. Guerrero, one of the most
prominent surviving insurgent leaders of the wars of independence, had officially lost the 1828
presidential election, but his supporters managed to oust general Manuel Gómez Pedraza
(Guerrero’s competitor) form office. Reinstalled as governor in 1829 after briefly deposed,
Salgado once again faced political misfortune when an uprising against Guerrero gained
momentum and deposed the president less than year after he had taken office. By 1832, the
confrontation between rival political factions escalated into civil war. In subsequent years,
152
See, Michael Costeloe, La primera república federal de México (1824-1835). Un estudio de los partidos políticos
en el México independiente (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996); Timothy Anna, Forging Mexico, 18211835 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1998); François-Xavier Guerra, “Mexico from Independence to Revolution.
The Mutations of Liberalism,” in Cycles of Conflict, Centuries of Change: Crisis, Reform, and Revolution in
Mexico, eds. Elisa Servín, Leticia Reina, and John Tutino (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), 129-152; and
Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo, Ciudadanos imaginarios. Memorial de los afanes y desventuras de la virtud y
apología del vicio triunfante en la república mexicana. Tratado de moral pública (Mexico: El Colegio de México,
1992); Will Fowler, "Entre la legalidad y la legitimidad: elecciones, pronunciamientos y la voluntad general de la
nación, 1821-1857," in Las elecciones y el gobierno representativo en México, (1810-1910), ed. José Antonio
Aguilar Rivera (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica / Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes / Instituto
Federal Electoral / Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, 2010), 95-120; Andrés Lira, “El estado liberal y las
corporaciones en México (1821-1859),” in Inventando la nación. Iberoamérica. Siglo XIX, eds. Antonio Annino and
François-Xavier Guerra (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003), 379-398.
154
governments (both national and local) shifted from one political persuasion to another. In 1835
opponents of the federal system finally managed to replace it by a central republic.153
The end of federalism rendered local reparto laws null and void. From 1835 to 1846
centralists legislations took self-governing capacities away from the states and cancelled most
previous laws enacted by local congresses. The establishment of a central republic, however, did
not end political and armed conflicts. Numerous clashes between centralist authorities and
federalist forces took place during this period. While centralist governments in Michoacán
managed to keep their opponents in check, federalist bands remained very active and were never
completely defeated—especially in the south. In time, federalism and advocates of liberalism
regained power. By then, however, the country was already at war with the United States. The
war ended in the winter of 1848 and liberals, after disastrous defeat, were left with the daunting
task of reconstructing federal institutions in accordance with the 1824 constitution (reinstated in
1846). States recovered their autonomy. Local congresses were restored. Yet internal disputes
did not subside and liberal authority remained shaky.154
153
See, Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, "Los vaivenes del proyecto republicano," in Historia general de Michoacán, vol. 3,
7-37; and García Ávila, Las comunidades indígenas, 361-364; and Bravo Ugarte, Historia sucinta, 387-400.
154
Michael Costeloe, La república central en México, 1835-1846. “Hombres de bien” en la época de Santa Anna
(Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000); Ugarte, Historia sucinta, 400-408; and Ochoa Serrano and Sánchez
Díaz, Breve historia, 114-119.
155
A New State Reparto Law
Plans of land reform in Michoacán did not resume but until 1851. During the summer of that
year (August 4th) local congressmen gathered to discuss a new reparto bill.155 All of them
subscribed to the spirit and general purpose of the new piece of legislation: community lands
must be divided. Deliberation lasted some weeks, as lawmakers were simultaneously working on
other bills. In addition to technical issues (the phrasing of a particular article, for instance), the
discussion focused on the potential effectiveness of the law. A combination of pragmatic
concerns and preconceived notions about indigenous people dominated the debate. One
lawmaker worried that, since the bill dealt with “a class of persons of such a limited capacity as
indigenous people,” it would be “not difficult for somebody to delude them” and turn the law
into a question of multiple problems.156 Another lawmaker argued that “influential” individuals,
“often the ones who possess better lands,” would most certainly oppose the reparto because it
would challenge their power and interests.157 And yet another one argued that while it was true
that “some indigenous people will find themselves in poverty” as a result of being misled by
hurtful individuals, this would ultimately be the consequence of their own ill use of the “right to
155
Archivo del Honorable Congreso del Estado de Michoacán (AHCEM), Actas Públicas, Expediente 2, Caja 14,
Libro de Actas Públicas del Noveno Congreso no. 8, sesión del día 4 de agosto de 1851, n. p. The last name of the
twelve congressmen discussing the bill were: Alsua, Bárcena, Cajiga, Cuevas, Correa, Galvan, Estevez, Anton,
Ramirez, Ortiz, Madrigal, and Barrera.
156
AHCEM, Actas Públicas, Expediente 2, Caja 14, Libro de Actas Públicas del Noveno Congreso no. 8, sesión del
día 6 de agosto de 1851, n. p.
157
AHCEM, Actas Públicas, Expediente 2, Caja 14, Libro de Actas Públicas del Noveno Congreso no. 8, sesión del
día 8 de agosto de 1851, n. p.
156
property” and should not lead lawmakers to deprive others from the same right.158 The governor
enacted the law by the fall during the second week of December.159
The law specified a period of one year to conclude all land divisions, but very little
progress took place during this time or afterwards. Political strife, once more, discouraged
systematic enforcement. Opposition to federalism had turned into clear conservative stances
against liberalism and republican tenets such as popular sovereignty. Conservative forces
gradually gathered force and challenged struggling local and national liberal governments.
Numerous revolts continued to preoccupy authorities in Michoacán. A major uprising burst out
in the fall of 1852 in La Piedad area—an echo of a pronuciamiento that had started in nearby
Jalisco. Governor Melchor Ocampo, a prominent liberal and federalist, managed to temporarily
weather the crisis, but a greater national crisis soon broke out resulting in the downfall of the
second federal republic in the spring of 1853 and the establishment of conservative-oriented
government headed by ten-time president Antonio López de Santa Anna. By the summer, in July
18, the 1851 reparto law was repealed and not reinstated until 1856 after liberals, in turn, ousted
Santa Anna from office for one last time.160
158
Ibid.
See, Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en el estado de
Michoacán, Vol. 11 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1886), 195-205.
160
See, ibid (footnote 5). For political developments in Michoacán see, See, Sánchez Díaz, "Los vaivenes;” Ochoa
Serrano and Sánchez Díaz, Breve historia, 117-122; and Bravo Ugarte, Historia sucinta, 408-412.
159
157
The Federal Disentailment Law and a Country at War
It was the third time liberals took hold of power since independence. This time a rising new
generation led the most comprehensive effort in the century to reform the institutional make-up
of the country. Reforms focused on creating a uniform set of rules to regulate the administration
of justice, property rights, civil liberties, taxation, and public registers. They were meant in large
part to curtail and in some cases terminate the influence of the Church and the army—two of the
most powerful actors of the nation—in civil, economic, and public affairs. Conservative circles
considered the reforms not only a challenge to the status quo, but a threat to orderly society as a
whole. Many moderate liberals also found the reforms too radical to actually be able to govern
the country with them. Still liberals such as Benito Juárez, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Melchor
Ocampo, and Guillermo Prieto held their ground and defended thorough enforcement.
The first national disentailment law came in this context (June 25, 1856). Conceived by
the minister of treasury Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, the law banned civil and religious corporations
from administering, holding, or acquiring real estate properties. The goal was to allow buyers
and sellers access to entailed lands, that is, lands that thus far had remained outside of the market
and, according to liberals, nonproductive. That way the number of property owners would
increase and with it, since individual proprietors were expected to invest in their lands, the
overall agricultural output of the country. Governments, in turn, would benefit from collecting
158
the taxes and fees charged upon land transactions and, eventually, upon the economic activities
motivated by the reform.161
The 1856 federal law thus ordered that church properties and community lands (among
others) had to be allocated to tenants and de facto possessors within a period of three months—or
otherwise properties would be put for public auction or open to private claims. The law, in other
words, meant no redistribution of communal lands. In November, in the midst of escalating
conservative opposition to this and the other liberal reforms, Gregorio Ceballos, governor of
Michoacán, wrote to federal authorities asking to exempt indigenous communities from the duty
to allocate land in accordance with the federal law. The enforcement of the law, he feared, might
cause social discontent. Conservatives might capitalize some of this discontent to their
advantage. The federal law, in addition, could deprive communities of some of lands. Indeed,
unlike the 1851 state law, which specified that community members had the exclusive right to
claim community lands, the federal law offered leaseholders the chance to acquire the properties
they had thus far rented from communities.
Minister Lerdo de Tejada wrote back to the governor on behalf of the president. His
position was clear. “It is unquestionable,” he said, “that the persistence of indigenous
communities must not be tolerated” Conceding the governor’s petition would only undermine the
spirit and purpose of the law. Furthermore, there was no contradiction between federal and local
161
See, “Ley de 25 de junio de 1856,” in Colección de leyes, decretos, reglamentos, circulares, órdenes, y acuerdos
relativas a la desamortización de los bienes de corporaciones civiles y religiosas y a la nacionalización de los que
administraron estas últimas, ed. Luis G. Labastida (Mexico: Tipografía de la Oficina Impresora de Estampillas,
1893), 4-5 and 9-13.
159
laws. On the contrary, both complemented each other. Little progress had been made, at any rate,
since the enactment of the 1851 law despite the fact that it had set a one year period to
implement land divisions—Lerdo reproached Ceballos. The governor should not worry about the
federal law being a cause of discontent. The law favored indigenous people by means of turning
them into property owners. Thus “there is no motive for disorders or riots,” Lerdo assured him.
Concerns about leaving indigenous people without lands were also unfounded. In October 9,
1856, the federal government issued an additional notice giving holders of properties of 200
pesos or lower value direct ownership of their lands without having to pay taxes or any other fees
whatsoever—provided they complied with the law. This, Lerdo argued, protected smallholders
from losing their lands to large landowners. Moreover, he concluded, it secured indigenous
people access to land without depriving leaseholders of their rights.162
Over the next decade, from roughly 1857 to 1867, the country underwent a number of
major succeeding crises. Facing increasing pressures on the part of the Church and conservatives
forces, liberal governments concentrated on responding to conservative political and armed
challenges. Community lands had comparatively less attention. A new constitution was enacted
in 1857, a document elevating liberals’ ideals and reforming program to the law of the land. The
constitution, however, divided liberal ranks and caused bitter protests among conservatives. Yet
162
Fort he Lerdo-Ceballos exchange see, Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 11, 164-166. For the October 9,
1856 notice see, “Ley de 25 de junio de 1856,” 13-14.
160
again political disagreements turned into an armed conflict that soon escalated into civil war—
the biggest conflict after independence and before the Mexican revolution.163
Liberals won the war (known as War of Reform) after having nationalized Church
properties, experienced near defeat, and amassed a hefty debt. Public funds were not enough to
cover the payroll and the always critical military expenditures. In the summer of 1861, the
Mexican government declared a temporary suspension of payments on the country’s public debt,
which included debts with international creditors. The Spanish, British, and French governments
sent fleets to press Mexico into resuming the payment of its loans. Mexican authorities settled
with British and Spanish envoys. French troops, however, advanced towards Mexico City
revealing Napoleon III’s geopolitical plans to establish a puppet government in Mexico to
counter the influence of other European powers and the United States in the Americas.164
The consequences of civil war (1857-1861) had not yet even began to lessen and the
country was again at war with a foreign army. The occupation was supported by local
conservative forces, still active in spite of recent defeat. The country divided into defenders of
the 1857 constitution and republican government, on the one hand, and sponsors of monarchical
rule and the creation of a second Mexican empire, on the other. On the ground, in the regions, a
number of unresolved local and regional grievances lay beneath republican and monarchical
allegiances. Strongmen and pueblos favored one side or the other to counter the power of their
163
See, Lilia Díaz, “El liberalismo militante,” in Historia general de México (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 2000),
592-608; Andrés Lira and Anne Staples, “Del desastre a la reconstrucción republicana, 1848-1876,” in Erik
Velázquez García, et al., Nueva historia general de México (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 2010), 448-461.
164
See, Michele Cunningham, Mexico and the Foreign Policy of Napoleon III (New York: Palgrave, 2001); Erika
Pani, Para mexicanizar el Segundo Imperio. El imaginario de los imperialistas (Mexico: El Colegio de México /
Instituto Mora, 2001); Díaz, “El liberalismo militante,” 608-612; Lira and Staples, “Del desastre,” 464-469.
161
rivals and to defend local autonomy.165 More generally, the occupation split the country into two
separate governments (1863-1867), an itinerant republican government led by president Benito
Juárez and an imperial government based in Mexico City and headed by the European aristocrat
Maximillian of Hapsburg—chosen by Napoleon III and local conservatives to hold the Mexican
Crown.
In Michoacán, imperial and conservative troops took over Morelia at the end of 1863 and
gradually controlled the eastern and northwestern areas of the territory. Republicans remained
relatively strong in the south across tierra caliente and some central-west areas, including parts
of the meseta. During the war, Uruapan, the main settlement of the meseta, was made the
republican capital city of Michoacán. Republicans were several times forced to move around to
Tacámbaro, Ario, and Huetamo in tierra caliente, but Uruapan continued to be one the main
republican headquarters and strongholds in the country. In spite of continuous differences within
the republican leadership, resistance to the occupation thwarted all attempts to consolidate
imperial rule. In the early months of 1865 French troops withdrew from Michoacán. Belgian and
conservatives forces assumed the responsibility of suppressing republican resistance. By 1866,
however, it was clear that the invasion had become a great political and financial burden to
Napoleon III. His army finally vacated Mexico between November, 1866 and the first months of
1867, leaving conservatives and Maximilian to their own devices. By February of 1867
165
See Leticia Reina, “The Sierra Gorda Peasant Rebellion,” in Riot, Rebellion, and Revolution: Rural Social
Conflict in Mexico, ed. Friedrich Katz (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 269-294; Florencia Mallon,
Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995);
and Erika Pani, Una serie de admirables acontecimientos. México y el mundo en la época de la Reforma, 1848-1867
(Mexico: Ediciones EyC / BUAP, 2013).
162
Michoacán was under republican control. In the summer, republicans took back Mexico City
(June 21, 1867) and regained control of the country.166 The war ended with yet another
republican and liberal victory. For a fourth time, plans of reparto resumed.
A Struggling Treasury
Thus, from 1827 to 1867 land divisions in the meseta remained largely without effect. During
this period, 69 individuals were in one time or another in charge of the executive power in
Michoacán (an average of almost two per year). Some, a minority, were elected. Others, a
majority, served as interim governors (or heads of departamentos under centralist governments).
Some others seized power as a result of a pronunciamiento. One, Domingo Echegaray, stood in
office for about 24 hours and then died in combat (November 24, 1854) during the events that
led to Santa Anna’s final downfall. Overall, as the same person could serve in different terms,
the executive shifted a total of 76 times. Between 1827 and 1835, when the first reparto laws
remained in force, Michoacán had 23 elected and interim governors. There were six changes in
the executive after the enactment of the 1851 law until it was temporarily repealed in July 18,
1853. During the second empire (1863-1867), six imperial prefects and five republican governors
simultaneously took charge of public affairs in Michoacán, while both sides waged war against
each other.167
166
See, Carlos García Mora, "Guerra y sociedad durante la intervención francesa, 1863-1867," in Historia general
de Michoacán, vol. 3, 61-100; Ochoa Serrano and Sánchez Díaz, Breve historia, 134-146; Miranda, Uruapan, 180192; Bravo Ugarte, Historia sucinta, 419-431; and Eduardo Ruíz, Historia de la guerra de intervención en
Michoacán (Morelia: Morevallado Editores, 2008).
167
See, Bravo Ugarte, Historia sucinta, 553-558 (Appendix 1).
163
Civil strife and continuous changes in the executive naturally translated in numerous
shifts in local authorities and administrative personnel on the ground; most notably, in the
middling authorities whose appointment officially depended on governors and whose role in
enforcing policies (including land policies) was indispensable. Six years after the establishment
of the first federal republic (1830), and shortly after one of many ensuing political shifts, the
incumbent minister of government of Michoacán complained before the local congress that “the
wheels of the political machine were altered and in the midst of the most terrible oscillations an
entire new government was constituted.” “In moments of alarm and uncertainties,” he lamented,
“it was not possible to systematize the administration.”168
A decade and half later, months after the war against the United States began, another
minister of government argued that even in good times it was difficult to keep up with
administrative affairs. However, he continued, “when the state of society is precarious,” “when
the administrative elements are almost in conflict,” and when the question was not simply about
having or not “ordinary peace,” but “about shifting from one regime to another […] the
administrative machine barely runs without encountering setbacks and the people in charge of
the administration barely have time to soothe the principal obstacles.”169 Political and military
conflicts absorbed much of the energy of one administration after another. Not surprisingly,
168
Memoria de la administración pública del estado de Michoacán, leída al honorable congreso constitucional por
el secretario del despacho en 7 de agosto de 1830 (Morelia: Imprenta del Estado, 1830), 1.
169
Memoria sobre el estado que guarda la administración pública del estado de Michoacán, leída al honorable
congreso constitucional por el secretario del despacho en 23 de noviembre de 1846 (Morelia: Imprenta de Ignacio
Arango, 1846), 4.
164
authorities both in Morelia and all across Michoacán pushed off land reform for a better
occasion—which never seemed to come.
Budgetary constraints hindered government plans on a permanent basis. Not only were
funds insufficient to invest in public infrastructure, but they were often inadequate to offer
proper remuneration to public employees. In 1850, Francisco Anaya, Michoacán’s minister of
government in office, declared to the congress that it was unreasonable to expect efficiency from
local authorities when “neither the state remunerates their work nor the residents of pueblos
provided them with all the support they need.”170
Fig. 6. Michoacán’s Public Finances and Military Spending, 1858-1860
Year
1858
1859
1860
Totals
*Average
Overall
Government
Income
Overall
Government
Expenditures
Military
Spending
Military
Spending
%
388,734
1,053,630
1,278,162
2,720,525
357,674
987,760
1,213,056
2,558,490
294,510
665,143
816,795
1,776,448
82.3
67.3
67.3
72.3
Sources: “Estado general de los ingresos y egresos habidos en ambas oficinas [Jefatura de Hacienda y
Tesorería General del Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo] (Tablas Anexas)," in Lerdo de Tejada, Tesorería
general y gefatura de hacienda del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo; and "Noticia Numero 58," Memoria
en que el C. general Epitacio Huerta dio cuenta al congreso del estado del uso que hizo de las facultades
de 1858 a 1861.
170
Memoria que sobre el estado que guarda en Michoacán la administración publica en sus diversos ramos, leyó al
honorable congreso del mismo el secretario del despacho Lic. Francisco G. Anaya, en los dias 2 y 5 de enero de
1850 (Morelia: Imprenta de Ignacio Arango, 1850), 8.
165
Defending himself against his critics, liberal general Epitacio Huerta affirmed in 1861
that when he was in charge of the government of Michoacán during the War of Reform (18571861) he found the treasury empty. His administration, Huerta explained, depended on loans for
all taxes were already destined to the payment of previous debts. Moreover, everyday needs ate
public funds away, especially military ones; from money to recruit troops and the salaries of the
people in charge of the armory to the many implements required to continue with liberal war
efforts.171 Military spending, indeed, outshone by far all other public expenditures. From 1858 to
1860, for instance, under Epitacio Huerta and other interim governors, war-related expenses
represented approximately 72% of the total spending of the government of Michoacán.172
General Huerta asserted that, given the circumstances, Michoacán, unlike other “integrating parts
of the federation,” was fortunate to have access to credit. Yet he failed to mention that creditors
often demanded the payment of extraordinarily high interests and that credit was often also the
product of forced loans obtained from local landowners and merchants. They came, therefore, at
an economic and political cost. As Huerta himself acknowledged, the bottom line was that
Michoacán “has no revenues and it needs to create them.”173
171
Memoria en que el C. general Epitacio Huerta dio cuenta al congreso del estado del uso que hizo de las
facultades con que estuvo investido durante su administración dictatorial, que comenzó en 15 de Febrero de 1858 y
terminó en 1o de Mayo de 1861 (Morelia: Imprenta de Ignacio Arango, 1861), 37-45..
172
My calculations based on: “Estado general de los ingresos y egresos habidos en ambas oficinas [Jefatura de
Hacienda y Tesorería General del Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo] (Tablas Anexas)," in Francisco Lerdo de
Tejada, Tesorería general y gefatura de hacienda del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo. Su cuenta é informe por los
ingresos y egresos habidos en ambas oficinas, desde 19 de marzo de 1858 hasta 6 de febrero de 1862 en la primera,
y 31 de enero del mismo año en la segunda (Morelia: Imprenta de Ignacio Arango, 1864) n. p.; and "Noticia
Numero 58," in Memoria en que el C. general Epitacio Huerta, n. p.
173
Memoria en que el C. general Epitacio Huerta, 45.
166
An Overlooked Link: Reparto and Fiscal Policy
It was the need to create revenues, in actual fact, which finally stimulated land divisions in
Michoacán and, by extension, in the meseta. During the first decades after independence,
revenues from the state tobacco monopoly and a number of sales taxes provided the bulk of
public funds in Michoacán—as in many other parts of the country. Both the tobacco monopoly
and sales taxes, considered as obstacles to the economy, were officially abolished in 1857 in the
midst of liberals’ attempt to enforce their program of economic and political reforms. Necessity,
however, forced authorities to maintain sales taxes in force until 1896.174 Still governments
continuously tried to diversify their revenues and thus curtail their dependence on the unpopular
alcabalas and costly loans. Fiscal officials collected a head tax since the first federal republic,
but public finances required further sources of income to at least begin the daunting task of
mending years of fiscal unbalances.175 The 1856 Lerdo law had the explicit purpose of creating
public revenues by taxing private land transactions and public land sales (articles 32 and 33).
Subsequent nationalization of Church properties in 1859 provided liberal authorities with
174
The minister of government of Michoacán declared in 1896 that “neither the attempt of 1846 nor the law of 1848,
nor the ruling of 1855 during the temporary government emanated from the Ayutla revolution, nor the laudable
promise of the wise lawmakers of 1857 who set a year for the completion of the [fiscal] reform, were able to erase
from our legislation and practices the tributary system that has recently fall without political commotions” (Memoria
sobre la administración pública del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo. Gobierno del C. Aristeo Mercado. Segundo
bienio septiembre 16 de 1894-septiembre 16 de 1896 [Morelia: Litografía de la Escuela Militar, 1898], 307).
175
See, for instance,"Noticia Num. 4. Ingresos y egresos que tuvo la tesorería general del estado de Michoacán en
todo el año procsimo pasado de 1828," in Memoria sobre el estado que guarda la administración pública de
Michoacán, presentada al H.C. por el secretario del despacho en 7 de agosto de 1829 (Morelia: Imprenta del
Estado, 1829) n. p.
167
important revenues, but both disentailment policies and nationalization funds ended up serving
short-term goals such as supporting war expenditures and covering public debts.176
Thus, after their triumph in the War of Reform (1857-1861), liberals in Michoacán put in
place a new fiscal policy. It included a tax upon urban and rural properties—the law establishing
the tax was issued in December 24, 1862.177 The French Intervention, however, rendered the tax
without much practical effect. It took about five more years, under even greater fiscal distress, to
revive the idea of a land tax. Early in 1868 (February 4th), some eight months after the downfall
of the second empire, a new liberal government established for a second time a land tax. The
levy was set in 0.8% of the total value of urban properties and 1% of the total value of rural
properties (ocho al millar and diez millar, respectively). The tax was imposed on an annual basis,
but payments split into three througout the year (one in January, a second in May, and a third one
in September).178
The new land tax had several long-term aims. It was meant to provide governments with
a constant and reliable source of income. Real estate property was, after all, a secure and durable
kind of property. It was also abundant, at least in theory, and therefore could potentially generate
176
See, Robert Knowlton, Church property and the Mexican Reform, 1856-1910 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois
University Press, 1976). For a general perspective of fiscal policies and revenues in Mexico see, Aurora Gómez
Galvarriato and Emilio Kourí, "La reforma económica. Finanzas públicas, mercados y tierras," in Nación,
Constitución y Reforma, ed. Erika Pani (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica / CIDE / INEHRM / CONACULTA,
2010), 62-119; Luis Jáuregui, “La economía de guerra de Independencia y la fiscalidad de las primeras décadas del
México independiente,” in Historia económica general de México. De la Colonia a nuestros días, ed. Sandra Kuntz
Fischer (Mexico: El Colegio de México / Secretaría de Economía, 2010), 245-274; and Marcello Carmagnani, “La
economía pública del liberalismo. Orígenes y consolidación de la hacienda y del crédito público, 1857-1911,” in
Historia económica, 353-376.
177
See, Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en el estado de
Michoacán, Vol. 17, (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1887), 9.
178
See, Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 19, 21-29; and Purnell, Popular Movements, 35-36.
168
extensive resources. In 1869, the overall value of real estate properties in Michoacán was
estimated in little less than 18.5 million pesos—some 12 million corresponding to rural
properties and about 6.4 million to urban properties. The government calculated that it could
obtain at least 114,000 pesos worth in revenues every year, once all expenses from collecting the
duties were subtracted.179 Finally, since it required the creation of a public register of all real
estate properties within the state, the tax was intended to offer governments a solid base of
records to improve the running of administrative affairs.
There were, however, more pressing matters behind the new land tax. As mentioned,
public finances needed immediate relief. Most notably, the tax and the general fiscal policy
supporting it were in large part designed to instigate the division of lands in possession of
indigenous communities. The tax affected anyone with urban and rural properties. Merchants,
homeowners, rancheros and hacendados. Yet fiscal laws unambiguously indicated that the tax
“equally included indigenous people who kept in community real estate properties.” Laws
required the government to perform proper appraisals of the value of community lands and to put
together a public land register. Yet they also specified that since tax collection was a matter of
great necessity, given the “grave urgencies of the treasury,” fiscal officials were authorized to
offer only rough estimates of the value of lands and enforce the corresponding levy, provided
179
"Noticia Número 15. Estado de productos, gastos y liquido por la contribución de 4 de Febrero de 1868," in
Memoria de Michoacán de 1869, 115.
169
that estimations would be later on subject to rectification “when the value of the lands in
question became legalized.”180
The close link between fiscal policy and land divisions was made explicit in a general
report on the state of public affairs in Michoacán read by minister of government Francisco W.
González before the local congress in the summer of 1869. González pointed out that the
question of dividing community lands was meant to be one of “great influence” for the creation
of a new tax system. Data collected by fiscal officials, he assured lawmakers, showed that the
value of community lands was fairly significant. To the extent that leaving community lands
undivided would “cause great damage to Michoacán in general and the Government in
particular.”181 All previous local administrations since independence, González underlined, had
tackled the question and dictated many measures seeking to find a solution to the problem of
communal landholding. The federal government, he recalled, had also devoted great energy to
the matter, as proven by the enactment of disentailment laws. Some progress had been done, he
remarked, “but it is necessary to make a last effort to complete the work.”182
The incumbent administration, González stressed, had “its own ideas on the matter”
consisting in prompting land divisions “by indirect means and [by] getting indigenous people
interested” in the reparto.183 González’s indirect means allude to the new land tax, but also to the
accompanying tax exemptions included in the fiscal law. The law offered a tax-free period of six
180
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 19., 26.
Memoria de Michoacán de 1869, 57.
182
Ibid.
183
Ibid.
181
170
years to all divided community lands, as long as land divisions and allotments took place within
an period of six months after the enactment of the fiscal law (February 4, 1868)—this period and
the grace period were subsequently extended several times.184 Authorities thus intended to lure
community members away from communal landholding by simultaneously raising the economic
costs of undivided lands and making individual property fiscally desirable. In case this did not
work, minister González finally observed, the government would have to resort sometimes to the
use of the force, but only because “it was nothing less than about ridding the State of one of the
greatest obstacles opposing its prosperity and providing the government resources from which it
is wrongly lacking.”185
184
See, Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 19., 21-22.
Ibid., 58. Significantly enough, although González speech was grounded in fiscal and seemingly practical
arguments, he did not miss the opportunity to remark that indigenous communities were “strange associations” with
no other purpose than turning indigenous people into “outcasts” and keeping community members “in the ignorance,
misery, fanaticism, and degradation to which they were confined since the Conquest era” (57).
185
171
CHAPTER 4
THE FIRST REPARTO: FEDERAL, S TATE, AND LOCAL LIBERALISMS M EET
The authorities of Michoacán had figured a way—land taxes (and exemptions)—of forcing
communities to comply with the reparto after decades of unsuccessful and erratic
implementation. Under the Bourbons, war and the need to increase royal revenues had brought
about a comprehensive program of reforms, which eventually led to the single most important
reorganization of pueblos de indios’ holdings and finances since the early colonial period—
reorganization that, in turn, planted the seeds and provided the foundations of future liberal land
reforms. About a century later, once more, war and the precarious state of public finances
provided nineteenth-century liberal authorities in Michoacán with the stimulus—the need for
more and new revenues—to redouble efforts of implementing their own program of reforms
against communal land tenure. Land taxes were not only expected to ease (or at least help to do
so) the financial problems of the government, but to achieve what reparto policies alone could
not: force communities to relinquish communal land tenure by means of turning individual
property more appealing—economically more appealing—than corporate land rights.
Land taxes did contribute to bring about reparto policies. Yet not in the way authorities
anticipated. Attempts to enforce the new tax policy triggered a series of striking events that
would turn liberal land policies—liberalism—upside down. In trying to take advantage or get
around land reform, people in the meseta would discover in it (and then bring to the fore) a
decisive contradiction. Namely, that the federal and state versions of land reform differed from
172
one another in one fundamental aspect: while Michoacán’s law of 1851, still echoing the radical
egalitarianism of early liberalism, promoted land redistribution exclusively for indigenous
community members (and even favored poor community members over the better-off), the
federal law of 1856, by contrast, entailed no such redistribution and in some circumstances even
favored the better-off and non-community members—that is, non-indigenous tenants of
community lands. In other words, the state version of land reform involved ending communal
land tenure in exchange of redistributing lands among community members; the federal version
involved ending corporate land rights, but with no redistribution in return.
Such a crucial difference, thus far unnoticed by the historiography of Mexican liberalism,
would be at heart of most debates and conflicts in the meseta when land divisions came about
between 1869 and 1875. It would play off federal and state authorities against each other,
community members against one another and community members against state and federal
officials, tenants, and local landowners (mostly middling landowners). Revealingly,
implementation took place almost exclusively in communities where disparities between
community members were comparatively greater and where the presence of haciendas, ranchos,
and (more importantly) tenants was more significant—and therefore competition for local
resources also greater. In other words, it took place in the lower meseta. By comparison,
communities in the upper meseta managed to keep land divisions in check. In order to create
strong enough incentives and pressures, the evidence suggests, land taxes needed also to
combine with ongoing internal divisions and local competition for community resources. Local
173
tenants and community members in the upper meseta simply found more to lose than gain in
implementing land reform—either version, the state or the federal, of it.
Initial Responses: Qualified Support and Outright Rejection
Communities in the meseta, indeed, followed two different paths during the first reparto. The
available evidence indicates that land divisions took place in at least nine pueblos and villas and
eight of the barrios of the city of Uruapan. That is to say, in about a quarter of all the settlements
of the the meseta wherein purépecha communities and families lived. Pueblos and villas in
which the reparto took place encompassed Nahuatzen, Jucutacato, Jicalan, Apo, Tancítaro,
Ziracuaretiro, San Juan Periban, and San Francisco Periban. Barrios in Uruapan included San
Juan Evangelista, San Francisco, San Pedro, Santiago, San Juan Bautista, San Miguel, and La
Magdalena. Together (all but Nahuatzen in the lower meseta), probably concentrated about a
quarter of the overall population of the meseta circa 1869, including non-indigenous residents
and between 30% and 40% of all purépecha inhabitants.186 It is not possible to determine the
extent of the lands at issue, but some of the barrios of the city of Uruapan and communities such
as Tancítaro and Apo were in possession of significant holdings—considerable, if compared to
the holdings of most other communities and many private holdings (see chapter 2).
The initial responses to the new and first effective attempt of enforcing land reform split
communities almost evenly in favor and against land divisions. Early in 1869, for instance,
186
These are rough calculations. The existing data are inconsistent and does not allow a precise estimation. See,
“Noticia num. 1,” in Memoria de Michoacán de 1869, 65-68.
174
community members in Sicuicho declared that “they completely agree by common consent” to
divide their lands among them as required by the government. Similar statements were given in
Apo, Tancítaro, Atapan, Pamatacuaro and many other places.187 Expressions in support of the
reparto, however, were typically qualified by a number concerns on the part of community
members. Representatives of the barrios of the city of Uruapan affirmed that they “agree and
accept the grace that the Supreme Government conceded to them [indigenous people] to perform
by themselves and by common consent the division of lands belonging to the Community.” Yet
they immediately added that one of the reasons that had prevented them from carrying out land
divisions in the past was that many families would probably be left in poverty as a result of
letting community members “to freely dispose of the lands they obtain in the reparto” since they
would “sell them and misuse the product” of the sale.188
In general, communities showing formal support for land divisions manifested one main
difficulty to perform the reparto. Community representatives argued that there were boundary
disputes still pending with other pueblos and haciendas. Land divisions, therefore, could not
completely take place until after these legal disputes were settled. Legal disputes over boundaries
were, indeed, not uncommon among communities in the meseta and other areas of Michoacán. In
1856, the government had appointed special lawyers “to keep track and finish as soon and
equitable as possible” the pending and future disputes pueblos had concerning the “possession
187
For Sicuicho see, AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 11.
For other communities expressing initial support to land divisions see, AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno,
Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 13, 64; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas,
Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 4, 147. AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan,
vol. 11, 149.
188
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol.15, 14.
175
and property of lands.”189 Special lawyers were granted the power of removing community
representatives, determining whether land claims were legitimate or not, and preventing further
legal actions on the part of community members. A contentious initiative, it was later repealed in
1863 as liberals prepared to engage conservative and foreign troops in the early years of the
French intervention. Communities were again free to choose “lawyers of their trust to conduct all
their businesses.”190
The fact that community members commonly alluded to pending boundary disputes has
been usually interpreted as a calculated strategy by communities to avoid or delay the reparto. It
could certainly have such purpose. Yet in alluding to unsettled disputes, community
representatives were first and foremost responding to a specific and explicit request on the part
of the government. As pointed earlier, circular 90 (the notice sent out on Christmas Day, 1868)
required communities to manifest their opinion on any possible obstacles and objections to
implement the reparto. Authorities, in other words, were plainly aware that acceptance of land
divisions by community representatives could be merely formal. To be sure, such awareness
stemmed from entrenched notions, almost universal among contemporary officials, about the
alleged conservative character of indigenous people. One district official asserted that the
indigenous residents of the city of Uruapan actually “repulsed the reparto,” but they did not
189
See, Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en el estado de
Michoacán, Vol. 13 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1887), 55-57.
190
Ibid, 101-103. The government, however, still offered legal assistance to communities that could show prove of
their lack of means to contract a lawyer.
176
express “a true opposition because it seems that their abhorrence do not come from any other
thing than the loss of a custom which they resent.”191
Curtailing any potential maneuvers against the reparto, such as alleging pending court
rulings over disputed lands, was also one the reasons the governor had been granted
extraordinary powers early in 1868. The 1851 law, in like manner, stated that lands still in legal
dispute should await the decision of the tribunals and only then could be object of allocation.
Judges were instructed to speed up trials in which community lands were involved (articles 23
and 24).192 Ultimately, government inquires on possible impediments to land reparto were
accompanied by instructions to perform land divisions within a period of maximum nine months
after circular 90 had been discussed by community members.193
There were communities—most of them in the upper meseta—which nonetheless
explicitly expressed their opposition to the reparto form the very beginning. Representatives
from Arantepacua, for instance, stated that theirs was not a “systematic and interested resistance
because ever since their forefathers” community members in Arantepacua “have lived, still live,
and will live fully and happy with the portions that each acknowledges.”194 Spokespersons in
other pueblos argued that the reparto was actually unnecessary since lands were already divided
and distributed among community members. In Charapan, community members affirmed that,
although allocations were not consistent with the law, their lands were privately held and thus
191
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol.15, 12.
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 11, 199.
193
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 19, 158.
194
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 18, 45.
192
177
should be left in their “present state.” In actual fact, unlike the very first reparto laws of the
1820s, the 1851 law did not require communities to apportion common areas properly speaking.
Land divisions comprised family parcels and additional agricultural lands only. Family parcels
were, if not privately held, discretely used and possessed by community members (see chapter
2). The reparto, commoners in Charapan suggested, was therefore pointless: it would defeat
what it was attempting to achieve. Commoners, in any case, were persuaded that pueblos that
accept the reparto “suffer more miseries than those who reject it.”195
Community representatives in other pueblos made equally perceptive, perhaps more
peculiar, but undeniably bolder statements. In one case, residents from Los Reyes contended that
neither circular 90 nor reparto laws had anything to do with them. According to them, people in
Los Reyes were not indigenous and had “complete domain” of their properties—district
authorities later on affirmed that residents from Los Reyes were, indeed, not indigenous, but
actually held at least part of their lands in common.196 Collectively or individually, residents of
Cheran argued, indigenous communities are like private companies. Therefore, just “as
companies formed in civilized Nations are not constrained,” communities cannot be constrained
either. Experienced has shown to them, Cheran locals continued, that whenever the reparto “took
place in other times” indigenous people were left as “foreigners in their own Pueblos” and their
lands “monopolized by the greed of the rich.”197 Community representatives in Tanaco used the
195
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 162-163.
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 11, 146-147. Los Reyes was
one of the few places in the meseta where land divisions took place in the late 1820s and early 1830s.
197
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 174.
196
178
exact same argument with almost the exact same words. Except for one important addition: they
respectfully petitioned the governor to be kind and repeal all the provisions instigating the
repartición, that is, the division of community lands.198
Buying Time
According to the 1851 law, communities were supposed to form a local commission (comisión
repartidora) that would be in charge of practicing land divisions. The members of this
commission—three, plus three substitutes—would be appointed by an open election. Together,
they had to take a census of all community members, including absent members and minors—all
community members had the right to a piece of land as long as they could prove they were
indigenous or had been born from at least one indigenous parent. One individual would serve as
representative of absent community members and one as representative of minors. The
commission was also required to put together a survey of all lands subject to allocation and a
register of the resultant land fractions once the reparto had been done. This last register must
contain the name of the proprietors, the size of their plot, and its location. The government would
then give final approval of land divisions. If the reparto was approved, each community member
had the right to solicit their personal records (known as hijuelas) and use the resulting document
as property titles. Fiscal officials, finally, would be notified about land divisions in order to make
198
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 19-20.
179
the appropriate records and either start collecting the corresponding taxes or begin granting tax
exemptions.199
These were arduous and time-consuming procedures. They required technical savvy, but
even more importantly they demanded certain degree of local acquiescence and assistance.
Despite some initial expressions of support, few communities had taken steps to form
commissions, least at all to take census or survey community lands. In May 17, 1869, district
official Dion Catalan reported to the minister of government in Morelia that there was little
progress in the implementation of the reparto. The sole community in which land divisions
seemed to be in course was San Francisco Periban (in the lower meseta). As for the rest of
communities within his jurisdiction,200 he had not much to report. The six-month period granted
to most communities to complete land divisions (some were granted up to nine months) was
almost done. Yet, Catalan stressed, communities evaded enforcement “with insignificant
excuses.” Thus far, he observed, only municipal authorities from Zacan had contacted him. They
argued that the lack of a land title proving the exact size of community lands precluded the
enforcement of land divisions. The reparto “can never begin for there is nothing to start with.”201
199
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 11, 195-205 (see articles 4, 7, and 18 of the main law, and articles 7 and 8
of the secondary law.
200
Catalan was the head of the district of Los Reyes. In 1869, the meseta comprised the districts of Uruapan and Los
Reyes, plus a fraction of the district of Apatzingán. In 1877 Tancítaro and Apo, formerly in the district of
Apatzingán, joined the district of Uruapan; the district of Los Reyes was suppressed and incorporated into that of
Uruapan.
201
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 22, 55-56.
180
State Reparto vs Federal Disentailment
Two events finally triggered land divisions. Fiscal officials had been travelling around the
meseta taking notes and doing computations. By July, 1869 they had done appraisals in at least
35 communities—including the barrios of the city of Uruapan.202 Early on, authorities began to
require communities land taxes. The unprecedented news rapidly spread across the region. They
caused surprise and aroused concerns. For the first time, community lands had been assigned a
fiscal value and a corresponding tax rate. In some cases, the surprise was even greater as when
community members found out that appraisals had set land values too high—at least higher than
what they had expected. Community lands in Apo, for instance, were valued in 60,000 pesos, an
amount that even district authorities deemed extraordinary. Fiscal officials were subsequently
instructed to lower the estimation, but they were also told not to disregard “the interests of the
treasury.”203 In some other instances, as in Tancítaro, officials began to enforce tax liens on
community lands after communities failed (or allegedly failed) to pay land duties.204 The new
fiscal policy had been set in motion.
The second event that triggered land divisions was an unforeseen consequence of
authorities’ attempt to implement fiscal and land policies. Surprisingly, a number of community
members and tenants began to claim community lands appealing not to the 1851 reparto law, but
to the 1856 federal law. As pointed out, the 1851 law restricted land allocations to community
members. It was different from the early reparto laws of 1827 and 1828 in that it did not require
202
See, “Noticia num. 16,” in Memoria de Michoacán de 1869, 124-125.
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 13, 70.
204
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 4, 165.
203
181
ejidos (common areas) to be apportioned. It also specified that the built-up area (including
solares) should not be included in the reparto and actually insisted on leaving pueblos the
conventional area of 600 square varas for fundo legales (article 35 of the main law and articles
13 and 16 of the reglamento). Yet, similar to the spirit of earlier laws, it sought to allocate lands
“in the most possible equality in quantity and quality.”205
Land divisions, the 1851 law thus prescribed, ideally must result in equal number of plots
for equal number of persons (article 7). In truth, it also added that individuals could keep the
lands they currently held in possession, as long as they could show they were legitimate
members of the community (and thus earn their right to be included in the reparto). Yet, as in
part previous reparto codes stipulated, it specified that proprietors would be either charged or
compensated in cash for the difference, in case the value of their lands turned out to be below or
above the average (articles 19 and 22 of the main law). The law also instructed that properties
without a particular holder—that was the case of additional arable lands—must too be allocated.
If the resulting value of the individual plots was higher or lower than the average, then
community members would pay or get the difference as well (article 20). If one plot was claimed
by two or more individuals, then de facto holders of parcels had the right to keep the land. In
instances in which there were no specific holders, the winner of a toss would have the right to the
disputed parcel (article 23 of the reglamento). Finally, lands that proved to be impractical to
divide could nonetheless be allocated among several individuals on condition that they belonged
to a same family (article 18 of the reglamento).
205
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 11, 196.
182
The 1851 law, to sum up, entailed a veritable and potentially radical redistribution of
community lands—and with it an equally drastic redistribution of power among community
members. It offered the chance to even out local unbalances. Technically speaking, the law
curtailed the capacity of community notables to retain more and larger holdings. It accordingly
opened the possibility for disenfranchised community members to acquire lands they had been
previously denied or loss or never had. Crucially, the law also prevented tenants from claiming
community lands. In other words, on the one hand, the 1851 reparto denied indigenous people
recognition and communal land tenure any value or use. On the other hand, however, it
prevented concentration of lands by disallowing non-community members from participating in
land divisions and limiting the amount of lands that better-off community members could retain
or acquire. Thus, in setting these limits and promoting an egalitarian (even inflexible)
redistribution of community lands, the 1851 law not only promoted a shift in property rights, but
also a sweeping refashioning of the existing asymmetries within communities and between
communities and other local actors..
By comparison, the 1856 federal law supposed a less radical approach. It gave certain
preference to community members to claim lands, but only insofar as it prioritized tenants and
users over other kind of claimers in general (articles 4 and 6 of the main law, and article 3, 4, and
5 of the reglamento). In other words, unlike Michoacán’s 1851 reparto law, the Lerdo law
allowed non-community members to acquire community lands. In like manner, it permitted
community notables to keep their holdings without having to pay any compensation in case land
turned out to be of greater value than the average local plot. And if the holdings were worth 200
183
pesos or less, the allocation would also be charge-free206—the costs of allocations, according to
the 1851 Michoacán law, should be covered by communal funds. Moreover, the federal law
allowed community notables and tenants to keep more than one property, regardless of their
value. In the absence of a user or leaseholder, as in the case of some grazing and additional
agricultural lands, lands were open to third-party claimers—whether they were community
members or not (article 5 and 10).
Thus, the federal law and Michoacán’s law, unlike what minister Lerdo de Tejada
asserted back in 1856, did not complement each other. Both intended to dismantle communal
landholding, but actually meant different things—sometimes very different things. This is
something that landowners, tenants, community members, and their legal representatives learned
early enough. Presented with equally challenging alternatives and facing increasing pressures of
various kinds, many community members in different pueblos of the meseta began to consider
land divisions as a viable and advantageous solution. Their reasons to do so, however, were far
from identical. Motives varied and even clashed because community members experienced
constraints and enticements according to divergent circumstances. Land divisions fueled existing
rivalries, unearthed old grievances, and exposed social differences inside communities. Federal
and state laws thus became the means to pursue a wide range of local interests.
206
As instructured by a federal circular enacted in October 9, 1856. See, “Ley de 25 de junio de 1856,” 13-14.
184
Communities Split
In the early months of 1869, communities across the meseta had split in two general camps, one
expressing rejection and one expressing support (formal support, at least) to the reparto. By the
end of that year, most communities that manifested an open opposition remained firm against
land divisions—as they would in the next years. Yet communities that expressed initial support
experienced growing internal divisions. Fractures openly surfaced by the early fall when the
official period to conduct the reparto was coming to an end—land divisions should be done by
around December.
In September 3, 1869, Andrés Chávez and Miguel Blanco submitted two of the very first
petitions in the meseta requesting the allocation of land shares in accordance with the 1856
federal law. Chávez was a resident of barrio San Miguel and Blanco a resident of barrio San
Francisco, both in the city of Uruapan in the lower meseta. According to the prefecto, although
petitions such as Chávez’s and Blanco’s were still uncommon, they revealed that there were
many other people willing to carry out land divisions. As stated by the prefecto, “in the
indigenous communities of this city there are many individuals that want the partition
[repartimiento] of their lands, but since the majority is not in favor they refrain themselves from
soliciting it.”207 In the following weeks, district authorities received a handful of similar
petitions. Word about federal laws supporting individual land claims slowly had begun to
spread.208
207
208
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 16.
Ibid., 21.
185
Yet, early enough, formal protests against these petitions, in particular, and against land
divisions, in general, reached the office of the minister of government in Morelia. Speaking on
behalf of “the whole community and pan-community [mancomunidad]” of the city of Uruapan,
representatives Manuel Blanco and Guillermo Morales argued that community members “neither
request nor need” the reparto. In their words, such request was made by “newcomers
[advenedizos] who present themselves as community members [comuneros].” Rancheros, the
two representatives contended, wanted “to seize all the land we occupy and kick us out.” “It is
not criollos, but newcomers who requested the reparto,” they insisted. Criollos, a word often
associated with people of Spanish origins born in Spanish America, was here intended to
describe local residents by birth; and criollos, according to Blanco (Manuel) and Morales, “had
said nothing” and did not want anything to do with land divisions. Similar things, they added,
were also happening in other communities, as in nearby Jicalán.209
The two community representatives bitterly complained about lands taxes as well.
Community members, they stressed, did not earn enough to cover the new duty. It was not that
people deliberately wanted to disobey the government; “we want, but cannot comply,” they
said.210 Blanco’s and Morales’ complaints arose in response to recent attempts by fiscal officials
to seize some community lands. None of the barrios of the city of Uruapan, fiscal officials
reported to the minister of government, had paid their taxes on time. Yet, they assured, it was
only when community members openly defy the enforcement of fiscal laws that officials were
209
210
Ibid., 26.
Ibid.
186
forced to take possession of community lands, “as it occurred with barrio of La Magdalena.”211
The twin pressure of land divisions and taxes had started to take its toll among community
members. In the words of Blanco and Morales, both the reparto and property excises were
“eating us alive.”212
Tensions and divisions had too been growing in several other pueblos of the meseta. As a
rule, pueblos split in two competing cliques. On occasions, disputes entailed a well-defined
divide between one clique sponsoring land divisions and another one opposing them. In
Parangaricutiro (in the lower meseta), for instance, traditional authorities (grouped around a local
and traditional institution called cabildo) clashed with a number of community and noncommunity members backing land reform. The cabildo was accused by its detractors of
mismanaging community funds and concentrating power at the expense of younger generations.
Long-standing rivalries between a cluster of notable and affluent local families (indigenous and
non-indigenous) were behind these disputes. The question of land divisions provided a new
occasion to settle old accounts. For detractors of the cabildo—perhaps fully aware about the fact
that liberals considered cabildos and other similar institutions to be the quintessential form of
local oppression—, it offered an opportunity to use land reforms against their old rivals and tip
the balance of local power to their favor.213
211
Ibid, 25.
Ibid, 26.
213
See, Catalina Sáenz Gallegos, "Repercusiones de la política de reparto de bienes comunales en el municipio de
San Juan Parangaricutiro (1861-1908)" (MA diss., Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 2006), 95;
Purnell, “With All Due Respect,” 112-113; and Claudio Garibay Orozco, Comunalismos y liberalismos campesinos.
Identidad comunitaria, empresa social forestal y poder corporado en el México contemporáneo (Zamora: El
Colegio de Michoacán, 2008), 325-329, 333-336, 346-347.
212
187
In some other instances, however, cleavages did not simply revolve around the issue of
whether to oppose or support land reform. Divisions, instead, were mostly about when, how, and
who would control its implementation. In Tancítaro, one of the southermost communities in the
lower meseta, local notables confronted not land divisions, but one another in order to shape the
progress and the outcome of land allocations and secure (or augment) their own authority and
holdings within the community. As in other communities, there were two rival groups involved.
Both turned liberal policies and laws (first state laws, then state and federal laws alike) into
instruments of their internal strife—instruments with which they could overturn rival moves and
outdo their competitors. The two cliques also claimed they were acting in the name of the
community and for the benefit of the majority. As in Parangaricutiro, their antagonisms dated
back to earlier years. Old rivalries underpinned new confrontations.
During the course of 1869, the two cliques continuously maneuvered to displace their
rivals and win over district authorities and officials in Morelia. One group was headed by then
municipal president Simón Reimundo and different local notables such as Rafael Urbina and
Antonio Álvarez (an individual this latter who would eventually play a central role in how land
divisions took place in Tancítaro). Luis Medina, member of a local prominent family, together
with other well-known community members such as Lorenzo and Miguel Torres, headed the
second group.
Few weeks after the meeting to discuss circular 90 took place, Reimundo and Urbina
evicted the Bucio family from rancho El Espinal, a property belonging to the community. The
1851 law gave preference to community members over tenants and, according to Reimundo and
188
Urbina, the Bucios had wrongly occupied lands in El Espinal for they were not community
members. The Bucios, in turn, argued that the family had been given the lands a long time ago
(c. 1806) as payment for some services provided to the community and that no one had let them
know about land divisions and the meeting to discuss circular 90. The Bucios, however, were
forced to leave. People associated with Urbina and Reimundo took possession of the lands. It
was the first step of a series of moves by Reimundo and his allies intending to prevent rival
groups from participating in the reparto.214
The Reimundo clique, however, did not go unchallenged for long. During the summer
(August 1869), Luis Medina submitted a formal complain to the government in which he
accused Reimundo of deliberately delaying the reparto—Reimundo had, indeed, attended a
meeting wherein several community representatives from different pueblos of the meseta agreed
to petition the governor for an extension to conduct land divisions. Medina, moreover, contended
that Reimundo had no right to represent the community of Tancítaro for he, Medina, had been
appointed apoderado years before. District authorities confirmed that, indeed, Medina had been
named legal representative in 1860 and that Reimundo could no longer speak or act on behalf of
the community. Medina arranged a new meeting to discuss, once more, land divisions. The
meeting, however, did not go as planned. The Reimundo clique mobilized their local supporters
and outnumbered Medina and his allies. Medina wanted to conduct land divisions within a
period of six of months. The assembly, instead, voted for petitioning a two-year extension.
214
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 4, 149-152. See also, Elsa
Dolores Estrada Virgen, "Reparto de tierras comunales y consolidación de la burguesía rural en Tancítaro, Los
Reyes y Peribán (1867-1910), " (BA diss., Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1998), 28.
189
Confrontations between the two cliques all but terminated. On the contrary, clashes finally
resulted in the death of one person—the circumstances around the event remained unclear.215
Just when tensions in Tancítaro and other communities seemed about to escalate, ongoing
divisions within liberal ranks temporarily halted disputes over land divisions on the ground. The
fragile unity that followed the victory over the second empire and conservative forces gradually
gave way to fierce competition between liberal militants and leaders. In October, 1869, general
Epitacio Huerta, the former governor of Michoacán, led a revolt in the central-north areas of the
Michoacán. The revolt had a limited impact until it combined with a greater uprising against
incumbent president Benito Juárez during the first months of 1870. 216 Although the uprising was
eventually defeated, it bought detractors of land reform some time to delay implementation.
Still, despite liberal infighting, opposition to land divisions did not put an end to internal
rivalries in many communities. Competition within liberal ranks continued both in Michoacán
and the rest of the country. In fact, power struggles between different liberal factions brought
about further uprisings—including Porfirio Díaz’s first (and failed) attempt to seize national
power in the fall of 1871 (supported in Michoacán by none other than Epitacio Huerta). Yet,
unlike in past decades, conflicts did not result in drastic institutional changes. Liberal laws and
policies remained in place for many years to come. Discredited and truly defeated, conservatives
no longer represented a viable political alternative. In Michoacán, at least, concerns about an
215
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 4, 157-164; and Estrada
Virgen, , "Reparto de tierras comunales,” 29-30.
216
See, Bravo Ugarte, Historia sucinta, 474; and José Napoleón Guzmán Ávila, "La república restaurada: en busca
de la consolidación de un proyecto liberal, 1867-1876", in Historia general de Michoacán, 101-136.
190
alliance between pueblos and conservatives had been dissipated. Church properties had been
either disentailed or nationalized. Despite ongoing political conflicts, conditions still seemed
favorable to resume land policies. Enforcement of land taxes, in fact, had not halted. Neither did
local pressures to carry out land divisions.
Conflict of Laws
February 22, 1872. On behalf of the governor, officials in the ministry of government of
Michoacán wrote to federal authorities asking for advice on how to proceed on a difficult issue.
Days before the head of the district of Uruapan (prefecto) had submitted a communication to the
governor with a series of questions about land divisions in the meseta. The questions, the
prefecto said, arose in response to what he described as a “large number of written petitions
[ocursos] claiming and soliciting the allocation of a variety of lands and rural properties that
belong to the indigenous communities of the district.” The prefecto would not have submitted the
communication if it were not for the fact that the petitions were actually made “in accordance
with the law of June 25, 1856,” that is, in accordance with the federal disentailment law.217
Officials in the minister of government were uncertain about how to respond to such
conundrum. Efforts to enforce land divisions as mandated by the 1851 law were still in progress
and land claims based on the 1856 federal law had not been that numerous thus far. The
governor, at any rate, decided to turn the matter to federal authorities in Mexico City. The issue
revolved around the question of who, in actual fact, had the right to claim community lands. Was
217
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 19, 61-62.
191
it possible for community members, the prefecto asked, to claim lands they already have in
individual possession? Could community members claim the lands communities rented to thirdparties? Did leaseholders and other third-parties have the right to claim these lands too? Did
tenants have preference over community members in such claims? Could anyone claim lands
over 200 pesos in possession of indigenous dwellers? What about lands under 200 pesos? Were
they subject to claims if indigenous holders had not properly requested property rights yet? 218
The response of federal authorities (March 2, 1872) was unequivocal. Since “no one
person had vested right” over community lands, it was therefore the right of users and
leaseholders to claim lands first, including community lands on lease. Properties under 200 pesos
must remain in possession of their current holders and were not subject to third-party claims
unless holders explicitly relinquished the right to keep their plots. Incumbent holders also had
preference to claim properties above 200 pesos—as a rule, in the hands of middling and betteroff locals and community members. Decisively, however, federal authorities set a period of three
months to make proper claims for these lands before anyone could legally request them on a
first-come, first served basis.219
Officials in Mexico City, in other words, considered the petitions for community lands in
accordacnce with the federal 1856 law legitimate and legal. In doing so, they caused the reparto
to take an unexpected turn in the meseta. Petitioners had won federal support and thus achieved a
great victory over detractors of land divisions. Yet they were also forced to act fast (within
218
219
Ibid.
Ibid.
192
maximum three months) if they were to succeed in keeping the stretches of community lands
they had claimed and prevent other community members from thwarting their plans. As in past
occasions, federal authorities had offered a rigid interpretation of the 1856 law. Their decisions
overlooked the many ongoing antagonisms that prompted land petitions in the first place. Federal
mandates were meant to give property rights uniformity and provide proprietors with legal
certainty; instead, they brought about tensions and deepened cleavages within communities.
Hard Choices
The first reparto took place between 1872 and 1875 in the meseta. Most land allotments
occurred during the second half of 1872. A majority of them in June and July, during and right
after the three-month period set by federal authorities to claim community lands under the 1856
federal law. Communities thus far had weathered government pressures to carry out land
divisions. They had begun, however, to experience difficulties coping with new land taxes.
Several communities had faced tax liens or at least the threat of foreclosures. Political
circumstances had favored communities’ attempts to delay the reparto. Yet land claims based on
the 1856 law had been officially ratified by federal authorities and, as a result, should be
observed by authorities in Michoacán.
The news spread quickly all around the meseta. Stakes were now considerably higher.
Community members would have to compete for community lands and secure their family
holdings. Official federal sanction could multiply land claims very fast, especially since
communities were already divided over the convenience of carrying out land divisions. There
193
was the 1851 state law. It was a path that most community members had been unwilling to take.
Yet, under the new circumstances, if compared to the 1856 law, it could at least offer them some
guarantees and advantages, namely, keeping lands in the hands of the community and some
redistribution to poor community members.
Thus, the seemingly small but actually crucial differences between carrying out land
divisions according to the federal law, on the one hand, and adhering to the 1851 law, on the
other, became apparent. Land claims based on federal directives favored better-off community
members and tenants. As pointed out, the Lerdo law permitted them to keep their present
holdings and even acquire additional community lands. If numerous enough—and their numbers
had notably grown since 1869—claimants could deprive communities from most of their
agricultural lands and take control of a significant share of local resources. This, in turn, would
strengthen claimants’ influence over community affairs in general. Individual petitions for
community lands, in other words, posed significant challenges and offered few or no concrete
benefits in return, especially to middling and disenfranchised community members.
Resorting to state reparto policies entailed significant problems and risks too. Yet state
policies at least provided some useful means to counter the greater ordeals posed by federal laws
and decrees. Under the 1851 law directives, community lands remained in possession of
community members, preventing tenants and third-parties from making subsequent land claims.
If carefully apportioned, moreover, communities as a whole could retain significant control and
continue to derive benefits from surplus grazing and farming lands. That is in part why not all
community notables and comparatively affluent community members backed individual land
194
claims in accordance with the federal law. Their position depended to an important extent on the
continuity of community bonds and communal land tenure. Michoacán reparto policies gave
community members some margin of autonomy to implement land divisions which community
notables and leaders could either use to advance their personal interest or employ to the
advantage of communities. The federal law, in contrast, significantly undermined the power of
community members to decide over the process and outcome of land divisions. Local autonomy
and the ascendancy of at least part of community elites—often two deeply intertwined things—
were also at stake.220
Keeping in check individual land claims also ensured that a majority of middling
community groups would retain their family parcels intact. In principle, most family parcels
could not be legally alienated using federal laws. Since they were worth less than 200 pesos, they
should remain in possession of their current holders by default. Yet word of federal authorities
supporting claims upon community lands had engendered an atmosphere of uncertainty causing
220
In her groundbreaking and sharp analysis of land privatizations in Michoacán, Jennie Purnell perceptively
pointed out that liberal land policies were as much about property rights as they were about power and autonomy.
That is, about determining who had the right to decide over internal community affairs and local resources. Yet,
although power struggles between rival community factions played a central role in her analysis, Purnell tended to
see land divisions mainly as a conflict between the state and the communities or, more precisely, between state
intervention and local autonomy. State intervention, however, was not necessarily the central issue at stake in land
divisions. Community members responded not solely to state policies, but to pressures from within communities and
on the part of other local actors. Purnell also made no distinction between federal and state policies. Her analysis, in
fact, tended to assume that it was the Lerdo law and not the 1851 law which mattered most. In like manner, since she
also assumed that most communities and community members resisted land divisions from beginning to end, Purnell
did not take into consideration the fact that responses to land reform could and did actually change over time
according to varying circumstances. Her analysis thus did not account for different actors using different laws at
different times to achieve different ends. In other words, her analysis did not account for why a majority of
community members in many pueblos ended up supporting state reparto policies. These caveats notwithstanding,
her work still represents one of the most insightful and useful to understand the dynamics of liberal land reform in
Michoacán. See Purnell, “With All Due Respect,” 93-94; and Purnell, Popular Movements, 25, 33-40.
195
alert among community members. In the eyes of many of them, without some kind of official
sanction by the government of Michoacán that could counter federal support to individual land
claimants, family parcels too could be at risk before long. In the midst of an increasingly tense
environment, abiding by state reparto rules provided many community members (including the
worst-off) with the legal instruments to fight claimants back and limit all future attempts of
defying community members’ traditional rights over family land shares.
As pointed out, Michoacán’s reparto policy had the potential of instigating a drastic
redistribution of community holdings. Privileged community members and tenants, therefore,
had good reasons to oppose the 1851 law. If enforced à la lettre, redistribution would
significantly limit their access to community lands, forcing them to hand down lands to middling
and lower community members. Families struggling to cope with everyday sustenance may have
a chance to acquire much needed land shares, whereas families with more or less adequate
holdings could either secure their current holdings or even obtain some additional acres.
Anticipating this scenario, and well aware of the fact that federal laws entailed no such thing as a
reallocation of land shares, a number of tenants and community members thus opted for claiming
community lands. Federal sanction of these land claims turned outright opposition to land
divisions increasingly difficult and potentially counterproductive. As a result, unwilling to break
away from communities, many community principals resorted to state reparto policies. The
personal costs of redistributing community lands could be handled by winning over the support
of a selected group of families and individuals within the community, as well as by making sure
principals played a leading role in how lands shares would be allocated.
196
Michoacán policies had one last crucial advantage. Fiscal laws, as pointed out earlier,
granted tax exemptions to communities that decided to carry out land divisions. Land appraisals
and taxes had become an important cause of concerns across the meseta. Pleas to repeal the land
tax had proved unsuccessful. Dividing community lands was one way of canceling out an
increasingly worrisome burden. At least for some years. Although the 1851 law granted a tenyear tax relief, the period to apply for the benefit had already expired. A decree of 1862 extended
the period for four years, but this concession too expired during the French intervention. The
1868 fiscal law then established a new extension of six years (article 34), an extension that was
later on broadened for two more years in 1872 and then again for five additional years in 1875.
Significantly, laws and decrees clearly stated that tax reliefs only applied to indigenous holders.
Equally important, properties below than 100 pesos would automatically be exempted from
paying land taxes, as well as lands within the built-up area of pueblos—which included domestic
solares.221
Supporting Liberalism against Liberalism
March 22, 1872. The prefecto of Uruapan estimated that, as result of the reparto, he would have
to issue between 7,000 and 8,000 property tittles—so many that he asked authorities in Morelia
221
For the 1851 law see, Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 9, 200-201 (article 34); for the 1862 decree see,
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 17, 23; for the 1868 law see, Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 17, 27
(articles 5 and 6); for 1872 see Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares
expedidas en el estado de Michoacán, Vol. 21 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1887), 61-62; and
for 1875 see, Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en el estado
de Michoacán, Vol. 22 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1887), 64.
197
for funds to employ an extra clerk.222 Meetings took place across the meseta. Community
members mobilized. Legal representatives were appointed, lawyers were hired. Representatives
and community leaders from different pueblos gathered to discuss the course of action
communities should take. Antonio Chapina served as spokesperson for Parangaricutiro, Corupo,
Ahuiran, and San Felipe de los Herreros. Pedro Eiquihua, a well-known lawyer and member of a
prominent indigenous family of the meseta, represented Sevina, Sicuicho, and Jucutacato. Justo
Contreras was appointed representative in Aranza, Manuel Perea in Ziracuateriro, Ramon
Treviño in Jicalan, while Pedro Figueroa represented Quinceo and Manuel Gerónimo did the
same for Arantepacua. They all agreed to submit joint petition to the governor of Michoacán.
The petition had one central message. Communities disallowed federal land policy and preferred
instead to implement land divisions in accordance with state reparto laws.223
The rationale buttressing the petition was as bold as it was cunning. Petitioners argued
that indigenous communities had been dissolved as a result of the 1851 reparto law. Ever since
the enactment of this law, communities had been considered “as simple farming companies or as
a group of individuals enjoying properties in common [pro-indiviso].” These properties,
petitioners emphasized, were in no way held in perpetual ownership because community
members had the right to freely transfer them and had, in fact, previously “alienated many
lands.”224 Given that indigenous people did not form “perpetual communities,” the 1856 federal
law could not affect their lands. Moreover, the Lerdo law had only caused confusion and became
222
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 23, 120.
Ibid, 180.
224
Ibid., 180-181.
223
198
a hurdle to implement land allocations. The 1851 law had already granted community members
the right to solicit their corresponding shares of land. The Lerdo law neglected this right and
favored “bastard interests of some speculators who have learned to take advantage of the
confusion, assisted by the ignorance of indigenous people, to take from them their lands and
leave them in the midst of the most horrible misery.”225
It was a mistake, petitioners insisted, to conflate disentailment with reparto laws. “The
government, or rather society,” they argued, “is highly interested in dissolving indigenous
communities.” Yet, at the same time, society must have an interest in preventing indigenous
people from experiencing poverty and, as a result, being forced to resort to “all sort of
crimes.”226 Federal authorities, in fact, petitioners stressed, had acknowledged the difference
between mortmain and community lands in the past. In 1856, the federal government agreed that
tierras de común repartimiento (family lands) in Tepeji del Rio (a pueblo in the state of Mexico,
now in the state Hidalgo) should remain in possession of their indigenous holders since lands
were already individually held and enjoyed by community members. Hence, as with Tepeji del
Rio, community lands in the meseta needed not to be disentailed, but merely be granted full
recognition as private property. Community holdings, petitioners concluded, had been in
possession of indigenous people “since time immemorial” and used not only to cover “common
needs, but the particular needs of each individual.”227
225
Ibid., 180.
Ibid., 182.
227
Ibid. For the Tepeji del Rio federal decisions see, Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 21, 29-30.
226
199
The authorities of Michoacán did not completely consent to conduct land allocations
exclusively in accordance with the 1851 law. Yet they agreed to allow communities decide over
the most convenient way to divide their lands. This meant that ongoing land claims based on
federal laws would not be disallowed, but it also meant that communities were not banned from
choosing Michoacán reparto laws. In other words, land divisions would come down to a matter
of local politics, a dispute between advocates of federal policy and supporters of state policy
within pueblos. Any legal conflicts resulting from land divisions, the authorities of Michoacán
resolved, would have to be settled in court in the future. In the meantime, the congress of
Michoacán hurried to renew the extraordinary powers previously granted to the executive power
for promoting land divisions.228 It was, after all, the best chance authorities had had in decades to
enforce land reform.
Implementation: Compromise and Ruptures
In the end, a compromise between federal and state land policies characterized land divisions in
the meseta. In most of the barrios of Uruapan (Santiago, San Pedro, La Magdalena, San Juan
Bautista, San Miguel), a majority of people actually favored federal claims over reparto policies.
Yet since lands were claimed all at once by a majority, and not independently by a clique in
particular, communities and community members were able to prevent major land losses. For the
time being, most people retained their land shares. The downside was that in maintaining the
existing distribution of shares essentially unchanged, land divisions also perpetuated the status
228
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 21, 61-62.
200
quo. Former tenants (at least a group of them) and better-off community members maintained an
advantage over middling and lower community members. Struggling families, in particular,
found no benefit in land divisions and, if something, they were left even more exposed to
attempts by their more powerful neighbors to acquire their lands.229
By comparison, some distribution took place in the barrios of San Juan Evangelista and
San Francisco. There, community members chose state reparto policies over federal claims.
Overseen by locally appointed commissions, redistribution caused some opposition and, after
lands were allotted, some complaints too.230 A number of discontented community members
protested about been left out of the reparto, while some others complained about the way land
shares had been assigned. Interestingly, in the barrio of San Juan Evangelista the reparto also
comprised one piece of mountainous lands (Cerro Chino) and not merely family and additional
agricultural lands. The inclusion of a monte may have been a way to compensate community
members lacking lands or a way to compensate friends and allies (or both). Yet, overall, factional
disputes in San Juan and San Francisco seemed not to have been especially acute. Redistribution
altered land arrangements, but apparently not in a way so as to alienate a majority or upset a
powerful local minority. Eventually, most community members came to accept the reparto. By
July, 1873, residents of San Francisco tellingly declared that “the real estate property that we
held in common by tradition of our ancestors has ceased to exist.”231
229
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 2, 51-56, 85-86.
Ibid., 7-11, 37-39, 42, 86; and AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan,
vol. 18, 29-33.
231
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 18, 31.
230
201
A similar pattern characterized land divisions in communities such as Jucutacato, Sevina,
and Jicalán, all communities in the lower meseta. There communities relied on the 1851 state law
and a majority retained more or less intact its previous land shares, while a number of those who
were short of lands received additional portions to make up for previous insufficiencies. There
were, as a rule, discontented groups at the bottom and at the top, but disaffected parties could not
gather enough support to overturn allocations. Local commissions and apoderados may have
taken advantage of their position to secure personal gains or favor close allies, but not to an
extent so as to trigger major discontent and antagonisms. Overall, internal social differentiations
changed mildly and, crucially, most notables and well-to-do community members preserved their
ascendancy and holdings. Land divisions, as a result, took place in relative calm and under the
direction of community leaders or local notables such as Pedro Eiquihua (Jucutacato and Sevina)
or Dionisio Magaña (Jicalán).232 In March 28, 1874, the government of Michoacán gave its
official and final approval to the reparto in these communities.
Land divisions evolved rather differently in Nahuatzen, the only community of the upper
meseta that carried out land divisions. There, community members, represented by Abraham
Molina and Antonio Rodríguez Gil, disputed tenant María de Jesús Madrazo rights to hacienda
San Marcos—located in the Los Reyes area. Madrazo argued that she had lawfully acquired the
hacienda in accordance with the Lerdo law, but residents of Nahuatzen insisted that the estate
still belonged to the community. Eventually, both parties reached an agreement. The details are
232
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 3, 22-23, 26, 29-30, 33-36;
and AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 8, 105.
202
unclear, but it seems that Madrazo maintained possession of at least part of the hacienda, while
continued paying Nahuatzen an annual fee for another part of the property. Many years later, in
1888, after the passing of María de Jesús Madrazo, a new apoderado of Nahuatzen accused
Molina and a local notable called Carlos Eiquihua of having mismanaged the revenues derived
from San Marcos all those years.233
Nahuatzen’s reparto was also unique in that it was the sole community to extend land
divisions to most of its forested areas. The allocation of family parcels and at least part of
additional agricultural lands took place during the second half of 1872. Yet the community
carried out a second round of partitions in the summer of 1873, this time including mountainous
lands. Apoderado Abraham Molina had previously suggested the government (June 1872) turn
montes into ranchos and then rent them out. The municipality, not the community, would get the
revenues since, according to Molina, the reparto would render the community nonexistent. This,
the apoderado argued, was easier than actually distributing mountainous lands among
community members. His plan did not succeed, but authorities came up with an alternative
scheme. The community set aside one monte to form the ejido of the pueblo. The remaining
montes, in part already employed in agricultural activities, split into three different sections. On
paper, each community member was granted a share of mountainous land within one of these
sections. In practice, as in the past, community members continued using montes as open areas.
There was, however, an important difference. Now, community members could sell the rights to
their individual shares, making it easier for wealthier individuals to concentrate sizeable stretches
233
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 104-112 and 131.
203
of montes. Over the course of next two decades or so, more and more open areas turned into
private holdings in the hands of ever fewer community members, among them Molina and
probably Eiquihua, but also Francisco Alvelo who eventually concentrated about 30% of the
remaining forested areas of Nahautzen (as pointed out in chapter 2).234
In most cases, one group dominated the process of land allocations relying on the support
of a majority or at least on the support of key segments of the community. Yet in a number of
instances, as in Apo and Tancítaro (tellinlgy, two of the better-off communities of the lower
meseta wherein internal social differentiation was comparatively greater), factional competition
characterized land divisions from beginning to end. In Apo, the first local commission in charge
of the reparto was loudly contested. Its members were accused of distributing land shares
without even putting together a census of all the beneficiaries—as required by the 1851 reparto
law—and acting with “animosity” against “many individuals.” There were also harsh complaints
about the prefecto for allowing the local commission to proceed with allocations and
systematically ignoring any protests against land divisions.235
Opposition to the local commission resulted in an election to form a new comisión
repartidora (March, 1872). The new commission, however, did not fare better. Having lost
control of how the reparto would take place, the members of the previous commission (led by
Eulogio Vargas) and their allies retaliated. They accused Francisco Guerrero, head of the new
234
Ibid., 113-120. To some degree, events in Nahuatzen foreshadowed what other communities would experience
during the late 1890s and early 1900s when forest lands across the meseta became the center of the second reparto
wave—the matter of the next chapter.
235
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 13, 73-74. Apo and
Tancítaro were at the time part of the district of Apatzingán. The prefecto, therefore, was different from that of the
district of Uruapan.
204
commission, of acting in league with Antonio Alvarez, resident of Tancítaro and leaseholder of
one of Apo’s main properties (El Pilón). According to Vargas, neither Guerrero nor Alvarez
actually wanted land divisions to take place because both had debts with the community, debts
that they would have to cover if the reparto succeeded. More importantly, Alvarez would be
forced to relinquish El Pilón in favor of Apo’s community members. Vargas argued that Alvarez
had been operating from the very beginning, “deluding the unwary” in order to protect his
personal interest at the expense of the community. In spite of these allegations, officials in
Morelia—against the opinion of the prefecto—ratified the election of the second commission.236
Differences between rival groups were never actually settled in Apo. Yet allocations—
conducted in June, 1872 and approved by the government in July 11, 1872—resulted in a
compromise of sorts.237 As in other communities, most families retained their holdings, while
some received a little more to compensate for previous land shortfalls. Overall, however, only
few truly benefited from the reparto. Antonio Alvarez acquired part of El Pilón at a price of 500
pesos—the whole property was valued in approximately 5,000 pesos. The rest of the property
was split in half, one to cover some community expenses and the other distributed in equal
shares among community members.238 El Pilón eventually became the base of Alvarez’s rise as a
major landowner. By 1889, three year after Alvarez passed away, it had 100 workers, one sugar
mill, and a liquor (aguardiente) factory—all in possession of María de Jesús Alvarez de Mendez,
236
Ibid., 37-48, 76-79, 85-86, and 89-90.
Ibid., 61 and 95.
238
Ibid., 97.
237
205
Alvarez’s daughter. By the early twentieth century, El Pilón was valued in about 33,000.239 The
Vargas clique (Alvarez’s rival), for its part, ended up claiming their holdings relying on the 1856
federal law. In 1877, Francisco Guerrero (who had contributed in selling El Pilón to Alvarez)
still bemoaned the fact that Vargas and his partners, “the wealthiest” people in Apo according to
him, had managed to keep community lands, “while the wretched from whom they had taken
their lands did not have even bread to eat.”240
In no other place were disputes between two rival factions as stern as in Tancítaro. There,
as pointed out earlier, rivalries escalated resulting in the killing of one community member in the
late months of 1869. Only the discord among liberal national and regional groups prevented
things from getting out of hand. The bitterness, however, resurfaced early in the spring of 1872.
By then, Antonio Alvarez himself, together with Simón Reimundo and Rafael Urbina, had been
appointed members of the local commission in charge of implementing land divisions (MarchApril, 1872).241
Fig. 7. Top 20 individual Holders of Community Land Before the
Reparto
No.
Name
1
2
3
4
5
6
Manuel Rojas
Luis Medina
Leonardo Reimundo
Maria de Jesus Lopez
Alvino Medina
Ignacio Alvarez
Group
Against A. Alvarez et al.
Against A. Alvarez et al.
Against A. Alvarez et al.
Against A. Alvarez et al.
Against A. Alvarez et al.
Against A. Alvarez et al.
239
Value of Land
Shares in
Pesos
885
535
519
324
305
292
See, Estrada Virgen, , "Reparto de tierras comunales,” 52-53.
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 13, 132.
241
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 4, 178.
240
206
7 Manuel Estrella
8 Vicente Mora
Encarnacion
9 Montelongo
10 Jose Jesus Rios
11 Eugenio Sanchez
12 Guillerma Navarro
13 Julian Lucas
14 Jose Pardo
15 Epifaneo Velazquez
16 Juan Garcia
17 Apolinario Sanchez
18 Claudio Castillo
19 Antonio Alvarez
20 Juan Estrella
Total
Against A. Alvarez et al.
Unknown
269
1,001
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Against Medina et al.
Against Medina et al.
833
400
345
332
298
275
256
250
248
238
502
250
8,356
Sources: AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 2, 14-179; and
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 14, 1-65. Based on 378
instances where land values were provided.
In response, perhaps anticipating retaliation on the part of Alvarez and Reimundo, a
group of rival community members and tenants submitted district authorities land claims using
federal laws. Supporters of Alvarez and Reimundo, in turn, denounced that some community
members in ranchos El Espinal, Cuate, and Arapindo (all part of Tancítro’s holdings) had
illegally formed a new community to elude the reparto—apparently, ever since Reimundo and
Urbina evicted the Bucios, El Espinal had become a bastion against state reparto policies. The
municipal president of Tancítaro agreed that people in these ranchos were trying to constitute a
different community and that therefore authorities should prevent this from happening. The
prefecto, however, informed officials in Morelia that such allegations were unfounded and that
207
they had been orchestrated by Alvarez and Reimundo. People in Tancítaro, the prefecto added,
were willing to carry out land divisions, but Alvarez and his partners had been acting with
prejudice against them and thus many community members opted to solicit land shares based on
federal laws.242
Fig. 8. Distribution of Land in Tancítaro
Before the Reparto
Land Shares
Top 20
Value (Pesos)
8,356
% of Total
21
Middling Members
30,654
76
Bottom 90
1,376
40,386
3
100
Total
Sources: AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 2, 1-2, 14-179; and
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 14, 1-65. Data based on 378
instances where land values were provided.
Meanwhile, numerous other community members began to solicit Alvarez and Reimundo
to be listed in the census of individuals with the right to receive community lands in accordance
with state laws. Some of these petitions explicitly requested lands that were in possession of
either other community members or tenants. Often, petitions came from disenfranchised
community members. Secundino Vega’s petition, for instance, stated that “not having possessed
thus far land whatsoever I beg the commission consider the share that corresponds me in Rancho
242
Ibid., 179 and 190-192.
208
del Reparo in possession of leaseholder citizen Rafael Lomas.”243 In some other instances,
petitioners sought redress for previous or ongoing losses. Antonio Balderas said he was deprived
of two of the eight fanegas of land he used to have for him and his family. To compensate for
this loss, Balderas petitioned the commission lands in possession of an individual called Gerardo
Hernandez.244 Land divisions, petitioners such as Balderas and Vega became aware, entailed an
unprecedented occasion to alter local unbalances. Forced to opt between federal and state
policies, they picked the one that most favored their interests and could procure security for their
families.
Yet not all community members and local residents considered state reparto policies the
best means to protect their lands and families. Especially when a rival group controlled the local
commission in charge of defining who would get what within the community. Many tenants and
community members continued submitting to district authorities land claims based on federal
laws; the office of the prefecto, in turn, continued backing the petitions. Unable to negotiate with
the prefecto, Alvarez and the members of the local commission, together with municipal
president José María del Río, wrote to the governor complaining about district authorities. The
community, they argued, had agreed to conduct land divisions in accordance with state laws.
Authorizing individual land claims was not only against the interest of the community, but it was
illegal. In validating these claims, they said, the prefecto was protecting “a mob of landholders
(adjudicatarios) who just as vultures, they are everywhere devouring the properties of the
243
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 5, 34. For a similar example
in This same volume see, 36-48, and 182.
244
Ibid., 35.
209
orphans and widows.” The governor should know, Alvarez and partners argued, that this “mob”
was actually comprised by “some indigenous people that have unlawfully been in possession of
disproportionate shares of land, taking advantage of their position to maintain the abuse and
sanction it with a property title.”245
Officials in Morelia determined that land divisions based on state laws should continue,
but they did not reverse individual petitions for land based on federal laws. This fueled ongoing
cleavages. Authorities heard news that “a considerable number” of people in Tancítaro had been
repeatedly meeting to discuss land divisions and that “feelings were running high,” as if
something bad were about to happen.246 Alvarez and the local commission started issuing land
titles without previous authorization of the prefecto or the governor. The prefecto then moved to
Tancítaro with a small armed force and spread the word that land titles given by the local
commission had no legal value until approved by the government. He also declared land
allocations nulled. The minister of government, for its part, required from the local commission
all the documentation regarding the reparto to make a final decision. Alvarez submitted the
documents, but also solicited authorization of the allocations he and the commission had
previously done.247 To the surprise of the prefecto and Alvarez’s opponents, the minister of
government decided to approve the reparto in August 31, 1872. The minister, however, also
added that the approval only included lands that had been allocated “without prejudice to the
245
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 5, 195.
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 4, 214-215.
247
Ibid., 217-228.
246
210
rights of third-parties who had acquired them by virtue of disentailment laws or any other
title.”248
Land divisions in Tancítaro caused more problems than they solved. Months after the
approval of the reparto, Luis Medina, one of the main opponents of the local commission, took
legal action against Alvarez, Del Río, and Reimundo (March, 1873). During the legal process, a
number of community members affirmed that the local commission performed allocations
without abiding by any of the rules established in the law. Medina and his allies accused Alvarez
of manipulating the reparto to his personal benefit. According to Medina and other witnesses,
the local commission consistently excluded community members from the list of beneficiaries of
the reparto. Moreover, Alvarez promised numerous people lands, only to pressure them into
selling their shares to him. Medina also added that Alvarez had acquired an extensive stretch of
mountainous land (Cerro Grande), thus violating legal prohibitions to trade or allocate land
reserved for the ejido of pueblos.249
In addition to this legal suit, Medina and dozens of other community members
simultaneously submitted pleas to the governor requesting the complete cancelation of the
reparto. Yet the government replied that in approving the reparto, authorities made sure that
allocations had not affected the right of third-parties. The approval, at any rate, could not be
undone. Any pending allegations should be channeled to judicial authorities.250 And many
community members did so. Especially the ones that had not submitted a claim for land before
248
Ibid., 231.
Ibid., 246-249.
250
Ibid., 242-245, 277, and 283.
249
211
the government of Michoacán approved the reparto. Their cases made their way up to the federal
Supreme Court. Plaintiffs argued that the decision of the government of Michoacán to approve
the reparto violated the constitution and their “individual rights” [garantías individuales],
particularly their right to property. Community members had turned into the very sponsors and
defenders of individual rights against a government that promoted land divisions precisely to end
communal land tenure and reform the allegedly archaic ways of indigenous people. In June and
September, 1874, two different groups of claimants received the news that the Supreme Court
had ruled in their favor.251
The decision did not overturn the reparto altogether, but it did oblige authorities in
Michoacán to reverse numerous allocations in Tancítaro. On the ground, this meant that
individuals such as Secundino Vega and Antonio Balderas would have to give back any lands
they had received during the reparto. If allocations had brought about at least mild changes in
how lands were distributed in Tancítaro, these were substantially undermined. That is, of course,
if Alvarez and the local commission showed consideration for at least some of the individuals
they had listed as having the right to get a share of community lands. In October, 1874, yet
another group of petitioners requested a new reparto, denouncing the members of the local
commission for having utilized their position to acquire “the best lands” and favored their friends
and local partners.252 Community members continued submitting appeals to the Supreme Court
251
252
Ibid., 272-273, 286-287, 292-293.
Ibid., 293-295.
212
and appeals continued to be supported by federal judges (September, 1875).253 In the midst of
internal struggles for land and power, redistribution could only instigate grievances and serve as
an instrument to settle old and new accounts.
The government of Michoacán acknowledged only in part that land divisions in Tancítaro
had been close to disaster. In 1877, the new governor of Michoacán, general Manuel González
(one of Porfirio Díaz’s closest allies), still spoke of land divisions as pending business in most
communities of Michoacán. Tellingly enough, he chose Tancítaro as example of the things the
government should do better in the future. Land divisions, he said, must seek the wellbeing of
“current holders and proceed with strict justice so as to not give way, as in Tancítaro, to endless
complaints.”254 Apparently, it took the intervention of a special official, visitador Bruno Patiño,
for things to settle down again.
Fiscal officials knew a little better. Unable to make sense of land allocations in Tancítaro
and determine who among community members should pay land taxes, official Juan Romero
recommended to authorities in Morelia in the fall of 1877 a complete annulment of the reparto in
Tancítaro. Otherwise, he said, the wealth of indigenous families “will remain forever, as it is
now, in the hands of Don Antonio Alvarez and some in the hands of his favorites.” “Being that
money is in all times,” he continued, “the sole motive that turns what it is black into white and
makes the bad look good,” it was the duty of the government to put an end to the twin evil of
253
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 9, 38-39.
Memoria presentada por el ciudadano general de división Manuel González al Ejecutivo de la Unión, al del
estado de Michoacán y a la Legislatura del mismo sobre el uso de la facultades discrecionales que le fueron
concedidas para reorganizar política y administrativamente dicho Estado (Morelia: Imprenta del Gobierno, 1877),
172.
254
213
“the influence of money, on the one hand, and the insolvency of indigenous people, on the
other.” The lack of government action, he remarked, would only let injustices go unpunished,
“because no one represents the rights of the poor for free” and, for that reason, “the powerful
always subdue the wretched. Pobre pueblo!!!”255
Ultimately, land divisions in Tancítaro did little to even out the many unbalances liberal
land policies were supposed to rectify. On the contrary, land policies instigated cleavages and
fueled conflicts among community members. The most vulnerable were left in even a weaker
position, while the prosperous either reinforced their power or, as Alvarez, expanded their
influence and wealth. Neither the state nor the federal versions of land divisions came to fruition,
but both contributed to the disintegration of community holdings. Taking no notice of local
conditions, federal authorities stood by an uncompromising scheme which locals turned into a
tool to protect themselves from the radical egalitarianism implicit in Michoacán reparto laws.
The authorities of Michoacán upheld a more pragmatic approach which nonetheless ended up
restraining any chance of a thorough redistribution of community lands, a goal that authorities
allegedly supported and sponsored. State land policies also became an instrument to advance
personal benefits, remove local competitors, and only marginally to redressing local imbalances
of wealth and power. Land divisions in Tancítaro benefited a very few, after many tribulations
brought moderate good to some, and resulted in little or no improvement for many more.
255
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 9, 4-5.
214
Conclusion
Reparto: A nineteenth-century expression standing for liberal land reform. A plan to divide
community land into fractions. A policy designed to turn communal land rights into individual
property rights. An ideal. But mostly a host of unexpected developments. An expression
describing how, after decades of failed attempts, when land policies finally took place, they did
not come in a way most people at the time could anticipate. Liberal authorities in Michoacán
expected communities to refuse land reform, so they devised new forms for compelling
indigenous people to relinquish communal land tenure. Namely, a set of taxes and fiscal
incentives meant to turn corporate land rights more onerous and less appealing than having
community lands divided. As the strategy began to work, a number of communities in the meseta
turned opposition into qualified support for land divisions.
Support, however, surfaced not for land reform in general, but for one specific version of
it. A group of local tenants and community members realized that, if conducted as enshrined in
Michoacán laws, land divisions entailed a major threat to their position within communities. Not
only did federal laws suppose no threats to tenants and many better-off community members, but
they actually offered some very enticing advantages to them. The rank and file debated between
backing supporters of federal policies and backing supporters of state policies, between securing
their current holdings and advocating certain redistribution of lands among community members.
In the process, people in the meseta transformed not only the rhetoric and idiom of
liberalism, but its very practice. Official liberal circles in Michoacán instigated land divisions
seeking to end customary forms of land tenure and, in return, mobilization on the ground ended
215
up turning land policies against liberal authorities. By engaging land reforms, locals revealed the
contradictions between state and federal policies. Both were meant to dismantle communal land
tenure, but each entailed distinct understandings of how individual property rights could damage
or benefit indigenous people and different degrees of commitment to an ideal of a more equal
society. These contradictions were not apparent to most contemporary political and ideological
advocates of liberalism, but they became very clear to the people of the meseta. Mobilization in
the plateau, in that sense, was not restricted to the defense of traditional rights. It gave way to
new and unforeseen uses of liberal land policies and actually revealed that reforms, on the
ground, could serve many masters and yield many different outcomes.
Local uses of liberal land policies, however, were inevitably embedded in existing social
differentiations and rivalries within communities. Reforms were employed by community
members not only against authorities, but against one another. The intensity and frequency of the
antagonisms (and thus the probability of turning land policies against local rivals) depended on
the existence of internal disparities in the amount and quality of land shares and the degree of
competition among better-off community members and local elites for controlling access to
available resources.256 Tellingly, with one exception, land divisions took place exclusively in the
256
Jennie Purnell was one the first to notice this pattern: “The liberal reparto unleashed intense factional conflict,
dividing communities in their response to the reform. The nature and dynamics of this factional conflict depended
on the distribution of political power within communities, the extent to which communal resources were allocated in
a reasonably equitable fashion, and the existence of factional alliances with powerful outsiders "(“With All Due
Respect,” 93-94).Yet, contrary to what this chapter illustrates, she concluded that, as a rule, factional conflicts in
most communities in Michoacán “involved a majority faction opposed to the reform, led by the religious and
political authorities of the cabildo, united against a minority faction that was attempting to take advantage of the
many opportunities for fraud and abuse in the privatization process” (Ibid., 94). See also the equally insightful,
Roseberry, "El Estricto Apego a la Ley,” 47-50.
216
lower meseta wherein inequalities in land distribution were, if not sharp, at least comparatively
greater. There, the incidence of independent smallholders, middling landowners, and tenants was
also more pronounced. As a result, competition for local resources, although limited, tended to
be higher. In the loftier areas of the plateau, by comparison, differences in land shares were for
the most part narrower and the number of tenants and middling landowners smaller. The relative
absence of important disparities in power and wealth tended to reinforce a basic (if always
contentious) sense of cohesion and, in consequence, limit local internal pressures to enforce
either version of land reform.
Overall, despite their differences on paper, both state and federal land policies
strengthened the position of a small number of community members and landholders. For many
of those at the bottom of the ladder land divisions came at a significant price and only few
occasionally gained some benefits. In the short-run, communities blocked the possibility of a
major takeover of community lands. Liberal policies, however, overturned legal restrictions to
trade community lands, thus facilitating further concentration within pueblos—even in pueblos
that had remained firmly averse to land reforms. At first, as the next chapter recounts,
transactions involved mostly traditional agricultural lands. Yet as commercial prospects began to
expand, interest in seizing communal woodlands began to rise, giving way to the second wave of
reparto in the meseta.
217
CHAPTER 5
THE SECOND REPARTO: STATE EXPANSION AND THE R ISE OF COMMERCIAL FORESTRY
Signs of a New Era
Manuel Rosales witnessed and took part (perhaps actively, perhaps only passively) in the
contentious events that reshaped Tancítaro’s land regime during the 1870s. Unlike many of his
fellow community members, he managed to secure lands by means of adhering (whole-heartedly
or half-heartedly) to the Alvarez’s clique and the 1851 state reparto law. Although many land
allocations in Tancítaro were subsequently contested, no one within the community challenged
Manuel’s right to occupy and use his three pieces of land. In 1880, in fact, Manuel traded part of
his holdings with another community member named Antonio Soberano, also a resident of Agua
Nueva. The transaction involved no money or profit. The size and quality of the holdings were
actually very similar. Manuel and Antonio solely exchanged locations.
The transaction, however, was not reported to the government. Eight years later, in 1888,
ever more meticulous fiscal officials found out about it and sent a note to Antonio Soberano
informing him that he was about to face foreclosure for years of tax evasion. Not only did he fail
to report having exchanged properties with Manuel Rosales, officials argued, but he also failed to
cover land taxes despite the fact that exemptions for former community lands had long expired.
Antonio Soberano eventually settled with the government. He agreed to pay a third of the
amount for pending land taxes and cover his part of the transaction costs for the unreported land
218
exchange with Manuel Rosales. Officials would notify Manuel Rosales about this settlement and
inform him about his (now) pending debt with the government.257
Manuel was then 46 years old, a man of age by late nineteenth-century standards. If still
alive, Ireneo and Buenaventura, once his small children, were respectively 18 and 20 years old.
Both would soon have children of their own—if they did not have them already. Time had
passed, but echoes from the first reparto still pervaded everyday life in the meseta. These
aftereffects, however, started to overlap and interact with new developments. This time, changes
did not always come in innocuous shapes. They came in the form of legal disputes over
boundary limits against neighboring pueblos and in the shape of groups of men tapping and
cutting trees on communal woodlands. As in the past, changes involved bureaucratic procedures
and new laws. Yet they also entailed things unlike any other in any preceding time. Changes
came in the shape of locomotives, rail lines, contracts, and sawmills. The things of a new rising
industrial world.
Four Major Challenges
During the 1880s and until the first years after the outbreak of the Mexican revolution,
communities in the meseta experienced four major challenges. The first one concerned an
increase in land values and a subsequent raise in land taxes upon undivided lands and individual
properties greater than 100 pesos. Fiscal policies did not, as in the past, trigger land divisions, but
effectively refashioned the relationship between the government and indigenous communities.
257
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 9, 65-68.
219
Compromise, rather than outright confrontation, came to characterize this relationship.
Communities, however, made greater concessions, as the government increasingly expanded its
influence at the expense of local autonomy.
The second major difficulty entailed a growth in transactions involving community and
former community lands. Initially, these transactions were limited to residential properties,
family parcels, and other agricultural lands. Yet eventually they also involved, for the first time
in generations, stretches of communal woodlands. Land transfers tended to undermine
community members and groups in an already weak position. Correspondingly, transactions
strengthened and expanded local land and wealth concentrations by better-off community
members, local notables, and landowners.
Appetite for communal woodlands gave way to a third significant challenge, namely, the
resurgence of long-standing boundary conflicts between bordering pueblos. These conflicts, in
turn, were accompanied by a number of disputes inside communities. As commercial forestry
expanded and boundary conflicts escalated, petitions for land divisions resurfaced. Once again,
petitions for reparto responded to a combination of concrete pressures and practical reasons. On
the one hand, community members solicited new land divisions and allocations to deter further
transactions and loss of community lands, especially forested lands. On the other, communities
tried to use reparto policies to speed up pending legal disputes with other pueblos and, equally
important, outstrip rival claims on the part of their neighbors.
The fourth and last major challenge communities faced also stemmed from the
spectacular growth in commercial demand for lumber and other forest products. At first,
220
commercial pressures involved, for the most part, modest operations controlled by local and
regional actors. The expansion of railroad networks in Michoacán and its surrounding regions,
however, turned forest harvesting into a veritable large-scale business. Together, rail lines and
commercial forestry instigated two of the most drastic and enduring transformations ever
experienced by indigenous people in the meseta. On the one hand, communities were once and
for all drawn into larger economic networks whose origin and ramifications stretched far beyond
the plateau and Michoacán. On the other, commercial forestry and railroads not only caused land
tenure to change, but (perhaps more importantly) altered local land use for generations to come.
Policies against Politics
Unique political conditions helped make possible the first reparto; consolidation of a political
establishment equally contributed to bring about the second round of changes in the land regime
of communities in the meseta. Consolidation began in 1867, but it only came to fruition after the
last major pronunciamiento of the nineteenth century in 1876, the Tuxtepec uprising that took
Porfirio Díaz and his allies to national power. By the time fiscal officials in Michoacán
compelled Antonio Soberano to pay land taxes (1888), the men behind the Tuxtepec uprising had
already been in power for more than a decade. First with Díaz (1877-1880), then with once
governor of Michoacán and Díaz’s secretary of war Manuel González (1880-1884), and then
once more with Díaz—who remained in office for about three decades thereafter.
Systematic use of personal connections, patronage, cooption, and selective repression
was behind this unprecedented political continuity. Initial efforts to secure the allegiance of a
221
compact group of military men and governors grew into a vast political network with
ramifications in the federal government, the army, the national congress, the states, and local
congresses. In time, as this network expanded, a surprisingly lasting political regime came about.
It was an authoritarian regime that kept liberal and republican institutions in place, but ultimately
depended on personal loyalties and ties to subsist. Obedience was thus cherished above anything
else and rewarded with privileges, favors, and public posts. Laws and institutions did not
undermine personal rule; they framed it and reinforced it.
Power circled around the president, but the authority of the president also rested on
granting friends and allies a relatively ample degree of autonomy. Governors utilized this
autonomy to procure their own partners and clients (also at the service of the president), as well
as to secure a dependable body of officials on the ground—officials who, in turn, sought to
maintain good relations with local strongmen and other influential personages. Keeping cities
and the countryside quiet was the ultimate measure of trust between the president, governors, and
local authorities. Retaining power and autonomy (and all the privileges inherent to them)
ultimately depended on that.
The regime did not preclude political competition, but systematically discouraged
opposition and suppressed any overt challenges. Elections took place regularly and were often
heated. Yet the presidency was one man’s prerogative—Díaz’s prerogative. In the states,
electoral politics was part of deeper power struggles between rival regional elites. Votes did not
change governors, for that was ultimately decided by the president—from 1881 to 1911, there
were only three governors of Michoacán, Pudenciano Dorantes (1881-1885), Mariano Jiménez
222
(1885-1891), and Aristeo Mercado (1892-1911). Yet mobilization before, during, and after
elections served the purpose of settling accounts without resorting to uprisings and as a periodic
means to renegotiate privileges and favors among political elites. Real opposition was treated
harshly. Open detractors were repeatedly imprisoned, censured, or drafted to serve in the
military, while critics from within liberal ranks were systematically marginalized. Popular
mobilization—including independent indigenous mobilizations in the southeast and the north—
was unequivocally dealt with repression, at times, ruthless and gratuitous.258
Political dominance brought about notorious changes among liberals in power.
Liberalism gradually lost much of its previous militant advocacy. Interest in political reform
diluted as a rising generation of intellectuals, professionals, and officials became part of
government circles. Men of letters mostly alien to past political turbulences, conservative liberals
(as they sometimes identified themselves), embraced pragmatism and focused not on altering or
replacing existing institutions, but on figuring out ways to strengthen the everyday running of the
state. In other words, they turned liberalism into an official and managerial ideology devoted to
improve the administrative aspects of governance. Scientific politics, as its advocates called it,
contended that transformation of society could not come from political agitation and advocacy,
but only from rational management of public affairs. Politics, conservative liberals argued, must
258
For the nature and dynamics of the Porfiriato see, Knight, The Mexican Revolution, Vol. 1; François-Xavier
Guerra, México: del Antiguo Régimen a la Revolución. Vol. 1 (Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1988);
Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution, 277-325; Katz, “Mexico: Restored Republic and Porfiriato,” 1-78;
Escalante Gonzalbo, Ciudadanos imaginarios; Allen Wells and Gilbert Joseph, Summer of Discontent, Seasons of
Upheaval: Elite Politics and Rural Insurgency in Yucatan, 1876-1915 (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1996);
Carlos Bravo Regidor, "Elecciones de gobernadores durante el Porfiriato," in Las elecciones y el gobierno, 257-281;
Leticia Reina, “Local Elections and Regimen Crises. The Political Culture of Indigenous Peoples,” in Cycles of
Conflict, 91-125.
223
yield to policies. And implementation of policies required both a strong government and a
thorough organization of public finances.259
Forging a New Relationship: Land Taxes and Conventional Agreements
Crony politics, of course, never surrendered to scientific politics (as conservative liberals
imagined). Yet Díaz and political elites in general clearly understood the importance of attuning
policies and the running of public affairs to rational administrative standards. The task rested
with a body of tough-minded and technically skilled officials. These officials were responsible
for balancing government accounts and assembling the essential data to have clearer records of
the population, the economy, and the territory. Often diligent and methodical, these were the men
that provided governments with a set of general public registers, different types of surveys and
censuses, and periodic statistical annals. The men, for instance, that spent long hours going
through stacks of books and documents in order to create a public register of real estate
properties in Michoacán. The officials that used these records to determine land values and set
land taxes rates. It was them, indeed, who traced back Antonio Soberano’s and Manuel Rosales’
records.
Reorganization of public finances in Michoacán, as previously suggested, began early
after the final defeat of imperialist and conservative forces in 1867. The end of liberal infighting
259
See, Charles Hale, The Transformation of Liberalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1990); Alan Knight, "El liberalismo mexicano desde la Reforma hasta la Revolución (una
interpretación)," Historia Mexicana, 35, no. 1 (1985): 59-91; Guerra, “Mexico From Independence to Revolution,”
129-152; Moisés González Navarro, "Tres etapas del liberalismo mexicano," La Palabra y el Hombre, no. 52
(1984): 69-74.
224
and the rise of a political establishment after 1876 further increased interest in a more systematic
management of public revenues. In 1877, authorities still bemoaned about the government’s
dependency on extraordinary loans to keep up with expenses and about the difficulties to collect
taxes in a more orderly fashion. There had been significant improvements, authorities argued.
Yet the lack of organized and up-to-date public records continued to be an obstacle for fiscal
officials and tax collectors to perform their jobs. Records on real estate properties, in that sense,
needed additional systematization if the government wanted to enforce land taxes (one of several
new and increasingly important sources of public income after 1867) in a more consistent
fashion. Land values, in particular, required updating for, according to the authorities of
Michoacán, they had remained unchanged or rated too low for many years. Low land values, of
course, meant fewer revenues for the government.260
By the mid-1880s, authorities talked about public finances in very different terms.
Collection of revenues had never been greater and prospects of further improvements were very
optimistic. Peace, authorities argued, had made the reduction of military expenses a reality. The
good shape of public finances, in fact, permitted the government, for the first time in decades, to
cope with almost all of its expenditures (including the payroll), as well as to settle better
conditions for the payment of Michoacán’s debt. Such favorable circumstances, authorities
contended, were to a great extent the result of the reigning “harmony” and the exceptional
“regularity” with which administrative affairs had been conducted.261 The performance of fiscal
260
261
Memoria presentada por Manuel González, 6-7, 22-27, and 81.
Memoria de Michoacán de 1883, 4. Also, Memoria de Michoacán de 1883, 34-41.
225
officials, in particular, had been irreproachable. Cases of misconduct were rare and did not affect
public finances in any major way. In general, authorities argued, “citizens in all corners of the
state considered fiscal employees individuals worthy of all esteem.”262 Fiscal officials,
authorities concluded, performed their duties efficiently and industriously, as evidenced by
yearly increases in public revenues and the significant improvements made in the register and
appraisal of real estate properties across Michoacán.263
Fig. 9. Value of Property in Michoacan, 1869-1896
25
Millions
20
15
Urban Property
10
Rural Property
5
0
Sources: “Cuadro de valores según los datos de la oficina principal de rentas del Estado," in Michoacán de
Ocampo: noticias históricas, geográficas y estadísticas, coleccionadas y publicadas por la redacción del Periódico
Oficial del Estado (Morelia: Imprenta de O. Ortiz, 1873), 48; “Noticia número 15,” in Memoria de Michoacán de
1869, 120; Memoria presentada por Manuel González, 468-470 and 474; "Documento Número 3. Censo y división
territorial del Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo, según los últimos datos oficiales obtenidos por el Ejecutivo, con
otras noticias estadísticas," Memoria de Gobierno de Michoacán de 1882, 41; “Noticia número 15,” in Memoria de
Michoacán de 1886, n.p.; "Anexo número 35. Noticia pormenorizada que forma la Tesorería general," in Memoria
de Gobierno de Michoacán de 1889, n.p.; "Noticia 23," in Memoria de Michoacán de 1890, n.p.; "Noticias número
80 y 81, " in Memoria de Michoacán de 1892-1894, n.p.; and Memoria de Michoacán de 1894-96, 344.
262
263
Memoria de Michoacán de 1885, 36.
Ibid., 34-37.
226
Increasing focus on tax collection and land appraisals, indeed, resulted in notable
readjustments in the value of landed properties. In 1869, the total value of landed properties in
Michoacán amounted to almost 18.5 million pesos. By 1886, land values came to about 23.5
million pesos. A decade later, they had reached the sum of nearly 31 million pesos. In other
words, in approximately a quarter of a century, from 1869 to 1896, land values in total rose
nearly 70%. Urban properties were significantly less numerous and, therefore, on average,
represented only about 32% of the value of all properties in Michoacán. In 1869, urban
properties were valued in about 6.5 million pesos; by 1896, their value amounted to nearly 9.1
million, a total increase of 42%. The value of rural properties, by contrast, rose 81% in the same
period. In 1869 rural properties amounted to merely 12 million pesos. By the mid-1880s, they
had reached almost 16 million. A decade later (1896) rural properties totaled about 22 million
pesos.
Land values in the meseta followed an even more noticeable upward trend. The overall
value of rural properties totaled little more than 460,000 pesos in 1869. A decade later, values
had already doubled and by the mid-1880s they reached seven digits. Rural properties went from
about 1 million in 1886 to approximately 1.2 million pesos in 1890. By the mid-1890s, rural
property values came to nearly 1.6 million pesos, that is to say, they were more than three times
greater than in 1869. Urban property values, on the other hand, also experienced significant
increases. Urban properties amounted to almost 240,000 pesos in 1869. Values steadily
augmented thereafter. By the mid-1880s, they summed 377,000 pesos. A decade later, they came
to about 545,000 pesos. Urban property values, in other words, had more than doubled in a
227
quarter of a century. In total, landed properties in the meseta, urban and rural, amounted to little
more than 703,000 pesos in 1869. This amount was three times greater by 1894 (about 2.1
million pesos, a number that represented 7% of all property values in Michoacán).
Fig. 10. Value of Property in the District of
Uruapan, 1869-1894
1.80
1.60
1.40
Millions
1.20
1.00
Urban Property
0.80
Rural Property
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
1869 1880 1885 1886 1889 1890 1892 1893 1894
Sources: See Fig. 9.
The rise in land values and the increased capacity of authorities to enforce fiscal policies
had important consequences for indigenous families and communities in the meseta. Land taxes
had been a source of concern and complain in the early 1870s. Some communities, as shown in
previous chapters, resorted to land divisions as a way to circumvent the new levy. Fiscal officials
continued to apply land taxes after the first reparto. Yet enforcement was sometimes delayed
228
because of the lack of coordination between district authorities and tax offices. Fiscal officials
often reproached prefectos for not submitting the reports containing the information on land
allocations after a reparto had taken place—without these reports fiscal officials could not
determine land values, set appropriate tax rates, or grant tax exemptions. Prefectos, for their part,
argued that they were frequently overwhelmed by other daily activities and duties. In one
occasion, district authorities even affirmed that the reports had been stolen on their way to
Morelia (the capital city of Michoacán) and, therefore, it would take some time for clerks to
compile the reports again.264
By the mid-1880s, circumstances had notably changed. Enforcement of land taxes
strengthened as issues between prefectos and fiscal officials settled down. New and updated
records not only contributed to the regularization of tax collection, but also permitted fiscal
officials to broaden the base of taxpayers. Individuals who had thus far remained unnoticed by
tax offices were now required to conform to fiscal norms. Significantly, tax exemptions for
community members (granted to stimulate the partition of community lands) came to an end. By
law, all properties valued in over 100 pesos were now forced to pay land taxes. Since their
properties did not reach such value, many community members still remained exempt. Yet, as
new appraisals consistently raised land values, many others could not avoid being required tax
payments. Community members often solicited from the governor cancellation of land taxes.
Some argued that they had never been in possession of the properties they were charged for.
Others claimed that they had already sold their lands. And yet others declared they had no means
264
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 23, 127-140.
229
to cover the taxes. In general, as illustrated by the case of Antonio Soberano, authorities agreed
to reduce and sometimes cancel previous debts for unpaid taxes, but only on the condition that
community members agreed to pay land tolls thereafter on a regular basis.265
Increases in land values also affected the holdings of communities that had effectively
rejected land divisions in the early 1870s—which included the vast majority of communities in
the upper meseta. Land values and tax rates were set, to a great extent, depending on the size of
properties. The larger the property, the greater the tax load. Since they were treated as one big
property, undivided community lands were thus given comparatively high tax rates. What is
more, any increases in land values directly caused land taxes to rise—and values, as pointed out,
did nothing but increase during the last third of the nineteenth-century.
In some instances, as in the community of Cheran (in the upper meseta), land appraisals
conducted by fiscal officials drastically moved land values and taxes up. Circa 1869, Cheran’s
community lands had been initially valued in about 1,500 pesos, but this amount was promptly
modified as a new land appraisal revealed Cheran’s lands were, in fact, significantly larger. The
new value was set in 16,000 pesos. A decade later, in 1879, fiscal officials advised authorities in
Morelia yet another land appraisal. As a result, Cheran’s land values increased to 20,000 pesos.
By then, fiscal officials had already foreclosed some community lands—estimated in
approximately 1,350 pesos—to cover years of unpaid taxes (or so did authorities argue). Land
values continued to go up in subsequent years, as officials’ ability to track down unreported
265
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 5, 214; and AGHPEM,
Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 9, 71, 77-78, 82-83, 90-91, 95, 103-105,
111, 122, 130, 134, 144, and 175-176.
230
properties also improved. Indeed, communities sometimes tried to conceal part of their holdings
in an effort to reduce land taxes rates. Every so often, however, fiscal officials found out about
unreported properties and proceeded to set new values and rates (and fines). Cheran managed to
keep an important amount of lands under wraps until 1886, when fiscal officials learned about
the unregistered properties. As it turned out, the addition of these “new” lands more than doubled
the overall value of Cheran’s holdings, setting it in about 52,000 pesos.266
Communities did not welcome raises in land values and taxes, but they did not openly
resist them either. Instead, they relied on what was known as “conventional agreements.” Tax
offices carried out land appraisals and recommended an initial value. Communities, but also all
other property owners whether indigenous or not, had the right to object this initial estimation
and request a new appraisal or make a counterproposal suggesting an estimation of their own.
Then the executive power assessed both proposals and settled on a new land value. Invariably,
the new value was lower than the initial appraisal by tax officials, but also higher than the
counterproposal by communities. Once this decision was made land values could not be change
for at least the next four or five years.267
Conventional agreements thus became standard procedure in the meseta (and probably
elsewhere in Michoacán). Sometimes communities, both in the upper and lower meseta, simply
266
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Pátzcuaro, vol. 12, 6-11 and 37-64. The
unreported properties in question were located outside of the district of Uruapan and had been a source of disputes
between Cheran and Zacpu (a community located in the neighboring district of Pátzcuaro). The official granting of
these lands to Cheran by judicial authorities, ironically, revealed their existence to fiscal officials.
267
See, Memoria de Michoacán de 1885, 7-8; Memoria de Michoacán de 1889, 89-90; 242. Memoria sobre la
administración pública del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo. Gobierno del C. Aristeo Mercado. Cuatrienio de 16
de septiembre de 1896 a 15 de septiembre de 1900 (Morelia: Escuela I.M.P.D., 1900), 242.
231
solicited the governor the new rate without, for instance, suggesting an estimation of their own
or, the less, requesting the full invalidation of land values and taxes. Juan Ramos, a
representative from Pamatacuaro (upper meseta), for instance, wrote in his petition (July 1889)
that “he would like to avoid all the troubles of a new appraisal” and straightforwardly requested
the governor to determine not merely a new value, but to set the amount of the raise.268 Ramos
simply cut to the chase for he knew values and taxes would only go up, although almost never as
high as fiscal officials recommended.
At times, indeed, communities struck a good deal. Zirosto, an upper meseta community,
managed to lower the value of their lands from 6,000 to 1,500 pesos (July 1889).269 More often,
however, a great deal of bargaining had to take place before reaching a settlement—not always
to the advantage of communities. In 1893, the executive power set land values in Periban (a
lower meseta community) in 4,000 pesos after fiscal officials had suggested a value of 10,000.
About two years later, in January 1895, officials recommended raising land values to 8,000
pesos. According to them, representatives from Periban had not provided authorities with
accurate information about community holdings. Early enough, representatives solicited a new
conventional agreement. The petition, however, backfired. Fiscal officials learned about some
additional unreported lands. The new agreement set Periban’s land values in 14,000 pesos (July
1895).270
268
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 11, 150.
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 3, 118-120.
270
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 3, 126-129, 142-143, and
148. For other communities see, AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan,
269
232
Thus, in a context of political consolidation, fiscal policies effectively refashioned the
relationship between communities and authorities. Land appraisals and taxes were initially meant
to force communities to end communal land tenure. They succeeded, in combination with other
factors, but only partially. In 1877, the government of Michoacán unambiguously deprived
communities from any legal personhood. “Indigenous communities organized in accordance with
the old Spanish laws,” stated the decree, “do not exist today with such character and must be
solely considered as assemblies [reuniones] of individuals with interests in common.”271
Community members, the decree added, should take this into account when conducting any legal
dealings. Such line of reasoning was far from strange to indigenous people in the meseta.
Community representatives and lawyers had made the same case before, as they attempted to
show authorities the futility of carrying out land divisions. Authorities, however, took no heed of
this fact for they wanted to prove a different point, namely, the futility of communities
themselves. Yet, in practice, as it was often the case, authorities could not act in accord with their
own sayings. If they wanted to collect taxes, and more importantly, if they wanted to have any
ascendancy over communities, authorities would have to come terms with communities’ de facto
existence.
A compromise of sorts thus surfaced. Communities all across the meseta agreed to pay
taxes for their undivided properties and authorities agreed to tolerate communal land tenure as
vol. 12, 31, 49-54; and AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 3, 207208.
271
Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en el estado de
Michoacán, Vol. 24 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1888), 97.
233
long as communities complied with fiscal norms. That, of course, did not stop authorities from
insisting in the lack of legality of communities or from keeping sustain pressure on communal
land tenure by means of raising land values and taxes every now and then. Communities, on the
other hand, acceded to fulfill their tax duties on the understanding that this at least offered certain
security that they would retain control of most of their holdings. Even so, the terms of this
compromise ultimately gave authorities a comparatively more advantageous position. While they
were forced to make some real concessions, authorities had greatly expanded their influence over
communities. Bargaining land values did not spare communities from paying taxes or prevent
officials from conducting new appraisals and foreclosures. It was the greatest sway the
government had had since probably the Bourbons. Such sway would continue to grow until the
breakout of the revolution.
Repurchase Agreements: The Piecemeal Fragmentation of Community L ands
Land taxes refashioned ties between communities and liberal authorities. Parallel events, also a
consequence of the first reparto, recast communities’ internal makeup. Namely, a surge in
community land dealings, evident by the late 1870s and early 1880s. Under Spanish rule, laws
prohibited the selling and buying of communal lands. This did not prevent the members of
pueblos de indios from trading community lands and outsiders from bypassing prohibitions. For
the most part, however, land transactions among indigenous residents occurred in accordance
with conventional and internal norms; interdictions, for their part, did serve to place some limits
to encroaching by outsiders. Liberals saw these prohibitions as a straitjacket for individual
234
initiative and as a major obstacle to the unrestricted flow of properties in the market. Liberal land
laws thus sought to end the limits to purchase and sell landed properties, including the lands in
possession of indigenous communities.
In Michoacán, the 1851 reparto law actually maintained some of these limits. It did not
allow the selling of fundo legales, ejidos, and montes—although it did allow the selling of
individual properties within the built-up area of pueblos. In like manner, it stipulated that
indigenous people (except for individuals over 60 years old without children) could not “sell,
mortgage, or alienate in any form” their properties, but until four years after land divisions took
place. Properties, as well, could not be sold or mortgaged to institutions holding lands in
mortmain. Any infringement of these stipulations on the part of buyers, the law stated, would
result in penalizations and the loss of whatever money buyers had advanced.272 The four-year
restriction, however, was repealed in 1868 after liberals regained power and plans to implement
land reform resumed. “Indigenous people,” the decree declared, “are free to alienate at any time
the land they acquired by virtue of the reparto.”273 In time, the license to sell and buy community
lands would extend to communities where land divisions did not take place.
Many land transactions of the late 1870s and 1880s were not the result of direct
purchases. They were conducted according to repurchase agreements (pactos de retroventa).
Repurchase agreements were probably common practice among community members in the
meseta (and also in Michoacán and other parts of Mexico) before liberal land reforms. Yet they
272
273
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 11, 199-200 (articles 25 to 28).
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, Vol. 19, 158 (article 3).
235
were now strictly notarized, sanctioned by formal laws (and not just by convention), and became
increasingly numerous. In principle, the main purpose of these agreements was not the
acquisition of properties. They served, in fact, as instruments of local credit. Community
members in need for ready cash offered buyers one or more properties as collateral in exchange
for a certain amount of money (as a rule, equaling the value of the property or properties in
question). In a written contract, sellers promised to repay the loan at a later date set by both sides
of the transaction. Buyers, for their part, agreed not to sell the property or properties to a thirdparty until the expiration of the agreed date. They also were obliged to return the collateral to the
borrower immediately after repayment. Failure to repay the loan on time, however, automatically
gave lenders full ownership of the holdings.274
These were not the kind of land transactions liberal reformers imagined. For the most
part, repurchase agreements and other dealings in community lands did not result in the free
circulation of properties or the rise in property owners’ numbers. Transactions seldom took place
on equal basis. On the contrary, they were carried out by two parties divided by wealth
disparities—often, very obvious disparities. Lands, consequently, did not distribute more or less
evenly among a relatively ample base of proprietors. Lands, in fact, tended to concentrate in the
hands of those with greater purchasing power, that is, in the hands of the local wealthy—betteroff community members, rancheros, merchants, hacendados.
274
For a general overview of repurchase agreements in Europe and Mexico, as seen through the specific case of
southern Veracruz see, Eric Léonard, “Mecánica social del cambio institucional. Privatización de la propiedad
comunal y transformación de las relaciones sociales en Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz” (paper presented at the XVI
Congreso Internacional de la AHILA, San Fernando, Cadiz, September 6-9, 2011). For repurchase agreements in
other regions of Michoacán see, Moisés Franco Mendoza, La ley y la costumbre en la Cañada de los Once Pueblos
(Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1997).
236
Manuel Campos, one of the top landowners of the meseta, repeatedly engaged in
repurchase agreements and probably acquired several of his properties by this means. In 1879,
for instance, he obtained two properties from Tomas Aviles and Maria Cayetano, two indigenous
residents of the city of Uruapan whose properties they had acquired in the reparto of barrio San
Juan Evangelista.275 A year later, in1880, Campos acquired yet another piece of former
community land from Pablo Mexicano, resident of barrio La Magdalena (also in the city of
Uruapan). Mexicano, on the other hand, sold a different property to Espiridion Coria, member of
a prominent local family and one of the main coffee growers of the district of Uruapan. This was
not the sole property that Coria acquired from La Magdalena. Mexicano was one among many
others who had sold community lands to him.276 Feliciano Vidales, the main landowner of the
region, also got hold of lands once in possession of community members, especially in the
surroundings of one of his major properties, the hacienda Santa Catarina.277
Hacendados greatly benefitted from community land dealings. They were neither the
only ones nor the most numerous group to do so. Notary records reveal dozens of apparently
inconspicuous characters that were closely connected to indigenous communities—much closer,
275
Archivo General de Notarías de Michoacán (AGNM), Uruapan, Colección de Copias de Escrituras, Libro de
protocolo del notario Lic. Eduardo Ruíz, 1879, no. 9. Escritura de retroventa otorgada por Tomas Aviles y María
Cayetano Confites a favor de Don Manuel Campos," n.p.
276
AGNM, Uruapan, Colección de Copias de Escrituras, Libro de protocolo del notario Lic. Eduardo Ruíz, 1880,
no. 8. Escritura de retroventa otorgada por Don Espiridion Coria a favor de Pablo Mexicano, n.p, and no. 42.
Escritura de retroventa otorgada por Pablo Mexicano en favor de Don Manuel Campos, n.p.; and AGHPEM,
Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 25-26. On Espiridion Coria and coffee
see, Memoria presentada por Manuel González, documento 31.
277
See, for instance, AGNM, Uruapan, Colección de copias de escrituras públicas, Libro de protocolo del notario
Lic. Pascual Arias, 1882, no. 23. Escritura de venta de un terreno otorgado por los Ciudadanos [y parcioneros del
barrio de San Francisco. Uruapan] Manuel Gonzalez y Clemente Urbina a favor del de igual clase Feliciano Vidales,
34; and no. 32. Escritura de venta de dos terrenos otorgados por Don Atilano López a favor del apoderado de Don
Feliciano Vidales," 53-54.
237
perhaps, than major landowners. Characters such as Doña Jacoba Alvarez, a resident of the city
of Uruapan whose lending activities she took over from her late husband and stretched as far as
the pueblo of Cheran in the upper meseta.278 Or Florentino Bravo, also a resident of the city of
Uruapan and lender of community members in San Felipe.279 Vicente Bravo’s repurchase
agreements involved properties in Paracho and Cheran-Atzicurin, while those of merchants
Octaviano Ochoa and Pedro Rosas were based in the city of Uruapan.280 There were, as well,
more than a few indigenous notables among this locally influential group. The interests and
properties of the Eiquihua family, for instance, covered several locations from Uruapan and
Parangaricutiro in the lower meseta to Aranza and Paracho in the upper lands. Miguel Eiquihua
was, in fact, a particularly prominent figure in the pueblo of Parangaricutiro.281 The same can be
said of Sebastian Tarja in Cheran, Juan Montelongo in Charapan, and Francisco Alvelo in
Nahuatzen (see chapter 2).
Together, these characters (and many other like them) concentrated the bulk of land deals
in the meseta. They were lenders, shopkeepers, petty merchants, lawyers, and middling
278
AGNM, Uruapan, Colección de Copias de Escrituras, Libro de protocolo del notario Lic. Vicente de la Peña,
1879, no. 33. Venta de un terreno con pacto de retroventa otorgado por Don Francisco y Don Benito Pahuamba a
Doña Jacoba Alvarez," n.p.
279
AGNM, Uruapan, Colección de copias de escrituras públicas, Libro de protocolo del notario Lic. Pascual Arias,
1882, no 78. Escritura de venta con pacto retroactivo, otorgada por el Ciudadano Manuel Aparicio a favor del
Ciudadano Florentino Bravo," 136-137.
280
AGNM, Uruapan, Colección de Copias de Escrituras, Libro de protocolo del notario Lic. Vicente de la Peña,
1879, no. 794, n.p; AGNM, Uruapan, Colección de Copias de Escrituras, Libro de protocolo del notario Lic.
Eduardo Ruíz, 1880, no. 17. Escritura de rertoventa otorgada por Don Octaviano Ochoa a favor de Casimiro Pirita,"
n.p. and "no. 18. Escritura de venta otorgada por Casimiro Pirita a favor de Doña Rafaela García," n.p.
281
AGNM, Uruapan, Colección de copias de escrituras públicas, Libro de protocolo del notario Lic. Pascual Arias,
1882, no. 68. Escritura de transaccion otorgada por los ciudadanos Miguel, Pedro, Cayetano, y Doña Luisa
Eiquihua," 118-119. See also, Moheno, Las historias, 110-111 and 128-129; Garibay Orozco, Comunalismos, 329,
334, 344, 346, and 349; and Sáenz Gallegos, "Repercusiones de la política,” 112; and Chávez Cervantes, Antiguo
pueblo, 159-161.
238
landowners. They constituted part of the rural middle-class that, some three decades ago, the
prominent historian Friedrich Katz identified and already suspected (the empirical research was
lacking) as one of the main beneficiaries of reparto and disentailment policies in Mexico.282 The
members of this rural middle-class were not as powerful and wealthy as the hacendado class. Yet
their aggregated influence in the process of transformation of community lands into individual
properties proved in many cases greater. Especially in the meseta, wherein (as we have seen) big
landowners were not particularly numerous and even altogether absent in some areas—the
uppermost areas. Unrelenting persistence of petty transactions, not massive encroachment, wore
away communal land tenure.
Demographic Pressures
Community members often resorted to repurchase agreements and other land transactions driven
not by commercial prospects, but by sheer necessity. Repurchase agreements, as pointed out,
were primarily a form of local credit and not of trade. They usually provided relief to face
misfortunes, cope with extraordinary expenses, or simply grapple with everyday hardships.
Repurchase agreements, in that sense, offered community members resources that many of them
would find otherwise very hard to obtain. They thus presented community members with certain
advantages. Yet the risk of losing lands to lenders was also important. Misfortunes could happen
more than once before redeeming a property; for instance, two consecutive years of bad harvest
282
Katz, “Mexico: Restored Republic and Porfiriato,” 53-54.
239
such as the especially hard years of 1891 and 1892.283 Borrowers, moreover, tended to belong to
the most vulnerable segments within communities. For them, adversities represented a greater
challenge. Repurchase agreements were not simply an alternative. They were frequently a last
resort.
Fig. 11. Population in the District of Uruapan, 1868-1910
Municipality
Charapan
Cheran
Nahuatzen
Paracho
Parangaricutiro
Periban
Los Reyes
Tancítaro
Taretan
Tingambato
Uruapan
Total District
1868
N/D
4,245
5,131
8,858
4,465
2,761
3,560
6,614
11,905
N/D
11,238
58,777
1880
3,476
5,676
4,963
6,529
6,637
3,606
3,566
11,753
8,464
3,344
14,333
72,347
1890
5,248
3,268
5,042
6,219
7,742
4,587
4,206
14,037
11,639
3,333
18,521
83,842
1900
8,696
4,395
5,927
8,377
5,095
4,881
3,088
10,737
7,789
4,700
16,565
80,250
1910
3,414
3,908
7,481
8,087
5,989
4,891
10,799
11,313
6,309
9,743
21,619
93,553
Sources: “Noticia número 1,” Memoria de Michoacán de 1869, 65-68; "División Territorial. Cuadro número 9," in
Memoria de Michoacán de 1882, n.p.; Velasco, Geografía y estadística, 164; Censo y división territorial del estado
de Michoacán verificado en 1900 (Mexico: Imprenta y Fotografía de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1905), 16 and 90;
and Tercer Censo de población de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos verificado el 27 de octubre de 1910, vol. 1,
(Mexico: Oficina Impresora de la Secretaría de Hacienda, 1918), 204 and 206.Tancítaro became part of the district
until after 1872.
Demographic pressures may have also contributed to lead many underprivileged
community members to risk and sell their lands. Indigenous population across Michoacán had
283
See, Gerardo García Díaz, "Las crisis agrícolas y la carestía del maíz," in Historia general de Michoacán, vol. 3,
251-265.
240
been growing since the early eighteenth century and continued to grow during the nineteenth
century. The overall population of Michoacán in 1827 was about 370,000 people. Despite civil
strives and a particularly harsh cholera epidemic in the 1830s, growth did not halt. By 1840,
there were almost 500,000 people in the state. Thirty years later there were at least 120,000
more. The population of Michoacán reached virtually 900,000 by the turn of the century and
almost the million on the eve of the Mexican Revolution. Population, in sum, had more than
doubled between 1827 and 1910. Probably at least 40% of it was indigenous, the vast majority
Purépecha.284
Regional numbers are not always reliable and, therefore, must be taken with caution.
Still, they can provide us with at least an approximate picture of population patterns in the
meseta from 1868 to 1910. It seems that during this period the overall population of the region
increased in about 60%. Growth, however, was not entirely uniform. Population grew steadily
for two decades until 1890 when, apparently, it began to stagnate and then experienced a mild
drop. The slump may be explained by the inherent flaws in how data was collected and reported,
but it may also account for an increase in migration during and shortly after the scarcity crisis of
the early 1890s—the result, as pointed out, of two particularly bad harvest seasons in 1891 and
1892. Recovery, however, came with the new century. Growth resumed after 1900 and continued
the following years. By 1910, official numbers estimated a population of 93,553 people in the
284
For the colonial period, see, Castro Gutiérrez, Los tarascos, 306; and Tanck, Atlas ilustrado de los pueblos, 24.
For the independent period until de Mexican revolution, see, De Lejarza, Análisis estadístisco; Ochoa and Sánchez
Díaz, Breve Historia de Michoacán, 175-181; Memoria de Michoacán de 1869, 65-68; Memoria presentada al
Congreso de la Unión por el secretario de estado y del despacho de Fomento, Colonización, Industria y Comercio
de la república mexicana (Mexico: Imprenta y Fototipia de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1908), 160-161; and
Estadísticas sociales, 41.
241
district of Uruapan. Rough calculations suggest that Purépecha residents comprised between
45% and 55% of the overall regional population.285
Overall growth distributed unevenly across the region. On average, the lower meseta
concentrated about 72% of the entire population of the district. Growth, in like manner, tended to
be faster and more noticeable in urbanized areas such as the city of Uruapan and the villa of Los
Reyes. In fact, the Uruapan and Los Reyes areas closely mirrored the overall regional pattern.
That is, population grew until 1890, then slowed down and decreased, and then continued
growing during the 1900s. In municipalities such as Tancítaro and Parangaricutiro, in the lower
meseta, population also dropped until after 1890, but recovery afterwards proved significantly
slower—to the point that population in both municipalities was smaller in 1910 than in 1890.
Charapan, a municipality of the upper lands, experienced a similar pattern. Population peaked in
1900, but then experienced a major fall. In the municipalities of Cheran and Paracho, also in the
upper meseta, population notably fluctuated. Again, fluctuation probably is due to inherent
imprecisions of demographic records. Yet it seems at least clear that population experienced no
overall growth from 1868 to 1910. Nahuatzen’s population (upper meseta), by contrast, steadily
increased throughout the period and even started to grow at a faster rate after 1900.
The impact of demographic growth upon the indigenous residents of the meseta, thus,
must be considered with some prudence. From a general perspective, growth appears not to have
been of great consequence. It was, after all, important but relatively moderate. A closer look,
however, reveals that its effects could sometimes be, if not critical, very significant on the local
285
See sources in Fig. 11.
242
level. Population increases were actually felt differently inside communities. Moderate and even
minor changes represented a heavier burden for people at the bottom of the ladder. People such
as Cornelio Luna, for instance. A peasant and resident of Jucutacato who sold his solar in
repurchase agreement for 27 pesos, equivalent to some nine loads of corn, probably worth half a
year of food for his family.286
Examining the case of Paringaricutiro, Claudio Garibay Orozco suggests that, in general,
population growth there significantly reduced the average area of lands families could actually
work. Since the actual land base of Parangaricutiro experienced no major expansions in decades,
Garibay Orozco argues, people may have had more lands available in the late eighteenth century
and the first half of the nineteenth century than in the 1890s. By then, he estimates, numerous
families relied on some 4.5 hectares (circa 11 acres) of land, but actually required at least six
hectares (circa 15 acres) to have their basic needs covered with relative security.287
Population growth in Parangaricutiro, in truth, dropped after 1890 and this might have
offered some relief. Yet the period between 1868 and 1890 still stands as one in which coping
with everyday necessities became comparatively harder—in Parangaricutiro, but also in several
other areas of the meseta. Not surprisingly, increases in population added new reasons for
struggling families at the bottom to opt for repurchase agreements or sell their parcels altogether
and migrate in search for labor and income—which might help to explain, in part, the general
286
AGNM, Uruapan, Colección de copias de escrituras públicas, Libro de protocolo del notario Lic. Pascual Arias,
1882, no. 22. Venta de un solar con pacto de retro, otorgada por Cornelio Luna a Jose María Gutierrez Nuñez, 191.
Calculation of corn prices is based on Informes y documentos relativos a comercio interior y exterior, agricultura e
industrias, vol. 4 (Mexico: Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1885), 261-262.
287
Garibay Orozco, Comunalismos y liberalismos, 329-330.
243
population drop of the 1890s. Population growth thus meant very different things for larger and
impoverished families than for the middling and upper segments present in every community of
the meseta. Garibay Orozco observes that by 1920—that is, by the end of the Mexican
revolution, but before the implementation of revolutionary agrarian reform—half a dozen
families in Parangaricutiro may have controlled between 250 and 350 hectares of land each,
while a member of the prominent Eiquihua family (Luis Eiquihua) may have held up to 2,500
hectares.288
A Word of Warning and a “Wise Law”
Commercial demand for forest lands, patent by the late 1880s and early 1890s, further stimulated
the selling of community lands and the internal transformation of communities in the meseta.
Already in 1873 naturalist Gabriel Hinojosa alerted Michoacán’s lawmakers about the expansion
of logging activities in the state and the country in general.289 Forests, Hinojosa explained,
provided great services to humankind. They formed natural barriers against harmful miasmas
and thus contributed to keep cities and towns healthy. Forests also made the regular coming of
rains every year possible and they were instrumental for the nourishment of soils, both essential
things for agricultural activities. Unfortunately, Hinojosa lamented, great numbers of trees were
cut every year without much control on the part of the government. Landowners, he also
288
Ibid., 349.
Hinojosa, Gabriel, Memoria sobre la utilidad de los bosques y perjuicios causados por su destrucción
(Morelia: Imprenta de la viuda e hijos de O. Ortiz, 1873).
289
244
stressed, did not have the “slightest concern for replanting trees in the places wherein logging is
conducted and allowed with such unskillfulness since time immemorial.”290
People, Hinojosa added, relied on firewood and charcoal on a daily basis to cook their
meals and bake their bread and tortillas. Bakeries, brick shops, and blacksmith’s workshops also
depended on steady supplies of firewood for their ovens. Lumber, he explained, was an essential
material in the construction business. Large amounts of planks, beams, and boards were required
to build houses and bridges. Much wood burnt in mining operations, especially in the east of the
state and neighboring Guanajuato where, Hinojosa affirmed, Michoacán’s lumber was regularly
sent. Wood consumption, he anticipated, would only increase “if, as we all believe, the iron
roads are built in the republic.”291 At that pace, only the memory of once existing forests would
remain left. Commercial use of the forest, Hinojosa admitted, was unstoppable. Yet, precisely
because of that, he argued, forests required some protection from the government. Conservation,
he concluded, was not an obstacle but a way to secure the exploitation of forest products in the
future. It was thus “an absolute necessity that the congress of the state dictates a wise law on
forest conservation and logging to avoid total destruction within some years.”292
It took almost a decade more for this “wise law” to be enacted by the congress of
Michoacán. Its enactment in the winter of 1882 was a sign that, indeed, the importance of
commercial forestry had been steadily growing since Hinojosa’s passionate defense of forest
conservation. The law gave local authorities much of the responsibility of taking care of the
290
Ibid., 22.
Ibid., 25-26.
292
Ibid., 23.
291
245
forests. Municipalities, in particular, were given the task of dealing with conservation and
reforestation measures. They were also required to recommend the executive norms to set
adequate logging practices “for the better use and exploitation of the forests.” Local authorities,
furthermore, were granted the capacity of issuing licenses to cut down trees and were expected to
suggest tax rates for logging activities. The law did not prohibit domestic uses of the forest. More
precisely, it indicated that “occasional” users did not require license to cut down wood. Slash and
burn practices, however, were explicitly banned. Clearing areas of forest, in general, required
proper authorization from municipal officials. Tapping trees for the extraction of resin, in like
manner, required official approval. Finally, the law obligated loggers to leave a number of trees
uncut and replant the areas wherein they carried out the felling and trimming of trees. 293
While the law responded to the increasing expansion of commercial forestry, it was
nonetheless drafted expecting relatively limited levels of forest utilization. For the most part, it
was intended to regulate small- to mid-scale activities similar to the ones Hinojosa had described
a decade earlier. Mining and construction were, in essence, the only two industries that employed
comparatively larger amounts of lumber and forest products such as tree resins. Agriculturerelated activities accounted for additional utilization. Sugar mills, for instance, consumed sizable
loads of firewood. The impact of slash and burn farming on forests was also of importance. The
authorities of Michoacán considered this practice one major source of risk not only for forests,
but for settlements in the vicinity of forests. The governor, in fact, issued one decree several
293
Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en el estado de
Michoacán, Vol. 26 (Morelia: Imprenta de los hijos de Ignacio Arango, 1888), 95-101.
246
months before the enactment of the forest law prohibiting the burning of grasses and stubble.294
Taken as a whole, these activities put significant pressure on local woodlands. Yet none of them,
neither separately nor combined, was suffice to trigger the kind of upswing in commercial
forestry that was about to come. That would be the undertaking of, as Hinojosa had foretold,
railroad lines.
Railroads and the Rise of Commercial Forestry
Steam and smoke. Coal, iron, and steel. These are the things usually associated with the dazzling
expansion of railroad lines throughout the world during the nineteenth century. They became
icons par excellence of industrialization and mechanized power, fundamental elements of an
economic revolution that connected the planet through thousands of miles of silvery-white
metallic train tracks. Forests and lumber are seldom thought as part of this compound and
process. The iron road, however, was also the largest wooden road ever built in human history up
to that date. The building of railroad networks accounted for the clearance of vast areas of forest
throughout the world and was one of the main wood-consuming industries around the globe.
Lumber, indeed, was just as important as iron in the assembling of railroad lines. Millions
of wooden beams, known as crossties, rail ties or sleepers, provided the foundation and fastened
together the rails of the railroad track. Without crossties, the tracks could not support the weight
of locomotives and wagons and trains would simply derail. Crossties, however, needed constant
maintenance and replacement. The continuous passing of trains, weather conditions, and the
294
Ibid., 26-27.
247
natural decay of the wood undermined the durability of the beams. Chemical treatment to
prolong the useful life of crossties only came until the early twentieth century and even then it
took some time to be systematically adopted. The life of a crosstie in the track varied greatly
from one place to another, but the beams generally started to show signs of deterioration after
one year of service. After three years, decay became evident and by the fifth year wear usually
forced the removal of crossties from the track—although some ties could last up to seven years
without being replaced. Railroad tracks thus required constant supplies of lumber even after they
had been set up.295
The first attempts to build a railroad network in Mexico dated back to the late1830s. Yet
it took several more decades for the first major line to be inaugurated. The Mexico-Veracruz rail
line started operations in 1873 and it was about 424 kilometers long (some 263 miles). Although
the extension of the rail tracks experienced an important growth in the following years
(especially if compared to past decades), it remained fairly modest by the end of the decade
(some 1,100 kilometers or 690 miles). From 1880 on, however, railroad lines began to expand at
a sustained and very rapid rate. Tracks multiplied by five in the mid-1880s and in 1890 they
nearly reached 10,000 kilometers (over 6,200 miles). By the turn of the century there were
almost 15,000 kilometers of railroad tracks spread across the country and a decade later, in 1910,
295
See, Hermann von Schrenk, Cross-tie Forms and Rail Fastenings, with special reference to treated lumbers
(Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904); Sherry Olson, The Depletion Myth: A History of Railroad
Use of Lumber (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971); and Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods:
Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 35-61.
248
over 19,000 kilometers (circa 12,000 miles), plus almost 8,000 kilometers more (circa 5,000
miles) accounting for secondary and local lines.296
The number of crossties required for every mile of track varied depending on the terrain
and other factors—curves, for instance, usually used more. It could be as low as 2,100 and as
high as 2,900 per mile. Yet if an average of 2,500 is considered, the Mexico-Veracruz line
probably included some 657,500 crossties in total when it first began to work in 1873. It has
been estimated that the Ferrocarril Central, one of the largest railroad companies of the country,
employed approximately 3.6 million crossties in the building of a little more than 1,200 miles of
track by 1883.297 The entire railroad system, local lines included, probably comprised some 42.5
million wooden rail ties right before the downfall of Porfirio Díaz in 1911. And this number does
not include additional supplies required for repairs and replacements, as well as for the telegraph
poles that ran parallel to the rail tracks. Thus, for instance, up to a quarter of all crossties
employed in the rail line of the Tehuantepec region in southeastern Mexico probably needed to
be removed every year due to particularly unforgiven local conditions favoring rapid decay.298
296
See, Francisco Calderón, "Los ferrocarriles," in Historia moderna de México. El porfiriato. La vida económica,
ed. Daniel Cosío Villegas (Mexico: Hermes, 1985), 483-634; Sergio Ortiz Hernán, Los ferrocarriles de México.
Una visión social y económica. La luz de la locomotora, vol. 1, (Mexico, Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México,
1987); John H. Coatsworth, “Indispensable Railroads in a Backward Economy: The Case of Mexico,” The Journal
of Economic History 39, no. 4 (1979): 939-960; Sandra Kuntz Ficker, Empresa extranjera y mercado interno: el
ferrocarril central mexicano, 1880-1907 (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1995); Sandra Kuntz Ficker and Priscilla
Connolly, eds., Ferrocarriles y obras públicas (Mexico, Instituto Mora, 1999); Sandra Kuntz Ficker, “Mercado
interno y vinculación con el exterior: el papel de los ferrocarriles en la economía del porfiriato,” Historia Mexicana
45, no. 1 (1995): 39-66; Stephen Haber, "Assessing the Obstacles to Industrialisation: The Mexican Economy, 18301940," Journal of Latin American Studies 24, no. 1 (1992): 1-32.
297
Kuntz Ficker, Empresa extranjera, 106.
298
Teresa Van Hoy, A Social History of Mexico's Railroads: Peons, Prisoners, and Priests (Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 96-97. See also, Teresa Van Hoy, “La Marcha Violenta? Railroads and Land in 19thCentury Mexico,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 19, no. 1 (2000): 33-61.
249
Fig. 12. Lumber Production in Mexico, 1893 (Top
Suppliers)
State
Metric Tons
Value (Pesos)
Distrito Federal
Guanajuato
Zacatecas
Durango
Jalisco
Guerrero
Oaxaca
Yucatán
Campeche
Michoacán
50,886
6,463
542
11,955
26,333
8,400
57,376
11,506
3,690
16,952
1,510,000
1,111,000
845,000
612,000
560,332
312,250
289,027
250,000
180,000
167,744
Source: Antonio Peñafiel, Anuario estadístico de la república mexicana 1893 (Mexico: Oficina Tipográfica de la
Secretaría de Fomento, 1894), 626-627
The first two railroad lines to reach Michoacán were finished in 1883. Earlier plans of
turning the state into a strategic passing point between the Atlantic and the Pacific had been
abandoned and gave way to more modest and feasible projects. These first two lines connected
eastern Michoacán to the neighboring states of Guanajuato and Mexico. Combined, they
summed some 211 kilometers (or 131 miles). The railroad arrived in the capital city Morelia
until two years later, in 1885, and then extended westward to the Lake Pátzcuaro region. It would
take about a decade more for rail tracks to link the western-most areas of Michoacán to
Guanajuato and Jalisco. And it would take even more for the railroad to arrive in the meseta. The
tracks that fastened the city of Uruapan to the rest of the railroad network of Michoacán and the
country were only finished until 1899. New tracks were subsequently built in the Los Reyes area
250
(1902). By 1910, railroad lines in Michoacán may have comprised at least 650 kilometers (about
404 miles), not including some relatively numerous other small local tracks.299 The whole
railroad system of Michoacán thus may have employed approximately a million wooden
crossties, plus tens of thousands more for replacements, not to mention the lumber used in
bridges, stations, wagons, and 4,500 kilometers (about 2,800 miles) of telegraph lines.
Railroad building thus was, to a great extent, responsible for the greatest lumber boom in
the history of Michoacán and the meseta to that date. In less than three decades, the boom turned
what used to be a relatively modest economic activity into one of the largest business of the state,
only surpassed by corn and wheat cultivation, but eventually greater than other major enterprises
such as rice and sugarcane. Michoacán, in fact, became one of the most important suppliers of
lumber in Mexico. In 1893, the total lumber outputs of the state ascended to almost 17,000
metric tons, the fourth largest in the country in terms of volume and tenth in terms of value. The
district of Uruapan accounted for 14% of Michoacán’s total outputs and, if measured in value, it
comprised over 30% of total lumber revenues in the state—only surpassed by the district of
Zinapecuaro, located north of the city of Morelia and next to the state of Guanajuato.300
Fig. 13. Lumber Production in
Michoacán, 1893
District
Zinapecuaro
Uruapan
Morelia
299
300
Metric
Tons
6,328
2,409
4,602
See, Uribe Salas, Empresas, 59-82.
See, fig. 13.
251
Value
(Pesos)
55,000
52,350
48,000
Jiquilpan
Zamora
La Piedad
Maravatio
Apatzingan
Total
2,554
863
100
37
58
6,570
5,250
346
128
100
16,952
167,744
Source: See Fig. 12.
There are, unfortunately, no specific data available for the meseta after 1893. Yet the
overall numbers of the state of Michoacán speak for themselves. Lumber outputs and values
skyrocketed. The rise in pine lumber was particularly striking (pine was one of the most widely
available trees in Michoacán and the meseta). In 1901, pine output alone was six times greater
than the total yields of all woods combined a decade earlier. It amounted to almost 105,000
metric tons and was worth about 527,000 pesos—respectively representing 43% of the entire
pine production of Mexico and 30% of national pine lumber revenues. By 1907, Michoacán’s
pine lumber output reached almost 174,000 metric tons valued in 2.7 million pesos. Michoacán,
in other words, had become the single most important supplier of pine lumber in the country. The
combined outputs and revenues of the three other major producers (Durango, Chihuahua, and
Puebla) did not equal that of Michoacán, which concentrated 24% of all outputs and 40% of all
revenues nationwide.
Fig. 14. Pine Outturns in Mexico
State
Michoacán
Durango
1901
Metric
Tons
104,174
26,771
Value (Pesos)
526,886
445,760
State
Michoacán
Durango
252
1907
Metric
Tons
174,229
59,804
Value
(Pesos)
2,669,471
902,515
Chihuahua
Veracruz
Nuevo León
Subtotal
Total
(national)
60,380
8,916
20,962
221,203
230,468
182,000
110,153
1,495,267
Chihuahua
Puebla
Veracruz
Subtotal
27,605
86,741
23,402
371,781
781,310
499,767
387,797
5,240,860
242,604
1,732,082
Total (national)
715,042
6,690,471
Sources: Antonio Peñafiel, Anuario estadístico de la república mexicana 1901 (Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría
de Fomento, 1902), 529-537; Antonio Peñafiel, Anuario estadístico de la república mexicana 1907 (Mexico:
Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1912), 566-580.
Oak output, although comparatively smaller, also experienced a significant grow—oaktrees were also one of the most common types of trees in Michoacán and the meseta. In fact,
Michoacán was also among the top suppliers in the country. In 1901, both the volume and value
of the state’s oak lumber amounted to 7% of the overall national production. By 1907,
Michoacán produced almost 40,000 metric tons. Jalisco had very rapidly turned into the largest
producer, supplying the outstanding sum of 219,000 metric tons. Yet the total value of its oak
lumber was actually lower than that of Michoacán and most of the other top producers—
probably because of a poorer quality. In terms of value, Michoacán ranked fourth just behind
Oaxaca, Guanajuato, and Sonora. Its production represented 9% of the national total.
Fig. 15. Oak Production in Mexico
State
Veracruz
Durango
Nuevo León
Puebla
1901
Metric Tons
61,120
50,285
28,210
52,753
Value (Pesos)
587,010
574,975
315,862
252,801
State
Sonora
Guanajuato
Oaxaca
Michoacán
253
1907
Metric Tons
53,183
43,342
42,983
39,291
Value (Pesos)
583,536
489,858
397,291
365,848
Michoacán
Chihuahua
Mexico
Subtotal
Total
(national)
36,781
12,498
112,003
353,651
243,927
220,345
218,329
2,413,249
549,813
3,420,884
Puebla
Jalisco
Mexico
Subtotal
Total
(national)
50,955
219,197
23,417
472,369
321,262
255,313
188,378
2,601,486
1,103,854
3,919,770
Source: See, fig. 14.
Combined, oak and pine revenues added up to a little more than 3 million pesos in 1907.
A remarkable sum considering that the lumber industry had hitherto played a rather discreet role
in the overall economy of Michoacán. On the eve of the Mexican revolution, corn and wheat
production still concentrated most of the state’s returns. The overall production of corn in 1910
was estimated in 9.6 million pesos and that of wheat in 10.4 million. That same year, however,
sugarcane and sugar revenues ascended to 2.1 million pesos, while rice proceeds amounted to 1.3
million.301 The lumber business had established itself as a major commercial enterprise, larger
than the southern agribusiness of tierra caliente—home of some of the major landowners and
rural businessmen of Michoacán. The porfiriato, indeed, gave birth to a new industry. From that
point on, utilization of forests in the meseta and other parts of the state would undergo significant
alterations as it shifted away from domestic and mid-scale to large-scale commercial uses. It was,
indeed, a momentous shift whose sway (still echoing today) would have major consequences for
communities in the meseta—the near death of communal land tenure among them.
301
See, AGN, Fomento y Obras Públicas, Agricultura, Leg. 2, Caja 8, Exp.1, Michoacán, Inventario relativo a
Estadística Agrícola, 1910.
254
Boundary Conflicts over Forest Lands and New Calls for Reparto
Such a growing business naturally drew ever larger stretches of forest lands into the lumber
industry. As explained earlier (chapter 2), Purépecha communities held possession of at least
45% of all woodlands in the meseta—a percentage that was in all likelihood higher as it only
includes officially inventoried woodlands and, therefore, does not account for many other
unreported forest lands. Communal forests constituted one of three main components of
communities’ overall land base. Whereas agricultural lands represented their primary source of
sustenance and revenues, community members extensively relied on forests to obtain essential
supplies and additional income. Firewood for cooking and heating, for instance, but also lumber
for house-building. Communal woodlands were also the object of some commercial exploitation.
Wooden items and crafts, as well as beams and planks were locally and regionally traded and, on
occasions, sold outside of the meseta. Communities, in other words, did not consider forests as
natural havens to be left untouched by human hands. For the most part, however, domestic and
commercial utilization remained limited and, although a crucial supplement of the household
economy, did not constitute a source of major profits—not in comparison, for instance, to cattleraising or corn cultivation.
As forests became the center of larger commercial interests and demand for lumber began
to soar, awareness of the new significance and vulnerability of communal woodlands started to
grow inside communities. Significantly enough, boundary conflicts between neighboring pueblos
burst open during the 1890s. Boundary conflicts were not atypical in the meseta and, given the
absence of major landowners in some areas, they were probably more frequent (although not
255
necessarily harsher) than conflicts with haciendas. As a rule, disputes over mutual limits (some
of them age-old) either resulted in informal and partial agreements or ended up in the tribunals
wherein the matter lay to rest for some time. Looming logging activities, however, soon turned
periodic and therefore relatively predictable disputes into an extraordinary and urgent question.
As it turned out, large extensions of woodlands were located in between pueblos. Defining clear
boundaries was, more than ever, of fundamental importance. It was a means to either maintain or
expand extensions of lands that had become increasingly valuable. A way to either limit or
encourage commercial prospects. The right and power to prevent others (rival pueblos, but also
any other interested parties) from deciding over the management and utilization of forest lands
was at stake.
Thus, unexpectedly, two decades after land divisions first took place in the meseta, a
number of communities began to file reparto petitions. Liberal authorities played no meaningful
role in prompting such petitions. Not, at least, when they first made their way to the minister of
government in Morelia starting in 1893.302 Authorities had not completely abandoned efforts to
enforce land reform, but prospects of implementation had significantly dwindled. Tax policies
and conventional agreements, in fact, had already engendered a new implicit understanding
between authorities and communities. Authorities had come to see the persistence of communal
land tenure not as a pressing matter, but as one of routine—as a question not yet decided, which
nonetheless could wait to be definitely settled in the future. The impetus to promote new land
302
The first petition, as far as it can be tell, was submitted by the pueblo of San San Gabriel. See, AGHPEM,
Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 11, 159-160.
256
divisions thus came on the part of communities. As in the first reparto, it responded to very
practical and concrete reasons.
Requests explicitly aimed to accelerate the resolution of boundary conflicts between
competing communities. Tribunals had proved to be slow and inconclusive in settling disputes.
In the face of the new circumstances created by increasing demands for lumber and forest
products, reparto policies represented a potentially more effective and direct way to secure land
rights over contested woodlands on the fringes of pueblos. The matter had become so pressing
that some communities that had hitherto managed to oppose land divisions (most of them located
in the upper meseta) now declared that they were willing to apportion all their undivided lands,
as long as forested montes were included in the new reparto. Securing rights over woodlands had
become communities’ priority.
“For circumstances that it is not worth explaining here,” Paracho representatives stated,
“we were unable to comply with reparto laws and decrees” in the past. Yet, they immediately
added, “now that we are persuaded of their importance and benefit, we have decided to proceed
with the apportionment of mountainous lands and terrains that remain undivided and belong to us
in property and possession.”303 Persuasion, as a further petition by Paracho representatives made
it clear, came not from a sudden understanding of the virtuous nature of liberal land policies, but
from the prospect of outmaneuvering competing claims. With the reparto, representatives
303
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 35.
257
unambiguously asserted, “we will try to put an end to our quarrels with Aranza.” Tellingly
enough, Aranza’s residents were described as “our contenders.”304
A similar tone characterized many other reparto petitions. Time and again community
representatives expressed their willingness to carry out land divisions in the hope that this would
bring a final solution to ongoing boundary disputes.305 In Tanaco, petitioners argued that neverending lawsuits and continual lack of funds caused them to desist in pursuing any further legal
actions against Cherán-Atzicurin, Ahuiran, Urapicho, and Uren. As a result, petitioners
continued, Tanaco’s land had been the object of numerous encroachments and unlawful
appropriations. Usurpations, as they called them, sometimes were conducted “at gunpoint.” It
was thus the responsibility of the governor, they observed, to bring “peace and quietude” to all
neighboring pueblos. “If in our republic there has been a man that has been able to bring peace to
its inhabitants,” petitioners provokingly remarked, “why in such an insignificant fraction of the
republic must it be impossible to fix the shameful state of some indigenous pueblos due to
boundary disagreements.” The government must come to a definite decision and set clear
boundaries for each pueblo. “Hasta aquí es lo tuyo,” they concluded.306
Petitions for clearer boundaries and new land divisions, however, did not bring about the
desired results—neither for authorities nor for communities. Authorities welcomed and offered
304
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 22, 223.
See, for instance, AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 187;
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 147; AGHPEM, Secretaría
de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 19, 6; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno,
Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 142 and 209; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación,
Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 3, 209.
306
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 58-59;
305
258
explicit consent to reparto requests. Yet, they underlined, boundary lands were not to be
apportioned until conflicts were settled. District and local officials would provide proper
intermediation for that purpose. Only after having reached a mutual arrangement, authorities
instructed, should communities proceed with the apportionment of disputed lands. In the
meantime, all other lands must be divided and distributed among community members.
Communities, however, wanted boundary limits to be settled first and then proceed with land
divisions. We will withhold the right to implement the reparto, Paracho representatives wrote,
“until property lines of all adjacent lands with Quinceo and Aranza are definitely established, so
that land distribution can take place completely and not partially.”307
On other occasions, communities decided to go along with the reparto. That way,
properties in dispute could be listed and reported to authorities as part of community holdings
and be subsequently apportioned. The maneuver, however, seldom worked, as rival communities
soon raised complaints. Authorities then intervened and usually ended up postponing the
implementation of land divisions. In yet some other instances, communities simply resolved to
take action on their own account. They built fences and made use of the lands in conflict or
carried out partitions without official authorization. The government responded by declaring
these informal allocations nulled and, here too, by restricting any future attempts of dividing
communal lands until further notice.308 For a second time, liberal land policies had been turned
307
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 22, 229.
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 11, 190; AGHPEM,
Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 3, 1; and AGHPEM, Secretaría de
Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 19, 7-23 and 27-28.
308
259
upside down. While communities utilized the reparto as a means to settle old accounts and
secure property rights of contested lands, authorities struggled to make sense of events on the
ground and undo communities’ plans.
Conflicts over boundary limits and reparto petitions engendered other sort of
disagreements: internal disagreements. In the winter of 1894, residents from barrio San Bartolo
in the pueblo of Charapan solicited the partition of an extension of mountainous lands known as
“El Venado” (The Deer). Authorities in Morelia then instructed the prefecto of Uruapan to
persuade community members about including residential and agricultural lands in the reparto.
After many consultations and even a visit on the part of the prefecto in the early summer of
1895, a majority of San Bartolo’s residents decided not to proceed with the reparto—not even
with the partition of “El Venado.” The earlier petition had been made by one group and not by
all residents of San Bartolo. Community members agreed to receive land titles for residential
plots, but wished the rest of their holdings not to be divided.309 As municipal officials explained,
San Bartolo residents feared that in partitioning lands, especially woodlands and grazing lands,
people would start selling off their properties “and in the end the pueblo will be left without a
place where to retrieve wood and graze their cattle.”310 The prefecto considered this response
unfounded and “contrary to the principles of law and political economy.” Yet he recommended
309
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Pátzcuaro, vol. 12, 142, 145-147, 150-153,
and 209.
310
Ibid., 155.
260
leaving the question to rest for it was very time-consuming and he rather wish to focus on many
other important matters.311
The reasons of San Bartolo’s residents were actually based on very down-to-earth
concerns. Incentives to get a hold of forest lands were greater than ever. In 1901, community
members in Nahuatzen expressly solicited a new reparto to prevent one individual from hanging
on to a piece of mountainous land that he was supposed to watch and protect against interlopers.
Indeed, petitioners argued that few years earlier the community had given Darío Pineda the
responsibility of taking care of communal forests, but now he was taking advantage of his
position to claim Nahuatzen’s possession as his personal property.312 In order to prevent this and
other future troubles, petitioners stressed, “we have decided, with the government’s approval, to
apportion all still undivided lands, including the extension of land in custody of Pineda.”313
This was neither the sole nor the more serious challenge Nahuatzen’s residents had to
face. Nahuatzen, it must be remembered, was the only community that apportioned much of its
forested areas in the 1870s. Although communal practices endured and land titles were not
always issued, great extensions of forest were already individually allocated. New reparto
petitions not only furthered the fragmentation of communal woodlands, but instigated the sale of
large extension of mountainous lands. In the spring of 1901, local authorities confirmed
unofficial reports of woodland sales in Nahuatzen, “particularly conducted by the needy [clase
menesterosa] in favor of local people of wealth, who in turn sold the properties to residents of
311
Ibid, 157.
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 147-157.
313
Ibid., 147.
312
261
Tangancícuaro.”314 People from other areas of the meseta also engaged in these transactions.
Othon Hernandez—resident of the city of Uruapan, landowner, and lumber entrepreneur—was
the most prominent of them. One piece at a time, from January to May 1902, Hernandez
acquired an entire forested hill from dozens of Nahuatzen’s community members.315
In Paracho, in the upper meseta, where boundary disputes had triggered reparto petitions,
internal divides also began to surface. Unable to secure property rights over disputed woodlands
by means of resorting to reparto policies, community representatives decided to halt land
divisions all together. Yet, as it turned out, a number of community members tapped into reparto
petitions to acquire sections of communal forest for themselves. Apparently, land appropriations
had been going for some time—“since around fifteen years,” declared community
representatives. People began to acquire “portions of flat terrains, but “lately they had turned to
mountainous lands.” It was perhaps the fact that they were people of means, representatives
remarked. Or that many others ultimately followed their example. But “it is no longer possible to
contain them.” It would not pass long, representatives reckoned, “before the wretched, which
constitute the majority, could not find a single splinter of wood, not even to take back to their
homes.”316
Resin extraction as much as appropriations of lands divided community members in
Cheran. By 1902, collection of sap was so extended that local officials reported it might lead to
314
Ibid., 176.
Archivo del Registro Público de la Propiedad de Michoacán (ARPPM), Registro de Modificaciones y
Traslaciones de la Propiedad Raíz en el Estado de Michoacán, Libro 1, Tomo 18, 1-3, 7-14, 18-21, and 55-56.
316
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 247.
315
262
the devastation of large segments of forest. Whether this assessment was accurate or not, the fact
is that the sight of bands of community members penetrating the forest with hacks and buckets
had become increasingly common. People working in the woodlands tapping trees became
distinctively known as colectores (or collectors). Colectores began to sign contracts with local
and regional entrepreneurs promising steady supplies of resin—later on turned into turpentine,
the basis of solvents mainly employed in the construction business. These contracts, however,
were signed not by the community, but independently by individuals and groups, in spite of the
fact that extraction occurred in communal woodlands. Protests eventually burst, forcing
municipal authorities to solicit instructions about how to deal with this unprecedented escalation
in wood and resin extraction activities.317
The response of the authorities of Michoacán to this and the other many issues
engendered by the lumber boom was the enactment of a new reparto law (June 18, 1902) and its
accompanying reglamento (July 4, 1902). Both pieces of legislation are often considered as the
corollary of longstanding liberal attempts to do away with communal land tenure. Especially
because they instructed the wholesale partition of all community lands, including montes—
something that the earlier law of 1827 also prescribed. In fact, the laws were to an important
degree the result of a decade or so of escalating boundary disputes, reparto petitions on the part
of communities, and increasing encroachment of forested areas by community members and
outsiders alike in the meseta, as well as in other several regions of Michoacán. The new laws, in
other words, were the consequence not the cause of community land fragmentation.
317
Ibid., 220 and 230.
263
The main feature of the 1902 laws, in that sense, was not that they widened the scope of
the lands subject to partition. Their main characteristic was that they substantially furthered the
role of the state in the management of community lands and affairs. Indeed, liberal authorities’
answer to the ongoing conflicts and divisions between and within communities (a product, in
turn, of the expansion of rail lines and the market for lumber) was a combination of paternalism
and greater government intervention. Authorities’ solution, in other words, consisted in taking
away from community members as much control as possible over their holdings and transferring
it to state officials and the executive power.
The new laws stipulated that fiscal officials, in coordination with municipalities, would
from then on manage all community holdings located in the built-up and common areas of
pueblos until the implementation of land divisions. The laws also specified that all transactions
in community holdings (including forest lands) must first be approved by the government. Only
after proceeding with the reparto did community members acquire the right to their apportioned
lands—and this until four years after land divisions had taken place. Tellingly, the funds
produced by authorized land transactions must be deposited in the monte de piedad (a type of
semi-public charitable institution, which also served as a pawnshop) until authorities, in
consultation with community members, determined how to use the money. Equally important,
the executive power (and not judicial tribunals) would decide over boundary controversies. And
finally, but very significantly, the laws limited communities’ autonomy to appoint their own
representatives. Communities kept the right to elect and suggest spokespersons. Yet the laws
granted to the authorities of Michoacán the power to endorse or reject communities’ appointees,
264
as well as the power to designate and remove representatives without previous consent on the
part of community members.318
In truth, the enforcement of the 1902 laws greatly contributed to strengthen and expand
state intervention in community affairs—already a reality as a result of land taxes, real estate
appraisals, and conventional agreements. At the same time, contrary to authorities’ professed
intentions, it did little to prevent disputes inside communities from happening and, in fact, it
deepened them even more. In requiring community representatives to have official endorsement,
authorities expected to put an end to ongoing rivalries over community representation, as
communities split around the issues of land appropriations and the new utilization of forests.
Competing factions often relied on different legal representatives and spokespersons to present
authorities their cases. The purpose was to simplify and control the dialogue with
communities.319 Rival groups, as it turn out, now began to compete for winning over authorities’
official recognition. Securing the endorsement of the government offered new advantages and
the opportunity to do both advance and keep in check reparto policies, land sales, and the selling
of lumber and other forest products.
Community representatives, not surprisingly, were often contested and accused of acting
against the interests of the community. Representatives, in fact, seldom remained in office for
much time. A group of community members from Cheran-Atzicurin, an upper meseta
318
Amador Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, reglamentos y circulares expedidas en el estado de
Michoacán, Vol. 36 (Morelia: Talleres de la Escuela Industrial Militar Porfirio Díaz, 1903), 510-512 and 516-532.
319
See, Memoria sobre la administración pública del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo. Cuatrienio de 16 de
septiembre de 1900 a 15 de septiembre de 1904 (Morelia: Talleres Escuela I.M.P.D., 1904), 54.
265
community, loudly demanded and eventually brought about the removal of their representative
for “the many abuses that he has committed and continues to commit.”320 Esteban Galvan,
representative of Charapan (also in the upper meseta), resigned after a year of service citing as
one of his main reasons the general “apathy” of local residents.321 In Cocucho (upper meseta),
Francisco Galvan declared he had given up his position because locals were unwilling to
cooperate with him. In fact, he was forced out of office after a number of community members
protested he was an outsider “completely strange to our interests.” Galvan was replaced by an
individual called Anastacio Joaquin who, months after been elected, was challenged by another
group of community members.322
Sebastian Turja—the prosperous indigenous landowner that Carl Lumholtz described as
“the richest man in town”—became Cheran’s community representative in the summer of 1903.
Two years later, district authorities accused him of participating in the clandestine extraction of
lumber from local forests. Apparently, some fifty individuals, between sellers and buyers, joined
in the operation. It is not entirely possible to determine the degree to which Turja personally
benefitted from these unreported lumber sales or the extent in which he, as community
representative, actually concealed them to avoid government intrusion in the management of
community holdings—there was probably a little of both. Yet he too, in spite of his
comparatively powerful position, was eventually forced out of office as a result of internal
pressures and on the part of district authorities—although it seems that he was never found guilty
320
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 22, 72.
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Pátzcuaro, vol. 12, 193 and 248.
322
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 3, 220, 228, and 231.
321
266
of the charges and actually was later on reimbursed for the time he served as community
representative.323
District and local authorities, on the other hand, were far from alien to protests. They
were especially accused of turning a blind eye to illicit wood extraction. In the fall of 1903,
Paracho’s representative, Cristobal Cano, complained to authorities in Morelia that former
municipal president and his son (Vicente and Pánfilo Bravo) had been unlawfully exploiting an
extension of forest that was actually part of communal holdings and that, the representative
suspected, they were acting in league with the prefecto. The Bravos argued that such accusations
were groundless. They had legally acquired the property in question from lawyer and landowner
Tiburcio Contreras who, in turn, had acquired it from several residents of the neighboring pueblo
of Aranza. The prefecto, for his part, argued that the woodlands in dispute actually belonged to
the pueblos of Aranza and Quinceo. Cano’s complaints, he added, were part of campaign that the
representative, together with an indigenous leader called Anselmo Jalapa, had launched in order
to claim the properties for Paracho. All wood extraction, the prefecto assured to authorities in
Morelia, had been temporarily suspended until the Bravos could show property titles and other
documentation backing their claim over the contested woodlands.
In spite of the relative accord against the Bravos and the prefecto, disagreements divided
community members in Paracho. Advocates of a more confrontational approach, Anselmo Jalapa
and his supporters opposed Cristobal Cano and promoted his replacement. They eventually
forced an election to appoint a new community representative in the spring of 1904. Anselmo
323
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 15, 256-265.
267
Jalapa ran against Sebastian Cano, Cristobal’s relative. Jalapa won the election for a close
margin. Yet the prefecto decided not to back him and, instead, supported Cano’s appointment.
Jalapa’s militancy proved too disturbing for an official whose main task was to prevent social
unrest from bursting. Disputes, however, did not halt. Jalapa and his supporters continued to
clash with Sebastian Cano, the Bravos, the prefecto, and residents from Aranza and Quinceo. By
the summer of 1905, when the evidence ends, dozens of community members, among them
Jalapa, demanded the resignation of Sebastian Cano.324
Ironically, boundary disputes and internal splits inhibited the full-scale implementation of
reparto policies in many communities. Continual deposition of community representatives made
it very hard for authorities to attempt any systematic execution of land divisions. Official
allocations of community land in general and communal woodlands in particular occurred
spasmodically and disjointedly. In 1904 authorities reported only one case of a community in
which allocations were actually in progress in the district of Uruapan (Parangaricutiro).325
More often than not, fragmentation took place by other means, that is, by piecemeal
incidence of dozens and even hundreds of land transactions. One plot and one portion of forest at
a time. Dealings in undivided community land, as pointed out, required by law previous
authorization of the government. Authorities even circulated a notice alerting notaries not to
sanction these transactions.326 There were, however, ways to circumvent restrictions. For
instance, by means of reselling lands and passing them from one hand to another until it became
324
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 263-320.
Memoria de Michoacán de Ocampo de 1900 a 1904, 59-60.
326
Coromina, Recopilación de leyes, vol. 36, 515-516.
325
268
either very hard to track down the original holder or unfeasible to undo the transactions (as
Tiburcio Contreras and the Bravos had done in Paracho and Aranza). Government officials, in
like manner, sometimes ended up allowing the selling of complete chunks of mountainous lands
because, as they acknowledged in considering the case of one of Jicalan’s holdings, the
implementation of reparto policies would render the resulting properties almost valueless.327 By
1910, piecemeal transactions of community lands were, if not rampant, common occurrence
across the meseta.328
Lumber Companies and the Opening of Communal Forests
Communities underwent one last major shift before the end of the porfirian regime in 1911. As
lumber demand expanded and fragmentation of community lands continued, a group of
communities began to put on lease large extensions of communal woodlands. Nothing like this
had ever happened before. Under the Spanish rule, communities regularly leased some of their
lands to local landowners for cultivation and grazing. During the late colonial period, such
practice even became mandatory as Bourbon land policies required communities not to leave
lands idle and Crown officials took over the management of community holdings (see chapter 1).
After independence, communities often battled against municipal governments to keep
possession of grazing and additional arable fields; leasing these lands continued to represent a
327
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 8, 120-131.
See, for instance, ARPPM, Registro de Modificaciones y Traslaciones de la Propiedad Raíz en el Estado de
Michoacán, Libro 1, Tomo 1, 38, 48-49, 55-56, 67-69, 90, 102-103, 105-106, 107, 114-117, 156-157, 162, 171-172,
180-190, 247-252; and ARPPM, Registro de Modificaciones y Traslaciones de la Propiedad Raíz en el Estado de
Michoacán, Libro 1, Tomo 3, 23-28.
328
269
significant source of income. Land leasing, however, seldom included communal forests.
Woodlands, for the most part, were reserved for the exclusive use and benefit of community
members. The lumber boom, indeed, led to what was probably the most important transformation
of land use (and not merely land tenure) in the meseta in centuries.
During the 1890s and very early 1900s, wood extraction and lumber production were
mainly conducted by local and regional landowners and businessmen. People such as Othon
Hernandez, for instance, whose extensive acquisitions of communal woodlands in Nahuatzen
provided for his sawmill in rancho Paso Nuevo—rancho that, in turn, Hernandez had acquired
from the community of Sevina.329 The Bravos, too, had their own sawmill for the processing of
the wood they extracted from Quinceo, Aranza, and Paracho.330 Gabriel Vargas, Francisco
Vallejo, and Domingo Narvarte settled their lumber operations in Tingambato and Comachuen.
Narvarte, the most important of the three, owned one of the largest sawmills in the meseta (Las
Palomas).331
There were two main ways through which these and other similar men carried out
logging activities. One, as illustrated above, was by means of direct purchasing of stretches of
forest. The other consisted of establishing partial leasing contracts (arrendamientos parciales) in
which a group of community members (not the whole community) promised leaseholders
329
ARPPM, Registro de Modificaciones y Traslaciones de la Propiedad Raíz en el Estado de Michoacán, Libro 1,
Tomo 18, 6-8.
330
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 12, 310.
331
See, Zumac Tzitziqui Próspero Maldonado, “Tingambato: las tierras comunales y su bosque ante la inversión
extranjera (1897-1911),” Tingambato en el 120 aniversario de su elevación a municipio (1877-1997) (Morelia:
Jitánfora, 1997), 66-68; and José Napoleón Guzmán, Michoacán y la inversión extranjera, 1880-1911 (Morelia:
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1982), 109 and 118-119.
270
exclusive access to certain areas of forests. Leaseholders, for their part, pledged only to cut a
previously agreed amount of trees and not to impinge upon other sections of woodlands. Both
ways entailed a number of problems and conflicts. Numerous land purchases were the product of
murky transactions and, as a result, gave rise to competing property rights claims and clashes.
Partial leasing contracts, apparently less contentious because they circumvented the issue of land
rights, actually sparked equally conflicting claims over the right of some community groups to
decide about the use of common forests. Community members, as in Tingambato and
Comachuen (respectively in the lower and upper meseta), also complained about the fact that
leaseholders often violated the agreed terms and cut more trees and extracted more wood than
contracts established.332
Partial leasing contracts and piecemeal acquisitions of communal woodlands persisted
during the 1900s, but they dwindled as bigger players moved into the meseta and took over the
lumber business. In a matter of few years, tree harvesting and lumber production shifted from a
relatively mid-size activity to a veritable large-scale industrial enterprise, from an activity run by
local entrepreneurs with comparatively limited capital to companies with wider connections and
capable of moving large amounts of resources. A firm such as Compañía Explotadora de
Maderas, for instance, started off in 1905 as an association of local entrepreneurs based in the
cities of Uruapan and Zamora (the second largest city of Michoacán), but soon turned into a
332
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 18, 41-50, 66-73, and 125126.
271
major enterprise as it developed links with a prominent lumber businessman and railroad
contractor from Mexico City named Juan J. Moylan.
The five original associates of Compañía Explotadora de Maderas (one bank manager
living in city of Uruapan, two merchants from Periban and Los Reyes, and two catholic priests
respectively living in Uruapan and Jacona) acquired a sizeable extension of woodlands from a
group of indigenous people residents of Periban. Once they secured ownership of the woodlands
(the transaction was, apparently, approved by the government) they transferred land-use rights to
Moylan in 1906. The contract gave Moylan complete access to Periban’s former woodlands for
the next ten years. In exchange, the partners of Compañía Explotadora de Maderas would receive
an annual sum (some 4,000 pesos) regardless of whether lumber extraction proved profitable or
not. A man of means and connections, Moylan joined forces with a group of American associates
who set eyes on the growing lumber business in Mexico and had recently formed the Central
Lumber Company of Mexico for that purpose. The company was founded in Portland, Maine.
Yet the members of its board of directors (with one exception) were actually based in New York,
where they expected to sell 2 million dollars in shares. The evidence is unfortunately scarce, but
it seems that efforts to capitalize the company did not go as planned and Moylan ended up
buying most of the shares (which, in all likelihood, accounted for substantially less than the
projected amount). Still, the Central Lumber Company remained the single largest operating
272
lumber company in the Periban area and its surroundings until the outbreak of the Mexican
revolution.333
Another company, or to precise, a series of companies managed by the same group of
people, truly became the leading lumber manufacturer in the meseta—and one the largest in the
country. In 1901, Domingo Narvarte (as pointed out, a prominent lumber entrepreneur based in
Tingambato), decided to sell all his assets to a company called Compañía Nacional de Maderas.
The company’s general manager and most conspicuous operator was an individual named James
Slade Jr., locally known as Santiago Slade. An American engineer born in Columbus, Georgia,
he arrived in Michoacán at some point during the late 1890s. He soon developed connections
with local elite circles and eventually married to Consuelo Farías, a member of a prominent
family in the city of Uruapan (1899) with whom he had three children (James, Florence, and
Maria).334
Acting as general manager, Slade was instrumental in securing Compañía Nacional’s
dominance in the meseta from 1901 to 1904. The company acquired sizable holdings from
Narvarte. The most important of them all was Las Palomas sawmill, valued in almost 55,000
pesos—equivalent to the cost of a modest (yet relatively important by Michoacán’s standards)
hacienda. Compañía Nacional also got hold of important business commitments with railroad
333
ARPPM, Registro de Modificaciones y Traslaciones de la Propiedad Raíz en el Estado de Michoacán, Libro 1,
Tomo 1, 165-170 and 205-213; ARPPM, Registro de Modificaciones y Traslaciones de la Propiedad Raíz en el
Estado de Michoacán, Libro 1, Tomo 3, 52-56, 152-161, 213-217, 228-233, 234-248, and 359-370; ARPPM,
Registro de Modificaciones y Traslaciones de la Propiedad Raíz en el Estado de Michoacán, Libro 1, Tomo 4, 52-54
and 203-207; ARPPM, Registro de Modificaciones y Traslaciones de la Propiedad Raíz en el Estado de Michoacán,
Libro 1, Tomo 2, 1-22.
334
“Slade Genealogy,” accessed September 20, 2013,
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sladej/nc/index.htm
273
and construction companies. The largest of these commitments involved supplying Camino de
Fierro Nacional Mexicano 20,000 crossties. Under Slade’s management, the company greatly
expanded its operations and infrastructure. A second and larger sawmill was built in Conuy,
nearby Tingambato. The new sawmill would be known as La Maestraenza and it would become
the epicenter of the most important lumber operations in the district of Uruapan and, probably,
Michoacán. And in order to facilitate the transportation of lumber, Compañía Nacional also built
a local railroad line connecting several pueblos of the meseta and Conuy to the main state and
national tracks. 335
“La Maestraenza” Sawmill, 1905.
Source: AGN, Fomento y Obras Públicas, Industrias Nuevas, Leg. 49, Caja, 30, Exp. 4, Junio 15, 1905.
335
Guzmán, Michoacán y la inversión, 115-117; and Maldonado, “Tingambato” 82-86. The company’s president
and vice-president were respectively George Kennedy and James Snell. See, AGNM, Uruapan, Escrituras Públicas,
Libro de protocolo del notario público Lic. José Uribe, 1903,438-439.
274
In 1905, a financial firm based in Mexico City called Mexican Finance acquired
Compañía Nacional. As business thrived, Compañía Nacional apparently could not keep pace
with its growing commitments on its own. Mexican Finance formed a new company known as
Lumber and Development of Michoacán. Slade, already a key player with wide local
connections, remained in the new company as sales manager. Yet the head of company was an
individual called Henry Rudston Read.336 A British subject, Read was involved in mining
activities in eastern Michoacán and had run a lumber company in the Lake Pátzcuaro region in
the late 1890s. As Juan J. Moylan, he sought the support of international financiers to boost the
operations of Lumber and Development. Based in London, a firm known as Trustees Executors
and Societies Insurance agreed to invest in Read’s company and began to sell bonds (1906) with
which the Trustees and Read expected to raise 100,000 pounds sterling. Although it seems that
some funds were obtained in this way, the operation, as with Moylan, did not entirely work.
Lumber and Development never succeeded in attracting enough shareholders. Capitalization, for
the most part, seemed to have come from credits granted by local financial institutions, namely
the branches in Morelia and Uruapan of the Banco Nacional de Mexico (the major financial
institution in Mexico under Porifio Díaz).337
Lumber and Development, in any event, widened the scale and scope of production in
Conuy. From 1905 to 1907, the company imported some 380,000 kilograms in new equipment
and material. Everything from screws to a locomotive. According to a federal official who
336
James Walter and Mexican lawyer Rafael Pardo served as head of the board of directors in Mexico City. See,
ARPPM, Registro de Hipotecas, Libro de Ignacio Zavala, enero 31 de 1906-abril de 1908, 120-125.
337
Ibid., 120-125 and 171-184. On Rudston Read see, Guzmán, Michoacán y la inversión, 109-111.
275
visited Conuy in 1907, machines worked ceaseless. “There is in the courtyards of the buildings,”
he wrote, “enough lumber to fill four or five hundred train wagons.”338 In 1907, when Lumber
and Development negotiated a new credit from Banco Nacional, James Slade and John Simmons
(also a manager of the company) declared there were about 3.5 million feet of lumber in
existence in Conuy.339 Estimations on the part of federal officials in Mexico City affirmed that
the company was capable of producing between 6,000 and 7,000 metric tons of lumber every
year.340 Lumber and Development even signed a contract with the federal government to create a
plant dedicated to produce a new type of fuel based on the treatment of lumber remains.341
Lumber and Development rapid ascension was, however, followed by an equally rapid
fall. The company never intended to build the new fuel plant. As federal authorities would later
find out, it was just a mere stratagem to take advantage of tax exemption policies in force
designed to boost investment in the development of new industries and technologies in Mexico.
In order to evade tariffs, Read imported much of the new equipment used in Conuy as if it were
destined for the fuel plant.342 Lumber and Development’s financial commitments with its
international and national creditors, in like manner, had become, if not unmanageable, at least of
significant concern. The company probably amassed a debt with Banco Nacional de México of a
338
AGN, Fomento y Obras Públicas, Industrias Nuevas, Leg. 49, Caja, 30, Exp. 6, Agosto 16, 1905, 66.
ARPPM, Registro de Hipotecas, Libro de Ignacio Zavala, enero 31 de 1906-abril de 1908, 123.
340
AGN, Fomento y Obras Públicas, Industrias Nuevas, Leg. 49, Caja, 30, Exp. 2, 62.
341
See, Memoria presentada al Congreso de la Unión por el Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Fomento,
Colonización e Industria de la República Mexicana, Lic. Olegario Molina. Corresponde a los años transcurridos de
1o de Enero de 1905 a 30 de Junio de 1907 (Mexico: Imprennta y Fototipia de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1909),
225-228.
342
See, AGN, Fomento y Obras Públicas, Industrias Nuevas, Leg. 49, Caja, 30, Exp. 1-12.
339
276
quarter of a million pesos.343 Designed to make fast profits in a booming business, Lumber and
Development finances and relations with the federal government faltered. The company shut
down operations at some point between the last months of 1907 and the first months of 1908.
Sawmill Courtyards, 1905
Source: Source: AGN, Fomento y Obras Públicas, Industrias Nuevas, Leg. 49, Caja, 30, Exp. 4, Junio 15, 1905.
By then, James Slade had already formed his own company, first known as Bosques
Mexicanos (1907), but shortly after called Compañía Industrial de Michoacán (1908-1913). This
time Slade and John Simmons (as pointed out, one of Lumber and Development managers)
would be the holders of a majority of shares. Rudston Read kept business relations with Slade,
but he pulled out of the new company to, apparently, focused on his mining businesses.
343
ARPPM, Registro de gravámenes en el Distrito de Uruapan, Libro, Tomo 4, 56-72.
277
Compañía Industrial absorbed much of the assets (including La Maestranza in Conuy) and
financial obligations of Lumber and Development. Slade renegotiated the company’s debt and
even obtained further loans from Banco Nacional de México. Significantly enough, Compañía
Industrial focused not on acquiring more machinery and equipment, but on securing access to
new forests and wood. Slade established business relations with well-known local landowners
such as Manuel Campos, who on occasions supplied Compañía Industrial wood from some of his
properties. Or Ramón Santoyo, who signed a nine-year lease contract allowing Slade’s company
access to some of the forests of his hacienda. Compañía Industrial also acquired the businesses
of some old middling lumber entrepreneurs such as Othon Hernandez (as shown earlier,
influential in the Nahuatzen area).344
More importantly, the company gained access to the woodlands of a large number of
indigenous communities across the meseta. Back in 1901, Compañía Nacional acquired from
Domingo Narvarte two contracts he had previously established with the communities of
Tingambato and Comachuen. By 1913, Compañía Industrial accumulated twenty additional
deals. Most of them were signed between 1907 and 1908. At least seven took place between
1911 and 1913, that is, after the outbreak of the Mexican revolution. Unlike early partial leases,
these contracts actually granted Compañía Industrial permission to extract wood from the whole
of communal woodlands. They also established long-term commitments between the company
344
See, Ibid. Also, ARPPM, Registro de gravamenes en el Distrito de Uruapan, Libro 2, Tomo 4, 113-131; and
Guzmán, Michoacán y la inversión, 123 and 133. John Simmons sold his shares of Compañía Industrial to Slade in
1909.
278
and communities. The span of the contracts ranged from ten to thirty years and, as rule,
stipulated that, if agreed by both parties, the period could extend for twenty more years.345
These contracts have been generally interpreted as clearly disadvantageous to the
communities of the meseta. The terms of the deals, however, provided certain concrete benefits
that help to explain, at least in part, why communities engaged in these transactions in such large
numbers. In exchange for full and lengthily utilization of communal forests, Compañía Industrial
was obligated to pay every year a previously agreed amount of money over the duration of the
contract. The amount differed from one community to another because the extension of
woodlands also varied. Yet it could be as high as 215,000 pesos (or 6,900 pesos annually) as in
the case of Parangaricutiro. Although most other arrangements involved lower sums, they still
entailed meaningful returns. The contracts with Quinceo, Sicuicho, San Felipe, Pomacuaran, and
Urapchicho, for instance, amounted to 20,000 pesos (or 1,000 pesos annually), whereas those of
Pamatacuaro, Arantepacua, Tanaco, or Aranza ranged between 65,000 and 30,000 pesos. To the
extent that they constituted an additional source of income that communities could not otherwise
attain, these funds did seem enticing and even helpful to many. Particularly when the company
advanced part of the money right after the signing of the contracts.346
Even more significantly, the contracts did not strip communities of the possession of their
woodlands. Although Compañía Industrial (as the other companies before) did acquire stretches
345
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 20, 1-119; and ARPPM,
Registro de gravamenes en el Distrito de Uruapan, Libro 2, Tomo 4, 56-72. See also, Marco A. Calderón, “Un
contrato de arrendamiento de los montes de Cheran, Distrito de Uruapan, entre el representante de los indios de ese
pueblo y la Compañía Industrial de Michoacán,” Relaciones 72, no. 28 (1997): 215-221.
346
Ibid.
279
of community land by different means, direct acquisition was not its main modus operandi,
especially when dealing with such a wide number of communities. Land purchases (and even
dubious acquisitions) required complex and lengthily procedures that would result in the
suspension or postponement of production, additional expenses, and unnecessary tensions with
both communities and the government—the selling of community lands and woodlands was,
after all, prohibited without previous official authorization. The company thus opted to lease
rather than to take over the ownership of communal montes. Wood extraction, not land
ownership, was the essence of the business.
Thus, the significance of lumber contracts did not consist in that they deceive
communities into accepting blatantly unfavorable deals. These contracts truly marked a farreaching shift in the utilization of local forests and existing land-use rights. Possession remained
in the hands of indigenous communities. Community members did not lose access to the
woodlands and kept the right to retrieve wood for their everyday and long-established needs
(collection of fuel wood and craft making). Conversion of forest areas into grazing lands and
arable fields was, at least in theory, prohibited. Yet the meaning and purpose of woodlands now
depended on something other than local usages—even local commercial usages. The forests of
the meseta acquired a different value. One that could be measured in revenues and profits.
Woodlands were now part of a larger network of interests wherein the weight of communities
and community members had grown increasingly fainter. In changing land use, the lumber boom
also precipitated the last gasp of communal land tenure.
280
CONCLUSION
When revolution came in the last months of 1910 and the first of 1911, communities in the
meseta did not rise in rebellion en masse. Lumber contracts ended communities’ exclusive rights
to use forest lands. Yet the evidence suggests that actual exploitation of communal forests by
lumber companies only took place in a handful of communities. As a result, no general
opposition against companies and large-scale wood extraction surfaced. In communities where
companies carried out tree harvesting more intensively (for instance, Tingambato, Comachuen,
San Ángel, Turicuaro) antagonisms arose, but most revolved around complaints against
community representatives and not against wood extraction itself. Everywhere logging activities
resulted in further state intervention.
Earlier land laws (the 1851 state law and the 1856 federal law), as well as the 1877
decree, had deprived indigenous communities of legal personhood and prevented them from
administering real estate properties. Land taxes and fiscal “conventional agreements,” in like
manner, expanded the influence of the authorities of Michoacán over communities. The 1902
reparto laws made community representation subject to prior approval by the government. It also
required communities and community members to solicit official authorization when conducting
transactions in forest lands and wood extraction for commercial purposes. Little by little, the
government asserted its authority and, accordingly, local autonomy eroded. It was not an
overwhelming power, but it was enough to guarantee community conformity and prevent
grievances from turning into insurrectionary mobilizations.
281
Since communities were banned from owning and deriving benefits from real estate, the
authorities of Michoacán took over the management of forest revenues—that is, the money from
lease contracts with lumber companies. Local access to revenues depended on compliance with
reparto policies. In other words, communities could gain the proceeds of lumber until they
relinquished communal land tenure. The indigenous people of the meseta faced three possible
alternatives. The first one entailed dividing the money in equal and individual shares among all
community members. Individual shares, however, would be of no meaningful value and thus
would bring little benefit for families and community members. The second alternative consisted
of splitting the forest in identical portions, one for each community member. This solution was
not only impractical, but it would strip lumber contracts of any value. Communities agreed to
open their forest only because lumber revenues, in principle, represented additional funds for
common projects. Companies, on the other hand, would have to deal with hundreds and even
thousands of community members separately, making wood extraction not only difficult but
almost unfeasible. Ironically, for lumbering, the reparto was ultimately bad for business.
The third alternative, the one that prevailed, entailed a hybrid solution. Woodlands
remained undivided, but property rights ceased to be communal. Community members were
granted not an actual portion of land, but a share representing a portion of ownership of the
forest. Shares did not give exclusive access to or absolute property of individual parcels.
Shareholders, in principle, were only entitled to receive their part of the earnings of lease
contracts with lumber companies. Presumably, communities would thus function as any other
private shareholding association, except for the fact that, in reality, its members could not make
282
use of their assets and proceeds as they pleased. Indeed, income derived from woodland rentals,
authorities determined, should be deposited in a monte de piedad account or directly transferred
to tax offices. In order to use forest revenues, community members (now turned into
shareholders) were required to solicit consent from the government, and petitions could only be
made through previously authorized community representatives. Authorities presented
communities with two main choices, knowing in advance that only one of them was reasonable:
to distribute the revenues in equal amounts among shareholders or employ forest income in
public works and tax payments. Community earnings—allegedly the product of a commercial
transaction between to private parties—were treated as tax revenues, that is, as yet another duty
levied on community members.347
This was, indeed, a peculiar arrangement. It fulfilled reparto legal formalities, but gave
birth to a land regime that was neither entirely private nor completely communal. It ended
corporate land rights and neglected communities’ legal status. At the same time, however,
authorities continued to deal with community members not as a collection of free individual
smallholders—the members of a shareholding organization—, but as collective bodies.
Maintaining corporate representation, in the end, proved more advantageous to both companies
and authorities than dealing with individual property owners. Purportedly designed to “free”
indigenous people from the “tyranny” of communal land tenure, liberal land policy curtailed the
347
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 16, 1-16; AGHPEM,
Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 17, 37-197; AGHPEM, Secretaría de
Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 18, 74-200, and 231-329; AGHPEM, Secretaría de
Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 21, 292; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno,
Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 22, 206-321, 376, and 399-400.
283
capacity of communities and community members to decide over their own holdings and
earnings. It undermined local autonomy yet offered little or no independence—whether
collective or individual. Crucially, community members retained possession of their forests. Yet,
to all intents and purposes, they lost control of how community resources were administered. On
the eve of the Mexican revolution, liberalism in Michoacán was closer to the Bourbons than to
the deeply problematic, but equally ground-breaking egalitarianism of early and mid-nineteenthcentury liberalisms.
Similar arrangements surfaced in communities where lease contracts did not result in
immediate large-scale logging operations and wherein tree harvesting continued to be conducted
by middling entrepreneurs and groups of community members. Much logging remained
unreported. Yet when spotted by municipal and district authorities it was closely supervised.
Tree harvesting and wood extraction required official authorization and lumber sales could not
be carried out without first being reported to the government. Tax offices, and not communities,
handled the product of these sales. Part of the earnings was used to cover pending debts and land
taxes. The remainder was employed in construction projects, repairs of buildings and roads, and
other local needs.348
This new state of affairs between communities, companies, and the government,
however, did not last long. The outbreak of the Mexican revolution did not trigger a massive
348
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 3, 130, 142, 154-156, 164,
168-176, and 186-189; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 22,
363-369 and 402-405; AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Pátzcuaro, vol. 12,
196-197.
284
rebellion in the meseta, but it did disrupt the expansion of commercial forestry. As power shifted
in the nation and the state of Michoacán, small but relentless armed bands carried out regular
operations across the region. They claimed different revolutionary affiliations, but most of the
time acted independently in constant search for resources with which to fund armed campaigns,
personal ambitions, and even mere survival. Their methods were fierce—hijacking, kidnapping,
assaults on haciendas, ranchos, and pueblos—and, as a result, relations with the local population
were often tense, when not openly antagonistic. Paracho, for instance, was burnt to the ground in
1917 after a group of local residents failed to repel the band of Inés Chávez García, the bestknown insurgent-bandit of the meseta and its surroundings. At times, however, armed bands also
managed to obtain local support and cooperation, as in the case of Cherán wherein at least some
community members declared their sympathies for Chávez García.349
Landowners and businessmen, on the other hand, tried to come to terms with the new
revolutionary circumstances and the presence of armed bands by paying money for protection.
Many succeeded, but many others eventually were forced to pull out their businesses, especially
after 1913 when the country fell into full-scale war, first as a result of Victoriano Huerta’s coup
against president Francisco Madero and later as revolutionary forces split after defeating Huerta.
The downfall of Porfirio Díaz in 1911 did not put a halt to lumber business prospects in the
meseta. Compañía Industrial’s last lease contracts with local indigenous communities were
signed in 1913. Yet problems multiplied as hostilities escalated. Forced loans, confiscation of
349
See, Castillo Janacua, Paracho, 65-93; and Álvaro Ochoa Serrano, Chávez García, vivo o muerto (Morelia:
Morevallado Editores / Instituto Michoacano de Cultura, 2004).
285
assets, and assaults on the company’s properties by armed bands intensified. Signs of opposition
to wood extraction operations also began to gain impetus in several communities (notably in
Nurio, Paracho, Cherán-Atzicurin, and Cherán).
In an effort to keep production going, James Slade formed his own private security force.
The move, however, backfired. The men hired for the job used violence beyond Slade’s desires,
thus alienating an increasing number of community members and undermining the local consent
necessary to secure access to communal woodlands. Slade removed the heads of Compañía
Industrial’s security force and offered the position to Eutimio Díaz, one of the indigenous leaders
heading the opposition to unrestricted lumber operations in Paracho. A man who understood
local and regional dynamics, whose personal and business interests were deeply rooted in the
meseta, Slade preferred negotiation over confrontation. Eutimio Díaz, presumably, agreed to
collaborate with Slade. It was in the interest of both parties to prevent violence from escalating
and, equally important, to secure forest revenues.350
The war, however, rendered this new deal fruitless. Railroad construction halted. The
banking system on which large-scale wood extraction and lumber processing depended started to
falter beginning in 1912 and collapsed after 1913—recovery only came after 1922.351 Without
credit and a regular and reliable demand for wooden products, it made no sense to expand
forestry operations or even sustain production. Compañía Industrial, at any rate, could not fulfill
350
See, Guzmán, Michoacán y la inversión, 133-134.
See, Stephen Haber, Armando Razo, and Noel Maurer, The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability,
Credible Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003), 80-123.
351
286
its previous financial commitments, contributing to the downfall of the banking system in
Uruapan and Michoacán. Not surprisingly, there is little evidence about Slade’s activities and the
fate of Compañía Industrial between 1914 and 1921. Operations in Conuy, in all likelihood, shut
down during these years. Slade did engage again in railroad and forestry businesses in the 1920s.
He founded a new company (called Compañía Michoacana Transportation Company) and built a
new sawmill. Yet he moved operations outside of the meseta and settled on the district of Ario in
the hot-country. In 1931, the governor of Michoacán, Lázaro Cárdenas, issued a bill declaring
Compañía Industrial’s lease contracts with communities in the meseta null.352 A new land reform
emanated from the revolution, also conflictive and contentious, was underway. It began to undo
much of what four and half decades of reparto had created.
The consequences of the reparto era were, indeed, significant and unprecedented.
Communal land tenure was reduced to an indeterminate state in which communities—as
corporate bodies—were legally entitled to nothing, but obliged to surrender much—including the
autonomy to conduct businesses, manage funds, or elect representatives without the supervision
and consent of the government. Piecemeal transactions—instigated by the reparto, demographic
growth, and new commercial prospects—resulted in the loss of important stretches of
agricultural and forest lands. The fragmentation of community holdings, in turn, did not result in
any major redistribution of landownership inside communities. It either reinforced existing
patterns of social differentiation or contributed to make gaps bigger. The rural middle-class—
352
See, Guzmán, Michoacán y la inversión, 135; and José Manuel Martínez Aguilar, “El aserradero de Zatzio, un
caso de la explotación de los bosques de Michoacán,” in Relaciones 32, no. 127 (2011): 195-221.
287
people of comparatively moderate means, but wealthy and powerful by local standards—, some
landowners, and a group of timber entrepreneurs reaped most of the benefits. For those who
already struggled to secure sustenance, changes in land tenure occurred for the worse. Finally,
land use experienced a major shift. Access to local woodlands ceased to be an exclusive right of
community members. More importantly, for the first time in the history of the meseta communal
woodlands were opened to large-scale commercial exploitation.
All in all, the reparto—a combination of human, economic, and political forces—brought
much change to the meseta. It did not, however, entirely break some of its long-standing
features. Although not without alterations, the three basic components constituting the material
base of a majority of indigenous people in the region remained in place. A large number of
community members still possessed housing lots where families could plant fruits and
vegetables, store grains, and work on wood crafts. Some agricultural lands were lost, some more
concentrated in few hands, but many more continued to be in possession of indigenous families.
Access to forest lands, in like manner, was not curtailed in spite of growing wood extraction
activities. Community members shared land-use rights with companies and loggers, forest
utilization drastically changed, and proceeds were taken over by the government. Yet wood
gathering for domestic purposes, crafts, and small-scale commercial uses did not come to an end.
Tellingly, corn remained the single most important commercial and subsistence crop of
Michoacán and the meseta until the very end of the porfiriato. Living conditions deteriorated for
an important number of families and did not improve in general as a result of the reparto.
Communities lost autonomy and were perhaps more vulnerable to economic shifts than ever
288
before. Most community members, however, still managed to weather material insecurities,
preventing many from joining revolutionary uprisings and precluding the formation of a local
independent armed movement.
It was neither the world liberals once imagined nor the world most indigenous people in
the meseta desired. It was one, however, they both contributed to create. The product of a
historical juncture, it would take a different combination of events and circumstances to unravel
what the reparto had brought about. The Mexican revolution inaugurated a period of radical
changes in the nation’s countryside. Land reform continued to be at the center of national debate.
It was, however, a new and different reform. It would be known as reparto agrario, but the term
would no longer be associated with private ownership. Reparto would come to mean exactly the
opposite of what it once meant. It would mean the transformation of private ownership into
collective land rights. Land reform, once more, would become the instrument of many interests
and purposes—including those of indigenous people in the meseta.
289
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Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City
AGHPEM
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AGNM
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AHCEM
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ARPPM
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BNM
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BPUM
Biblioteca Pública de la Universidad Michoacana, Morelia
CEHM
Centro de Estudios de Historia de México, Mexico City
LC
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MMOB
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APPENDIXES
Chapter 2
Appendix 1: Settlements in the meseta
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Ahuiran
Angahuan
Apo
Arantepacua
Aranza
Capacuaro
Charapan
Cheran
Cheran-Atzicurin
Cocucho
Comachuen
Corupo
Jicalan
Jucutacato
Los Reyes
Nahuatzen
Nurio
Paracho
Parangaricutiro
Paricutin
Periban
Pichataro
Pomacuaran
Quinceo
San Angel Surumucapio
San Felipe
San Francisco Periban
San Lorenzo
Sevina
316
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Sicuicho
Tanaco
Tancitaro
Taretan
Tingambato
Turicuaro
Urapicho
Uruapan
Zacan
Ziracuaretiro
Zirosto
***
Appendix 2: House values in the meseta c. 1889
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Settlement
Uruapan
Jicalan
Jucutacato
San Lorenzo
Capacuaro
Arantepacua
Taretan
Ziracuaretiro
Tingambato
San Angel
Paracho
Aranza
Tanaco
Small houses
or jacales (no
specific
value)
20
6
5
8
10
10
89
100
350
194
154
59
600
Houses
valued in
less than
100 pesos
865
43
60
58
40
50
0
50
80
38
100
0
0
Houses
valued
between 100
and less than
5,000 pesos
496
2
0
0
0
0
139
19
22
0
31
1
2
317
Houses
valued
between
5,000 and
less than
10,000
pesos
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Houses valued in
10,000 pesos or
more
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
Urapicho
Nurio
Pomacuaran
Quinceo
Cheran
Nahuatzen
Sebina
Comachuen
Turicuaro
Charapan
Cocucho
San Felipe
Los Reyes
San Gabriel
Periban
San Francisco
Parangaricutiro
Zirosto
Zacan
Sicuicho
Corupo
Angahuan
Paricutiro
Tancitaro
Apo
TOTAL
600
60
59
40
39
200
80
50
69
200
50
100
40
33
160
211
100
50
50
30
50
50
50
50
100
4,126
0
0
0
0
423
255
158
80
50
50
25
30
2
6
194
86
100
30
20
10
1
1
0
300
39
3,244
0
0
1
0
63
55
2
0
1
5
0
0
167
7
30
0
50
0
10
1
1
0
0
43
3
1,151
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Source: "Noticia Estadistica Numero 5. Noticia de la propiedad urbana del Estado [Distrito de Uruapan]," in
Memoria sobre los diversos ramos de la administración pública, leída por el secretario del despacho, Lic.
Francisco Pérez Gil, ante la diputación permanente del estado de Michoacán de Ocampo, en las sesiones de los
días 12, 13, y 14 de septiembre de 1889 (Mexico: Litografía de la Escuela de Artes, 1889).
***
318
Appendix 4: Forests in the meseta c. 1885 by municipality, owner, and location
Municipalities
Charapan
Indigenas de Periban
Rancho de Epucha
Indigenas del Barrio de San Andres
Barrio de San Andres
Indigenas del Barrio de Santiago
Barrio de Santiago
Indigenas del Barrrio de San Bartolo
Barrio de San Bartolo
Los Indigenas de Pamatacuaro
Desierto
Rancho de la Zarzamora
Rancho de Sirio
Rancho de Uringüirito
Los Indigenas del Barrio de San Miguel
Barrio de San Miguel
Pueblo de Cocucho
Pueblo de Cocucho
Pueblo de San Felipe
Pueblo de San Felipe
Cheran
Comunidad de Indigenas de Atzicurin
Comunidad de Indigenas de Atzicurin
Comunidad de Indigenas de Cheran
Comunidad de Indigenas de Cheran
Los Reyes
Francisco Ruiz
Hacienda de San Antonio
Jesus Valladares
Hacienda San Sebastian
Jose Maria Davalos
Hacienda de Limones
Hectares
11.1
0.5
0.5
1.5
1.5
1.0
1.0
1.2
1.2
3.2
1.1
0.5
0.5
1.1
0.5
0.5
1.2
1.2
2.0
2.0
26.2
4.2
4.2
22.0
22.0
2.0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
319
Manuel Anaya
Hacienda de San Rafael
Maria Anaya y Primitivo Aguiñaga
Hacienda de Santa Clara
Mariano Parra
Hacienda del Salitre
Parcioneros de San Gabriel
Tenencia de San Gabriel
Primitivo Aguiñaga
Hacienda de Santa Clara
Ramon Marquez
Rancho Inbaracuaro
Testamentaria e Hilario Madrazo
Hacienda de San Juan
Tiburcio Mendoza
Rancho La Calera
Nahuatzen
Francisco Alvelo
No data
Pueblo de Nahuatzen
No data
Paracho
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Ahuiran
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Ahuiran
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Aranza
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Aranza
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Nurio
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Nurio
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Paracho
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Paracho
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Pomacuaran
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Pomacuaran
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Quinceo
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Quinceo
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Tanaco
320
0.1
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.6
0.6
0.1
0.1
0.3
0.3
0.1
0.1
5.9
1.8
1.8
4.1
4.1
4,507.9
2.2
2.2
0.2
0.2
0.9
0.9
4,500.3
4,500.3
0.5
0.5
1.5
1.5
1.1
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Tanaco
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Urapicho
Excomunidad de Indigenas de Urapicho
Parangaricutiro
Indigenas de Angahuan
Pueblo de Angahuan
Indigenas de Corupo
Pueblo de Corupo
Indigenas de Parangaricutiro
Pueblo de Parangaricutiro
Indigenas de Paricutin
Pueblo de Paricutin
Indigenas de Sicuicho
Pueblo de Sicuicho
Indigenas de Zacan
Pueblo de Zacan
Indigenas de Zirosto
Pueblo de Zirosto
Periban
Anselmo Reyes y Zeferino Torrero
Sanamben
Antonio Garcia, Jose Maria Vega, Remigio Corona y Zeferino
Nipita
No data
Bartolo Vega y Feliciano Garcia
Rancho de los Tejocotes
Comunidad extinguida de San Francisco
La Palma
No data
Encarnacion Blanco, Emigidio Calvillo y Felipa Espinosa
No data
Juan Ramirez
Rancho del Granado
Pedro Estrada
Rancho del Granado
321
1.1
1.3
1.3
56,873.1
1,562.9
1,562.9
937.4
937.4
23,187.5
23,187.5
25,100.0
25,100.0
1,402.6
1,402.6
2,652.6
2,652.6
2,030.3
2,030.3
91.1
12.2
12.2
21.3
21.3
8.6
8.6
24.3
12.2
12.2
12.2
12.2
4.3
4.3
4.2
4.2
4.3
4.3
73,573.3
1.7
1.7
73,571.6
1.2
4.0
425.0
30.0
100.0
49,200.0
8.0
400.0
36.0
3.6
400.0
30.0
1.5
700.0
2,400.0
400.0
2,716.0
39.4
1,600.0
6,800.0
36.0
0.0
0.0
937.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
1.3
3.6
Sostenes Picazo
No data
Tancítaro
El vecindario
Rancho de Curio
Varios dueños
Acumbaro
Agua Zarca
Apundaro
Barranquillas
Batellero
Belen
Choritio
Chorros
Chupadero
Condembaro
Copitiro
Cortijo
El Cortijo
Escondida
Hacienda de los Limones
Hacienda del Pilon
Jacal
No data
Panzinda
Parea
Pucuaro
Rancheria Araparicuaro
Rancheria El Carrizal
Rancheria Jazmin
Rancheria La Chivera
Rancheria La Joya
Rancheria La Soledad
Rancho de Araparicuaro
Rancho de Arapo
322
8.0
15.0
94.8
80.1
400.0
88.3
1,616.1
4.4
100.0
503.6
0.4
16.0
0.0
1,600.0
40.0
300.0
800.0
0.4
16.0
1,616.0
15,378.5
190.3
190.3
1,316.5
1,316.5
11,679.2
2,742.5
158.3
7,022.4
1,755.6
0.4
2,192.5
438.9
1,753.6
2,068.7
Rancho de Condembaro
Rancho de Curio
Rancho de la Cañada
Rancho de la Lagunilla
Rancho de la Lagunita
Rancho de la Mora
Rancho de los Fresnos
Rancho del Aguacate
Rancho del Carrizal
Rancho del Cuate
Rancho del Jacal
Rancho del Puerto
Rancho la Barranca
Sidra
Sirimbo
Tapiada
Tinaja
Uringüitiro
Zizate
Zurumutaro
Taretan
Feliciano Vidales
Rancho del Guayabo
Ignacio Erdosain
Hacienda de Tomendan
Ramon Sotomayor
Hacienda de Patuan
Hacienda de Santa Teresa
Hacienda deTaretan
Rancho del Hoyo del Aire
Rancho del Terrenate
Testamentaria de Ignacio Solorzano
Hacienda de Caracha
Hacienda deZirimicuaro
Tingambato
323
La comunidad de Tingambato
Pueblo de Tingambato
Uruapan
Feliciano Vidales
Hacienda de Santa Catarina
Hacienda del Sabino
Rancho de Charapondo
Juan Yausi
Rancho de Arandin
Parcioneros de Jicalan
Pueblo de Jicalan
Parcioneros de Jucutacato
Pueblo de Jucutacato
Parcioneros de San Miguel y San Juan Bautista
Barrios de San Miguel y San Juan Bautista
Parcioneros del Barrio de Santiago
Barrio de Santiago
Parcioneros del pueblo de Arantepacua
Pueblo de Arantepacua
Parcioneros del pueblo de San Lorenzo
Pueblo de Capacuaro
Pueblo de San Lorenzo
Grand Total
2,068.7
2,068.7
197,357.8
67,600.0
1,600.0
46,400.0
19,600.0
40,800.0
40,800.0
48,352.8
48,352.8
2,450.0
2,450.0
25,600.0
25,600.0
94.0
94.0
3,400.0
3,400.0
9,061.0
5,805.0
3,256.0
349,895.6
Source: “Catastro de los bosques y montes del Estado, que se formó en cumplimiento de los dispuesto en la fraccion
II del artículo 2° de la ley número 50 de 18 de Diciembre de 1882”, in Memoria sobre los diversos ramos de la
administración pública, leída ante el Congreso del Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo, en las sesiones del 21 y 23 de
mayo de1885, por el secretario de despacho, Lic. Francisco Pérez Gil, Morelia, 1885 (Morelia: Imprenta del
Gobierno a cargo de José R. Bravo, 1885), 95-110.
***
324
Chapter 4
Appendix 4: Land Distribution in Tancítaro Before the Reparto c. 1872
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Value of Individual Land
Shares (Pesos)
Name
Vicente Mora
Manuel Rojas
Encarnacion Montelongo
Luis Medina
Leonardo Reimundo
Antonio Alvarez
Ignacio Alvarez
Jose Jesus Rios
Eugenio Sanchez
Guillerma Navarro
Maria de Jesus Lopez
Alvino Medina
Julian Lucas
Jose Pardo
Manuel Estrella
Epifaneo Velazquez
Juan Estrella
Juan Garcia
Apolinario Sanchez
Claudio Castillo
Simona Soliz
Jasinto Estrella
Refugio Alvarado
Juan Moreno
Margarita Rojas
Bacilio Vaca
Casimiro Reimundo
Francisco Eiquihua
Candelario Chavarria
Anastacia Castillo
1,001
885
833
535
519
502
412
400
345
332
324
305
298
275
269
256
250
250
248
238
225
223
220
218
217
212
210
203
202
201
325
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
Maria Dolores Farias
Pascual Aguirre
Francisco Garcia
Jesus Lucas
Celedonio Rosales
Catarino Rodriguez
Isaura Magaña
Maria Guadalupe Estrella
Benito Medina
Luis Sanchez
Perfecto Hernandez
Maria Pantoja
Fermin Rodriguez
Marcelo Joaquin
Jose Maria Cerbantes
Jose Mercado
Margarita Castillo
Deciderio Estrella
Maria Ines Fecundo
Maria Jesus Magaña
Hermenegildo Vazquez
Antonio Villegas
Luisa Andrade
Rafael Lemus
Ramon Castillo
Roman Cordova
Anastacio Soberano
Benjamin Guerrero
Justo Estrella
Inocencio Raya
Lucas Lazaro
Antonia Soberano
Gerardo Hernandez
Eulogio Gonzalez
Fernando Geronimo
B. Ventura Colin
200
200
198
198
197
195
195
193
190
188
188
186
185
183
180
175
175
173
173
170
156
153
150
150
150
150
146
146
143
140
140
137
135
133
133
132
326
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
Laureano Jacobo
Deciderio Medina
Antonio Beltran
Cayetano Garibay
Geronimo Villegas
Josefa Sausedo
Juana Virrueta
Luis Ramos
Marcelino Ruelas
Lucia Solorzano
Bernabe Rosales
Jose Maria Morales Morales
Jose Maria Rosas
Marcelino Ramirez
Jose Maria Jacobo
Bartolo Virrueta
Lorenzo Eiquihua
Anastacio Pantoja
Luisa Ureña
Comunidad
Ignacia Alvarez
Maria de Jesus Alvarez
Miguel Cordova
Rita San Juan
Magdaleno Guallaco
Maria Justa Fecundo
Alvina Soberano
Esteban Estrella
Feliciano Garnica
Jorge Castillo
Marcelina Raya
Higinia Martinez
Santiago Cruz
Francisco Farias
Maria Juana Guerrero
Marcelino Colin
132
130
130
129
125
125
125
125
123
122
120
120
120
120
117
115
115
113
112
110
110
110
105
105
103
102
100
100
100
100
100
99
98
98
97
97
327
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
Micaela Guerrero
Francisco Andrade
Juana Estrella
Remigio Zamora
Antonia Soliz
Gregorio Godinez
Juan N. Barriga
Barbara Medina
Antonia Padilla
Jose Maria Rico
Margarita Mendoza
Masedonio Vazquez
Maria Fecundo
Antonio Soriano
Juan Eiquihua
Manuel Castillo
Teodocio Villegas
Felipe Gonzalez
Jose Fulgencio Pantoja
Manuel Gonzalez
Maria Santos Estrella
Petra Castillo
Juan Duarte
Cruz Cuevas
Ramon Villegas
Domingo Chavez
Antonia Ortiz
Felipe Garnica
Victor Lopez
Gregoria Pantoja
Santiago Sanchez
Antonio Calderon
Narciso Eiquihua
Maria Rita Vega
Antonio Sanchez
Jose Maria Rico
96
95
95
93
90
90
90
90
88
88
88
86
85
83
83
80
78
75
75
75
75
75
73
73
73
73
72
72
72
71
69
68
68
68
65
64
328
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
Victor Gonzalez
Jesus Gonzalez
Nieves Zuñiga
Cayetano Estrella
Jose Maria Sanchez
Miguel Rende
Antonio Sánchez
Deciderio Estrella
Felipa Villegas
Jesus Garcia
Jose Trinidad Montelongo
Juan Estrella
Juan Vazquez
Marcos Medina
Maria Lucas
Maria Ursula Carrillo
Victoriana Guerrero
Tomasa Rodriguez
Jose Sandoval
Dionicia Rodriguez
Ignacio Valerio
Jose Maria Torres
Maria Merced Garcia
Pascuala Cerda
Trinidad Quiros
Anastacio Esparsa
Donaciana Lopez
Geronimo Ramirez
Jose Mercado
Librado Guerrero
Maria Ana Raya
Narciso Dimas
Rafael Soberano
Ramon Torres
Ricarda Pardo
Simon Fecundo
64
63
63
63
61
61
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
57
56
55
55
55
55
53
51
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
329
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
Tomasa Pantoja
Florencio Sisneros
Antonio del Toro
Nicolas Gobea
Alejandro Virrueta
Anita Solorzano
Cornelio Huerta
Jose Maria Valerio
Maria Dolores Geronimo
Maria Dolores Vega
Maria Dolores Villegas
Maria Trinidad Solorzano
Miguel Solorzano
Pantaleon Pardo
Ramon Medina
Pedro Viveros
Deciderio Eiquihua
Maria Dolores Constancio
Anastacio Medina
Benito Castillo
Carlota Pantoja
Francisco Sanchez
Ignacio Alvarez
Luisa Eiquihua
Maria del Pilar Montelongo
Primo Arreaga
Rita Vega
Tranquilino Castillo
Vicente Daza
Ursula Carillo
Candelaria Montero
Gertrudis Vaca
Lorenza Castillo
Rita Oseguera
Victor Guerrero
Faustino Aguilar
50
49
47
47
45
45
45
45
45
45
45
45
45
45
45
44
43
43
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
39
38
38
38
38
38
38
35
330
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
Francisco Guerra
Gregorio Murillo
Jose Sanchez
Leandro Moreno
Librada Eiquihua
Manuel Eiquihua
Maria Ana Cerbantes
Maria Dolores Virrueta
Maria Josefa Guerra
Miguel Sanchez
Ramon Galvan
Maria Carmen Rosales
Maria Isabel Rende
Pablo Geronimo
Abundia Jacobo y Comunidad
Antonio Huerta
B. Ventura
Bacilia Beltran
Camilo Virrueta
Dolores Prisingula
Francisco Gutierrez
Gregorio Dimas
Jose Aristeo Mora
Jose Ochoa
Juan Virrueta
Julian Sanchez
Justo Ortiz
Manuela Sanchez
Marcelina Reimundo
Maria Asencion Muñiz
Maria Juana Vega
Maria Rita Vega
Quirino Conejo
Rafaela Olivarez
Silveria Diaz
Silviano Virrueta
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
33
32
32
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
331
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
Teodocia Medina
Vicente Arreguin
Perfecto Avalos
Leocadio Sanchez
Andrea Lucas
Cornelio Morales
Eligia Virrueta
Emilio Magaña
Feliz Virrueta
Florentino Aleman
Francisca Melgareja
Francisco Virrueta
Francisco Virrueta
Francisco Virrueta
Gerardo Jaquis
Gertrudis Naranjo
Jose Maria Garcia
Jose Maria Prado
Juan Garcia
Juan Vega
Luciano Esquibel
Luisa Virrueta
Marcela Sanchez
Marcela Sanchez
Marcos Raya
Maria Cresencia Cruz
Maria de Jesus Villegas
Maria Jesus Montelongo
Maria Josefa Hernandez
Maria Paulina Hernandez
Martin Rodriguez
Martina Aguilar
Miguel Zarate
Nestor Villegas
Nicolas Flores
Pascual Mercado
30
30
27
26
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
332
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
Porfiria Cerrato
Prudencio Martinez
Santiago Lucas
Teodocio Ortiz
Tiburcio Quiroz
Zeferino Virrueta
Encarnacion Sanchez
Francisco Farias
Roberto Bucio
Idelfonso Rodriguez
Francisca Estrella
Maria Blas Castillo
Eulogio Sanchez
Jose Luz Montelongo
Jose Maria Eiquihua
Marcelo Virrueta
Maria Guadalupe Chavez
Anastacio Medina
Cayetano Virrueta
Dionicio Fernandez
Fabian Rico
Jose Pardo
Jose Guadalupe Fecundo
Jose Jesus Garcia
Juan Rodriguez
Juan Virrueta (Chachu)
Juan Aguilar
Juana Guerrero
Manuel Chavez
Manuel Esquibel
Margarito Ramirez
Maria Clara Hernandez
Maria Vazquez
Micaela Castillo
Rafael Guillen
Ramon Oseguera
25
25
25
25
25
25
24
24
24
24
23
23
22
22
22
22
22
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
333
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
Lorenza Eiquihua
Anacleto Sanchez
Aleja Aguilar
Anastacio Hernandez
Bartolo Virrueta
Blas Muñiz
Catarina Montero
Domingo Sanchez
Encarnacion Reinaga
Epitacio Ochoa
Esteban Virrueta
Jose Herrera
Jose Maria Vital
Juan Virrueta
Luis Rodriguez
Manuel Rosales
Marcelino Colin
Maria de la Lus Maciel
Maria de la Luz Maciel
Maria Dolores Damian
Micalea Guerrero
Pedro Medina
Rafael Sanchez
Ramos Guillen
Roman Castillo
Victor Vazquez
Antonio Ortiz
Jacinta Raya
Alejo Sanchez
Antonia Andrade
Damian Sanchez
Jose Jesus Samudio
Luciano del Toro
Maria Refugio Herrera
Martina Medina
Pablo Castillo
18
17
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
14
13
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
334
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
Rosalio Avalos
Teodoro Lucas
Antonio Eiquihua
Dominga Valerio
Gabriela Estrella
Ignacio G. Rojas
Ignacio Zamora
Juan Reinaga
Lucas Eiquihua
Maria Dolores Prisingula
Maria Josefa Dimas
Nicolasa Montero
Pio Estella
Ramon Estrella
Rosalia Estrella
Simon Reimundo
Victor Valerio
Nicolasa Moreno
Bacilio Herrera
Feliciano Geronimo
Francisco Moreno
Gregoria Medina
Andres Granado
Miguel Diego
Total Sum
Average Value
12
12
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
8
8
8
8
7
6
30,654
81
Sources: AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 2, 1-2, 14-179; and
AGHPEM, Secretaría de Gobierno, Gobernación, Hijuelas, Distrito de Uruapan, vol. 14, 1-65.
335