Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:44:59.243Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Land Tenure Patterns in Northern New Spain1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Susan M. Deeds
Susan M. Deeds*
Affiliation:
The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The evolution of the historical literature on land tenure in northern New Spain has closely paralleled general historiographical trends of New Spain's far northern frontier. For many years, “borderlands” history focused almost exclusively upon the study of those institutions which have been stereotyped as peculiar to the frontier, the mission and the presidio; upon political and administrative history; or upon biographies of notable figures. These studies laid important foundations, but, in general, borderlands historians were slow to adopt the social science methodologies of the new social and economic history which became popular in the 1960s in most fields of historical inquiry. Well after both its Anglo and Hispanic progenitors began to be studied from a perspective which emphasized social and economic structures and relationships, did the geographical area which corresponds to the Provincias Internas (all of today's border states plus Sinaloa, Durango and Baja California) begin to receive similar attention. Thus, our understanding of the social and economic history of the region is still rudimentary, and this is nowhere more evident than in the area of landholding patterns and agrarian development.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , April 1985 , pp. 446 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

The author would like to thank Donna Guy, Murdo MacLeod, Michael C. Meyer and David Weber for commenting on earlier drafts of this article.

References

2 Authors of a good many of these studies numbered among the scores of students trained by Bolton, Herbert E., “The Mission as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish-American Colonies,” American Historical Review, 23 (October 1917), 42–61.Google Scholar For examples of mission history, see Bolton, , The Padre on Horseback (San Francisco, 1932)Google Scholar; Geiger, Maynard, The Life and Times of Fray Junípero Serra, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1959)Google Scholar; Bannon, John Francis, S.J., The Mission Frontier in Sonora, 1620–1687 (New York, 1955)Google Scholar; and the several histories of Jesuit missions by Dunne, Peter Masten, S.J. Works which focus on administrative history include: Max Moorhead, The Presidio: Bastion of Spanish Borderlands (Norman, 1975)Google Scholar; García, Luis Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa en el siglo XVII (Seville, 1967)Google Scholar and Don José de Gálvez y la Comandancia General de las Provincias Internas del Norte de Nueva España (Seville, 1964); Carmen Velázquez, María del, Establecimiento y pérdida del septentrión de México (México, 1974)Google Scholar; Sánchez Barba, Mario Hernández, La última expansión española en América (Madrid, 1957)Google Scholar; Muñoz, Guillermo Porras, Iglesia y estado en Nueva Vizcaya, 1562–1821 (Pamplona, 1966)Google Scholar; Kessell, John L., Friars, Soldiers and Reformers: Hispanic Arizona and the Sonora Mission Frontier, 1767–1856 (Tucson, 1976)Google Scholar. For a larger sampling, see Jones, Oakah L. Jr., “The Spanish Borderlands: A Selected Reading List,” The Journal of the West, 8 (January 1969), 137–142.Google Scholar One notable exception which did have an economic focus was the study by West, Robert C.: The Mining Community in Northern New Spain: The Parral Mining District (Berkeley, 1949).Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Bradley, H. Benedict, “The Distribution of the Expropriated Jesuit Properties in Mexico, with Special Reference to Chihuahua, 1767–1790 (Ph.D. Diss., University of Washington, 1970)Google Scholar; Hadley, Phillip L., Minería y sociedad en el centro minero de Santa Eulalia, Chihuahua, 1709–1750 (México, 1975)Google Scholar; Ortega, Rutilio González, “La California de los jesuítas” (Doctoral thesis, El Colegio de México, 1973)Google Scholar; Harris, Charles H., A Mexican Family Empire: The Latifundio of the Sánchez Navarro Family, 1765–1867 (Austin, 1975)Google Scholar; Altman, Ida, “A Family and Region in the Northern Fringe Lands: The Marqueses de Aguayo of Nuevo León y Coahuila,”Google Scholar in Altman, and Lockhart, James eds., Provinces of Early Mexico (Los Angeles, 1976)Google Scholar; Archibald, Robert, The Economic Aspects of the California Missions (Washington, D.C., 1978)Google Scholar; de Murrieta, Cynthia Radding, Las estructuras socioeconómicas de las misiones de la Pimería Alta, 1768–1850 (Hermosillo, 1979)Google Scholar; Hu-Dehart, Evelyn Missionaries, Miners and Indians: Spanish Contact with the Yaqui Nation of Northwestern New Spain, 1533–1820 (Tucson, 1981)Google Scholar; Swann, Michael M., Tierra Adentro: Settlement and Society in Colonial Durango (Boulder, 1982)Google Scholar; Offutt, Leslie Scott, “Urban and Rural Society in the Mexican North: Saltillo in the Late Colonial Period” (Ph.D. Diss., UCLA, 1982)Google Scholar; Deeds, Susan M., “Rendering unto Caesar: The Secularization of Jesuit Missions in Mid-Eighteenth Century Durango” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Arizona, 1981)Google Scholar; and Meyer, Michael C., Water in the Hispanic Southwest: A Social and Legal History, 1550–1850 (Tucson, 1984).Google Scholar

4 “Mexican Rural History since Chevalier: The Historiography of the Colonial Hacienda,” Latin American Research Review, 18:3 (1983), 5–61. See also: Morner, Magnus, “The Spanish American Hacienda: A Survey of Recent Research and Debate,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 53 (May 1973), 183–216 Google Scholar; and Brading, David, Haciendas and Ranchos in the Mexican Bajío: León, 1700–1860 (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 1–12.Google Scholar

5 “The Formation and Economic Structure of the Hacienda in New Spain,” in Bethell, Leslie, ed., The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 2: Colonial Latin America (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 153–188.Google Scholar

6 La Formation des grands domaines au Mexique: Terre et société aux XVIe-XVIIe siècles (Paris, 1952), translated as Land and Society in Colonial Mexico: The Great Hacienda (Berkeley, 1963).

7 Orozco, Wistano Luis, Legislación y jurisprudencia sobre terrenos baldíos (México, 1895)Google Scholar; Enríquez, Andrés Molina, Los grandes problemas nacionales (México, 1909).Google Scholar

8 (Berkeley, 1951).

9 Land and Society, pp. 267–276.

10 (Stanford, 1964).

11 Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford, 1972).

12 See, for example, Brading, , Haciendas and Ranchos; Van Young, Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth-Century Mexico: The Rural Economy of the Guadalajara Region, 1675–1820 (Berkeley, 1981)Google Scholar; Bazant, Jan, Cinco haciendas mexicanas (México, 1974)Google Scholar; Bakewell, Peter, Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico: Zacatecas, 1546–1700 (Cambridge, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tutino, John, “Life and Labor on North Mexican Haciendas; The Querétaro-San Luis Potosí Region, 1775–1810,” in Frost, Elsa et al, eds., El trabajo y los trabajadores en la historia de México (México, 1979), pp. 339–378.Google Scholar

13 Florescano, , Precios del mail y crísis agrícolas en México, 1708–1810 (México, 1969).Google Scholar

14 Young, Van, “Mexican Rural History,” p. 23.Google Scholar

15 Florescano, , “Formation and Economic Structure,” pp. 187–188 Google Scholar; Bakewell, , “Zacatecas; An Economic and Social Outline of a Silver Mining District, 1547–1700,” in Altman, and Lockhart, , eds., Provinces, pp. 211–212.Google Scholar

16 Young, Van, Hacienda and Market, p. 344.Google Scholar

17 Chevalier, , Land and Society, p. 149ff.Google Scholar

18 Although Chevalier found small independent farmers settled in some areas, he believed that average-sized estates were not the common unit pattern for the north and that ranchos were a phenomenon of the nineteenth century, growing out of sharecropper or tenant arrangements; Land and Society, pp. 149, 226. Because there are so few published studies of land tenure for the northern fringe, the following commentary is preliminary, primarily serving to point out the work which remains to be done and the possible sources to be tapped.

19 “Mexican Rural History,” pp. 31–33. The most complete agrarian studies which analyze the interrelationship of a wide variety of social and economic factors are those which Van Young terms “regional.”

20 A Mexican Family Empire.

21 Ibid., 313.

22 Altman, , “A Family and Region,” pp. 260–266.Google Scholar

23 See Schryer, Frans, “A Ranchero Economy in Northwestern Hidalgo, 1880–1920,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 59 (August 1979), pp. 418–419.Google Scholar

24 Deeds, , “Rendering unto Caesar,” pp. 163–204.Google Scholar

25 Jones, , Los Paisanos: Spanish Settlers on the Northern Frontier of New Spain (Norman, 1979), pp. 69–71.Google Scholar

26 The Ranch in Spanish Texas (El Paso, 1969), and “The Ranching Frontier: Spanish Institutional Backgrounds of the Plains Cattle Industry,” in Weber, David, ed., New Spain’s Far Northern Frontier: Essays on Spain in the American West, 1540–1821 (Albuquerque, 1979), pp. 73–93.Google Scholar

27 Water in the Hispanic Southwest, p. 47.

28 For details of the first case, see Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City, (hereinafter AGN), Historia, vol. 20, exp. 9; AGN, Archivo Histórico de Hacienda, Temporalidades, legs. 2009–26,30; 324–13,14; 325–64. Material on both cases is found in Adams, David B., “The Tlaxcalan Colonies of Spanish Coahuila and Nuevo León: An Aspect of the Settlement of Northern Mexico” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Texas, 1970).Google Scholar

29 “Urban and Rural Society,” pp. 92–111, 132–134.

30 “Urban and Rural Society,” p. 97.

31 Water in the Hispanic Southwest, pp. 133–167.

32 “Settlement Patterns and Village Plans in Colonial New Mexico,” in Weber, , ed., New Spain’s Far Northern Frontier, pp. 97–115.Google Scholar

33 Weber, , The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest under Mexico (Albuquerque, 1982), pp. 396–397 Google Scholar, makes this comment about Ramón Gutiérrez’ doctoral dissertation, “Marriage, Sex and the Family: Social Change in Colonial New Mexico, 1690–1846,” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1980).

34 The Jesuits gave a spirited defense against allegations of their stranglehold in Apologético defensorio y puntual manifiesto … 1657, in AGN, Historia 316. Charles Polzer, S.J., “The Evolution of the Jesuit Mission System in Northwestern New Spain, 1600–1767” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Arizona, 1972), pp. 170–187 Google Scholar, describes how the Jesuits acquired lands through the fictitious Colegio de Mátape. The Jesuits’ ability to undersell their competitors indicates they had large capital reserves. See also Hu-Dehart, , Missionaries, Miners and Indians, pp. 41–56.Google Scholar

35 Voss, Stuart, On the Periphery of Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Sonora y Sinaloa, 1810–1877 (Tucson, 1982), pp. 6–41 Google Scholar. Yaqui Indians had traditionally provided labor in Sonora through repartimiento and voluntary labor. Yaqui workers were often found in Nueva Vizcaya during the 17th and 18th centuries; report of padre visitador Zapata, Juan Ortiz 1678, in Documentos para la historia de México (México, 1853–57), 4th series, vol. 3, pp. 314–315.Google Scholar

36 Kessell, , Friars, Soldiers, and Reformers, pp. 171,Google Scholar 255–258; Mattison, Ray H., “Early Spanish and Mexican Settlements in Arizona,” New Mexico Historical Review, 21 (1946), pp. 273–327 Google Scholar; Radding, Las estructuras socioeconómicas.

37 Hornbeck, David, “Land Tenure and Rancho Expansion in Alta California, 1784–1846,” Journal of Historical Geography, 4 (1978), pp. 371–390.Google Scholar On the missions, see Archibald, Robert, The Economic Aspects of the California Missions (Washington, D.C., 1978).Google Scholar

38 These works include Robert West’s study of Parral’s mining economy, Phillip Hadley’s book on the mining society of Chihuahua, Michael Swann’s primarily demographic work on late colonial Durango, Bradley Benedict’s dissertation on the expropriated properties of the Jesuit Colegio de Chihuahua, and my doctoral thesis on the socioeconomic status of Jesuit missions in mid-eighteenth century Durango, southern Chihuahua, and eastern Sinaloa; see notes 2 and 3 above.

39 Algier, Keith Wayne, “Feudalism on New Spain’s Northern Frontier: Valle de San Bartolomé, A Case Study” (Ph.D. Diss., University of New Mexico, 1966).Google Scholar

40 Swann, , Tierra Adentro, pp. 49–52.Google Scholar

41 Charges of Pedro Domingo de Jugo, Guadalajara, Sept. 28, 1754, Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Sevilla, Audiencia de Guadalajara 120.

42 Various autos in this case, February 21-27, 1667, Archivo de Hidalgo de Parral, University of Arizona Microfilm (hereinafter ΑΗΡ), reel 1724B, fr. 731–756.

43 See note 41.

44 West, , The Mining Community, pp. 61–66.Google Scholar

45 Algier, , “Feudalism,” pp. 101, 144.Google Scholar

46 See the composiciones de tierra, 1730–1750, in AGI, Guadalajara 119 and 120.

47 Chevalier has argued that small creole or mestizo landholders were at the particular mercy of large landholders in the seventeenth century if they had no links to towns whose statutes could afford legal protection. (Land and Society, pp. 220–226), but the continued existence of smaller landholdings from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries has also been documented; see Tamarón, Pedro y Romeral, , Demostración del vastísimo obispado de la Nueva Vizcaya, 1765, ed. by Robles, Vito Alessio (México, 1937)Google Scholar; and Deeds, , “Rendering unto Caesar,” pp. 163–204.Google Scholar

48 Informe de los curas y demás eclesiásticos del Obispado de Durango en la provincia de N. Vizcaya, July 3, 1755, AGI, Audiencia de Guadalajara 547.

49 Deeds, , “Rendering unto Caesar,” pp. 87–113.Google Scholar

50 In addition to the sources mentioned on page 19, see Río, Ignacio del, “Sobre la aparición y desarrollo del trabajo libre asalariado en el norte de Nueva España (siglos XVI y XVII),” in Frost et al., El trabajo, pp. 92–111.Google Scholar

51 Although I am not familiar with particular archives in other areas, presumably similar documentation is available.

52 Young, Van, ”Mexican Rural History,” pp. 37–39.Google Scholar

53 The idea of fixed stages of a maturation process occurring at different times in center and fringe areas is used in Lockhart, James and Schwartz, Stuart, Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar

54 The population factor is most strongly argued by Van Young in his book on Guadalajara; see also “Mexican Rural History,” pp. 27–28.

55 A good summary of this process is found in Florescano, , “Foundation and Economic Structure,” pp. 182–188.Google Scholar

56 The periodization has of course been questioned for other areas of Mexico as well; Young, Van, “Mexican Rural History,” pp. 5–8.Google Scholar