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6: The Capitalization of the Countryside, 1856–1884
- University of New Mexico Press
- Chapter
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83 Chapter 6 the Capitalization of the Countryside, 1856–1884 . /One of the most significant factors contributing to the nineteenthcentury Huastecan rebellions was the privatization of communal landholdings . The legal precedent for privatizing pueblo lands began shortly after independence. The state government recognized the pueblos in San Luis Potosí and codified this recognition in a series of land laws passed in 1827. These laws recognized the boundaries between collective lands, called “ejidos ,” and private landholdings. The state government measured and registered nontitled lands, which laid the basis for their eventual sale to private developers in the 1870s.1 These actions negatively affected the Huastecan peasant cultivators, who practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, a process which left large plots of land fallow for a number of years. Much of the untilled land supported the peasantry, who also relied on it for common grazing and firewood collection . In addition, this land provided room for more milpas to accommodate the expanding population. The Liberal regime of Benito Juárez passed two critical land laws as the state-building elites tried to emulate and modernize Mexico’s land tenure. Liberalism represented a direct threat to and assault on Indian landholdings. Liberals held racist views of Mexico’s indigenous landholders, seeing them as an obstacle to national progress and in possession of lands that could be better and more efficiently utilized by an individualistic progressive class.2 The Ley Lerdo of 1856 outlawed communal landholdings and established the precedent and procedures for partitioning pueblo lands into individual plots. In July 1863 the Juárez regime passed a general law that called for the division and sale of 84 Chapter 6 vacant lands. These two laws laid the basis for the legal expropriation of peasant communal lands and the dispossession of the pueblos. The privatization of Huastecan lands and the encroachment of hacienda boundaries on pueblo lands began during the early years of the Restored Republic (1867–1876). In 1871 El socialista in Mexico City began to report on the program for the division of communal lands, in the Huasteca Potosina, under the direction of Governor Mariano Escobedo.3 In 1874 the state assembly of San Luis Potosí passed a series of land laws known collectively as the Leyes de hacienda. The laws called for the immediate division of pueblo lands and required individual landholders to present their titles to local officials so that fixed boundaries could be positively established. The law required Huastecan villagers defending their properties to provide titles based on state land laws of 1827.4 This worked against the peasants because the 1827 law recognized their land as corporate holdings. Because the Huastecan pueblos were listed under corporate charters, they fell subject to privatization edicts that were articulated in the 1856 Ley Lerdo and the 1784 state land laws. An important factor underlying the social and political tensions that developed during the nineteenth century is the growth of the Huastecan population following independence. Between 1819 and 1878 the population of the three Huastecan partidos steadily increased. Some pueblos doubled and almost tripled. For instance, Tamuín increased from 700 inhabitants to 1,983, and Aquismón’s proportionally increased even more from 1,291 to 4,796. In the pueblo of Tanchanhuitz, the population increased from 2,045 to 3,895 and in Xilitla from 906 to 3,512. Ciudad del Maíz’s population increased from 8,346 to 22,146 and Tampamolón’s from 710 to 4,000. The resurgence of the indigenous population during the half century following independence fueled social tensions between the pueblos and the larger landed estates, increased the number of jornaleros and landless laborers, and contributed to growing class polarization.5 The earliest privatizations began immediately following the imposition of the Ley Lerdo. In 1856, Jesús Andrade, owner of the Hacienda de San Juan occupied six hundred varas (a vara is roughly one square meter) of the ejido of San Vicente Cuayalab bordering the state of Veracruz. This left the ejido with the other half of six hundred varas. He converted the land into cattle grazing grasslands, and his free-roaming livestock remained a constant source of friction between his lands and the now diminished ejido. The citizenry of the pueblo of San Vicente Cuayalab grew coffee, tobacco, vanilla, cotton, corn, beans, cane, platinos, and chiles. Much of this agricultural production [18.116.20.177] Project MUSE (2024-04-18 00:16 GMT) 85 The Capitalization of the Countryside was for local consumption...