Saltillo colonial: Orígenes y formación de una sociedad mexicana en la frontera norte (review)

A translation of a 1989 revision of José Cuello's 1981 dissertation, Saltillo colonial makes available his extensive research on this northeastern colonial region. Although one might expect the interpretations to be dated, the author argues that they have not been superceded by subsequent studies in terms of their breadth and comparative focus. Added to the collection in Spanish of a number of the Cuello's articles, Cecilia Sheridan Prieto's study of Coahuila (Anónimos y desterrados: La contienda por el sitio aue llaman De Quayla, siglos XVI-XVIII [2000]), Leslie S. Offutt's work on Tlaxcalan Saltillo (Saltillo, 1770-1810: Town and Region in the Mexican North [2001]), and the writings of Carlos Manuel Valdés, we now have a solid historiographical corpus for the region.

Cuello was one of the first scholars to question François Chevalier's model of the development and pervasiveness of the northern hacienda, illustrating the many twists and turns of the process for Saltillo along with the evolution of ranchero and other landholding patterns in the northeast. He also challenged the traditional periodization of labor systems and provided a nuanced look at the Spanish use of slavery and encomienda among hunter-gatherer societies. This book elaborates these arguments as it chronicles the economic development of Saltillo (based eventually upon the export of livestock and wool) through periods of growth, depression, and "involution." Cuello provides detailed information on external (market and credit) and internal factors (demography, labor, inheritance patterns) that affected these stages. He also explains the formation of a social hierarchy based on growing racial complexity that became more rigid by the end of the colonial period.

Although his empirical findings for Saltillo's colonial economy and society have stood the test of time, the comparative framework Cuello employed so well at the end of the 1980s in an effort to provide a more holistic view of colonial Mexico can be considered something of an historical artifact. The comparisons of Saltillo with other regions of New Spain reflect the preoccupations of scholars of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s with such themes as the evolution of the hacienda, labor systems, elite composition, and the relationships between class and race, and thus provide a valuable review of a particular historiographical moment. Cuello's dissertation offered a powerful argument for the importance of integrating a myriad of regional studies, using conceptual tools (e.g. world systems) in vogue at the time. By the logic of his own argument, however, one could make the case that updating the comparative framework and incorporating the scholarship of the last 15 years (especially that of other northern regions) would have enhanced the value of this study. Nonetheless, the book is a valuable addition to the historiography of the colonial northeast, not least for its wide-ranging archival citations.