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hacienda san anTonio buenavisTa 41 chaPTer 2 Hacienda San Antonio Buenavista from Two Perspectives: Hacendado and Terrazguero As oppressive as life was for San Sebastianos under the Marcial cacicazgo, it was even more oppressive under the hacienda regime experienced by the terrazgueros of Hacienda San Antonio Buenavista (see Map 2, center bottom , for location vis-à-vis San Sebastián). One afternoon in 1966, in the shadows of the ruins of the hacienda, I interviewed eighty-eight-year-old Eduardo Mendoza (b. 1878), whose testimony provided a compelling depiction of exploitation, oppression, and violence that he, as the oldest founding ejidatario and ciudadano, and other Buenavistans experienced during their lifetimes. Although exact dates were absent in Eduardo’s account, and chronology was somewhat disordered, his memory regarding events, activities, people, and relationships was vivid. Don Eduardo’s demeanor throughout the two-hour tape-recorded interview was dignified and dispassionate, even when the subject matter involved abuse, violence, and death. Sometimes his narrative was laced with humor and sarcasm but never with anger regarding the unequal nature of the amo (master)-terrazguero (serf) relationship. His social consciousness was matched by his pragmatism; he came across more as a community leader than as a rebel. To counterbalance and complement Eduardo Mendoza’s account, I was able to acquire a copy of a document written by the hacendado, Lic. Carlos Castro Castillo, that is best described as a memoir focused on two subjects, himself and Hacienda San Antonio Buenavista. He was born in 1853 as the son of Don José María Castro and Señora Luz Castillo de Castro. His father was a prominent member of the Oaxaca Valley elite (Vallistocracia) who served as state governor on two separate occasions, once during the republican government between 1867 and 1876 and, again, at the beginning of the Porfiriato (1877–1910; Rojas González 1949, 172).1 42 Land, LiveLihood, and civiLiTy in souThern mexico Owing to his father’s acquisition of the Hacienda San Antonio Buenavista in 1879, especially for the purpose of providing him with a job closer to the city of Oaxaca (Castro Castillo n.d., 5), Castro was involved in its operation into the 1920s. Given Castro’s training as a lawyer, his prominent role in the state judicial system and business sector (especially mining), and his historical bent, his account of the hacienda’s formation, development, and ownership is probably as accurate and complete as we are going to get in view of the apparent disappearance of many records as a consequence of legal and business maneuverings in the aftermath of the 1850s disentailment and nationalization laws. Origin and Development of the Hacienda: The Hacendado’s View The hacienda originated in a 1620 land grant to Don José María Vásquez, captain in the royal army, of “five caballerías of mountainous land for cattle raising” (cría de ganado mayor). The grant was described as “a hollow of vacant land (hueco de terreno baldío) located between the pueblos of San Juan Teitipac, Santo Domingo Jalieza, San Pedro Guegorexe and the hacienda de Reyes that is today Mantecón” (Castro Castillo n.d., 11). As an estancia de ganado mayor, the property was known as San José Guelaviate, and Vásquez “built a house with a chapel, corrals and housing, introduced cattle, and opened up land to cultivation. He built a system of tubing all the way to the house and made the farm productive” (Castro Castillo n.d., 11–12). Without citing specific supporting documentation, Castro estimated that by the end of the seventeenth century, another owner of the estancia acquired additional land from the last cacica of Teitipac “to complete the whole that today forms the perfect property of Hacienda San Antonio.” He confessed that he had been unable to find documents that definitively dated that transaction but reiterated: “One clearly understands that when the Hacienda San Antonio formed part of the Mayorazgo Magro, the two estates of San José Guelaviate and the cacicazgo were already united” (Castro Castillo n.d., 14). Castro’s late seventeenth-century dating of the Magro purchase of Hacienda San Antonio was about a century premature, since none other than José Mariano Magro was a prominent member of the official retinue (comitiva ) involved in the 1820 hearings and survey of Santa Cecilia Jalieza’s boundaries. It is documented that José Antonio de Larrainzán, corregidor of Antequera, owned the hacienda in the 1770s (Taylor 1972, 159). The Magros may well have...

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