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

Cuello's Saltillo is a social study of the capital of Coahuila from its founding in 1577 until independence from Spain in 1821. The author charts the stages through which land tenure and labor relations there went through and how these compare to those in the rest of New Spain. His conclusion is that Saltillo's historical development owes much to a process of local involution that differentiates it from the patterns of central Mexico and even other peripheries within the viceroyalty. The book was first written as a doctoral dissertation in 1981, yet despite the years it remains an excellent study that fills an important gap in the historiography of the colonial north.

The author divides the book into three main periods: the first (1577–1625) deals with the formation of haciendas and satellite communities of Tlaxcaltecan Indians in an area populated by semi-sedentary Indians and characterized by the predominance of slavery and encomienda in labor relations; during the second period (1650–1725) local involution creates new socioeconomic patterns through the redistribution of Spanish lands, a crisis in the Indian labor system, and a maturation of the racial and economic hierarchies that would dominate the rest of the colonial era; the third period (1725–1821) sees a further involution of the structures of the previous period, and places it within the larger processes occurring in the viceroyalty, including imperial reform, impressive economic growth (though a diminution in living standards), and the various crises of the Napoleonic wars and the struggle for independence.

The term involution is central to Cuello's argument and explains the unique historical trajectory of Saltillo and northeastern New Spain. Cuello uses the term to describe a process of local historical change that does not merit characterization as either progress or evolution. It made Saltillo an increasingly complex society, yet one with only sporadic injections of outside capital or genes. Throughout the colonial era, the region remained economically dependent, "a colony within the Colony" (p. 23). By the time of the Bourbon reforms Saltillo produced more, yet its population had become poorer. This involution underlines the uniqueness in the socioeconomic patterns of Saltillo and neighboring Nuevo León with respect to the rest of the viceroyalty, including Nueva Vizcaya, from where the conquest and colonization of the northeast was undertaken. Cuello uses Bakewell's monograph on the silver economy of Zacatecas (1971) to frame the stages of Saltillo's history. This dependence on Zacatecas differentiates northeastern New Spain from the patterns of central, southern, and western Mexico.

Among the primary sources used are municipal and parish records in Saltillo, Parral, and Monterrey, and archives in Seville and the Bancroft library. The secondary literature includes sources in English and Spanish, and has been largely updated from the time of the original writing. The book is placed within the field of Latin American historiography to the detriment of borderlands historiography. Cuello hails from the Berkeley school founded by Borah, Cook, and Simpson, and his book is heavily reliant on the work of earlier historians of the colonial hacienda. He considers it the third generation of hacienda studies, and calls for a reframing of the field based on the differences in regional patterns that have emerged through the work of the first generation (Chevalier, Gibson) and the second (Brading, Taylor, Van Young). This merits a new synthetic approach to the varieties of land tenure and labor relations in colonial Mexico. In addition, Cuello uses world systems and center-periphery theories to frame his argument, though in the latter he does not cite the most recent literature. Saltillo should provide for the northeast of New Spain a solid basis for further studies.