Ouweneel 1986 - BELC - Schedules in Hacienda Agriculture - Aragon & Pilares 1765-95

SCHEDULES IN HACIENDA AGRICULTURE: THE CASES OF SANTA ANA ARAGON (1765-1768) AND
SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES (1793-1795), VALLEY OF MEXICO

Author(s): Arij Ouweneel
Source: Boletn de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, No. 40 (Junio de 1986), pp. 63-97
Published by: Centrum voor Studie en Documentatie van Latijns Amerika (CEDLA)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25675295
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Boletin de Estudios
SCHEDULES
Latinoamericanos
y del Caribe
40, junio de
1986
INHACIENDA AGRICULTURE:
THE CASES OF SANTA ANA ARAGON (1765-1768) AND

SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES (1793-1795), VALLEY OF MEXICO
Arij Ouweneel
Introduction
Before we discuss the main themes of this paper in more detail we must take
a brief look at the context of the study. History, as it is practised today, rests
on a linear argument, dividing the development of man in two blocks: an agrarian
one until 1750 and an industrial one from about 1850. In between lies an age
which is too industrical to be called agrarian and too agrarian to be industrial.
It links societies which progressed at a slow rate with a world running at a top
rate of change. Thinking of a ceiling that restricts all human life, a limit imposed
by nature, hard to reach and harder to cross, one might argue that man did not
It was
even explore the limits of what was possible in pre-industrial economies.
only by about 1830 that these limits were actually reached and the face of the
of the agrarian past are kept green by
world changed completely.1 Memories
numerous reminders that can be observed in the countryside, as well as by works
of art and literature. In Europe, such aids to the collective memory are supported
by an extensive library of detailed agrarian historical studies of various regions.
The agrarian past of Latin America contains a clear political aspect. It touches
upon one of the great problems of our time, the so-called North-South Conflict.
The conflict expresses the existing contrast between the richer part of the world
and the poorer regions
(e.g. countries in Europe, North America and Australia)
of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The solution to this problem must be found
in the emancipation of the poorer countries, in removing the burden of their
underdevelopment. But the question of how to stimulate this is the subject of much
debate. Although social, political and economic scientists have used a lot of energy
in trying to find an effective strategy of development, they have not succeeded.
Nevertheless, there seems to exist a consensus about the historical base of the desired
strategy. Underdevelopment
originated in the past. The historical heritage of
countries is seen as a starting point for sociological or economic
underdeveloped
the development of the agrarian structure appears to be of
analysis. Especially
for
great importance
insight into the development question. Rarely, however, does
one find an historian at the policy table. Although historical science is not equipped
to look for improvements for everyday problems, it is precisely this question of
countries that belongs to the field of the
the historical heritage of Third World
historian. It places him or her on an equal footing with development theorists.2
In the case of Latin America there is a concrete object for study: from the start,
research has been part of the broad set of questions concerning the
hacienda
development problem. The most commonly accepted thesis about the character
63
of the hacienda has long been its organization as a feudal institution. The authors
of this thesis were above all Wistano Luis Orozco, Andres Molina Enriquez, George
M. McBride,
Frank Tannenbaum,
Jose Miranda,
Francois Chevalier, Eric Wolf
and Sidney Mintz. The book of Chevalier was the first one entirely dedicated to
the hacienda. It was referred to recently as a work that will remain a classic because
it summarises and concludes an entire cycle of interpretation.3 This interpretation
may now be seen as the traditional view. In this view the hacienda was an essentially
self-sufficient, autarchic unit, producing independently of the market and on a
small scale. This view is still echoed in the words of Berkeley economist Alain
de Janvry, who defined the hacienda again as a relatively isolated estate, with
low levels of investment, inefficient production methods and extensively used land.4
It is precisely this impression of agrarian schedules as part of the extensive,
inefficient production system that dominates development
literature. Recent hi
storical studies, based on a wealth of archival records which has been available
to social and economic scientists since the early seventies, prove that this impression
is inadequate at least to label the colonial era. The estate is no longer seen as
a seigneurial fiefdom characterized by inefficient, extensive production methods
and a non-market orientation. The hacendado appears to have been a commercial
and enterprising individual, very much interested in the management
results of
his estate. A growing stream of historical studies of Latin America's colonial past
have led in the past fifteen years to drastic changes in the interpretation of the
hacienda's role in Latin American history. But this change in interpretation is hardly
known outside the community of historians. There seems to be much sense in
Morner's observation that 'analytical and theoretical studies have advanced much
more slowly than those employing quantitative data'. Morner has the idea that
in the theoretical studies far too little attention was paid to empirical data that
did not lend themselves easily to generalizations along their lines. As such, the
development debate showed that development theorists have been less influenced
by historians than vice versa.5
Although recent historical work questioned almost all the basic points of the
conventional assumptions, more questions were raised than could be answered and
the simplicity that characterised the old view gave way to a growing complexity.
A lot of work still needs to be done. One of the main questions to be answered
concentrates on the haciendas as capitalist enterprises, as suggested by modern
historical research: can we recognize efficient production methods and intensively
used land on the hacienda fields? In an earlier article we expressed the need for
an economic, even agricultural focus in future hacienda studies.6 From the point
of view of development theory such a focus, particularly on the question of labour,
is of special interest, for to know what really happened on the fields might be
of some help in dealing with problems in the sphere of theoretical analysis.
Just such a description of the daily routine on the hacienda makes up the body
of this paper. We will limit ourselves to a rural region in central Mexico
that
has been dominated by haciendas since the seventeenth century. We will trace the
character of the agricultural schedules of central Mexican
in a period
haciendas
that is generally considered as a period of major changes: the eighteenth century
as the prelude to Independence. Central Mexico
a test
provides, in microcosm,
case for such a study. On the basis of documents that have survived - this indicates
an inevitable restriction to a study like this - we will try to formulate a hypothesis
on labour use and agricultural efficiency on colonial Mexican haciendas.
64
The scene: Palula, Aragon and Pilares

In general the haciendas were owned by Spanish entrepreneurs, officials or
institutions. One of these entrepreneurs was Jose Antonio Gonzalez
Ruiz, who
was in charge of the hacienda San Antonio Palula in southern Tlaxcala. An analysis
of one of his account books, 1765-1766, confirmed the great interest of hacendados
in profitability. It seems that Gonzalez
kept these personal accounts, diaries of
It was a decade of economic
daily expenses, precisely to improve production.
stagnation.7 The analysis reveals a close connection between the use of labour and
the agricultural cycle of the crops (wheat, barley, maize, frijoles, and chiles). The
question arises of how typical the schedules of Palula may have been. The schedules
are clearly in accordance with those presented by Charles Gibson
in table 25 of
his monumental
study of the Valley of Mexico. This table is based especially on
in the Valley: the weekly reports of the
the extant documents of two haciendas
haciendas Santa Ana Aragon
de Flores
(1765-1768, and 1771-1772) and Molino
(1775-1785). Both Aragon and theMolino belonged to the north part of theValley.
The documents of Aragon offer a good opportunity for comparison with those
of Palula.8
The hacienda Santa Ana Aragon had a unique background, because it belonged
to the Bienes comunales de la parcialidad de Santiago Tlatelolco, one of the two
official Indian quarters ofMexico city. As part of an older study, Lopez Sarrelangue
recently published the governmental and juridical part of the hacienda's history.
She stresses the fact that possibly none of the Indian communities in New Spain
received so much attention from the Spanish government as these two Indian
quarters.9 The governmental support also struck Gibson, who noted, with reference
to a lawsuit of 1764-1765:10
'The case illustrates how earnestly the lawyers of the 18th century sought
to interpret traditional Indian commonlands
in terms of Spanish municipal
land law - as capable of rental or sale, as requiring special dispensation,
as property of themunicipality, or as concesion real.'
The comunidad de Tlatelolco had a special licence to rent the commonlands
to
third parties. Nevertheless,
in the case mentioned,
the hacienda fell under the
command of the government and an administrator was appointed.
Using three colonial maps and a contemporary description of Aragon, it is not
difficult to locate its borders, ditches and fields (see maps 1 and 2).11 The hacienda
covered an area which is now part of Mexico City, more or less the part between
the Calzada Guadalupe
(west) and the Avenida
Ing. Eduardo Molina
(east), and
between the Eje 5 Norte (north) and the Eje 2 Norte (south). With its 71 caballerias*
(about 3040 hectares) itmust have been one of the biggest haciendas in the Valley
ofMexico. Two rivers, one in its northern part and one in its southern part, crossed
the hacienda east-west, flowing into Lake Texcoco, which bordered the hacienda
at the east side. In times of heavy rainfall there was a danger of flooding by the
rivers and the lake. Much energy was dedicated to cleaning the drainage canals
and both bocas del rio. In fact, Aragon suffered from too much water. The salting
up of the soils (tequesquite) and the danger of grainrust (chahuistle) hampered a
regular wheat harvest. As shown in an other paper, the failure of the wheat harvest
could be a major disaster for the hacienda's economy.12 On Aragon the best soil
was near the main buildings. The southern fields served as commercial pastures,
For the weights, measures,
see Manuel
and monetary
standard of colonial Mexico
Carrera
Stampa,
'The evolution of weights and measures
in New Spain', Hispanic
American Historical
Review
(HAHR)
29 (1949), pp. 2-45. We note pesos as p, for instance: 5 pesos and 6 reales as 5p6; and 1 peso was
8 reales.
65
which were rented out to passing mule-trains; one of these was called Xapingo
and the other Los Regidores (see map 2). A third meadow between the northern
fields was meant for the sheep and goats of the hacienda. There were also salinas
where salt was produced and a lot of magueyes bordering the fields to reinforce
the riverside walls. In 1765 Aragon had 6500 mageuyes and Maria Teresa, la tamalera,
a. woman from nearby Guadalupe,
bought the rights to use these agaves for the
of
the
alcoholic
production
pulque,
beverage made from maguey-ymcz. She paid
5 to 8 reales per maguey-, 25 magueyes in December
1766, 40 in February 1767,
40 inMarch, and 28 in April. This beverage was not produced on the hacienda.
Map 1. LOCATION OF THE HACIENDA SANTA ANA ARAGON INTHE VALLEY OF MEXICO,
1766-1768.
ANAARAGCK
/ 'Kda. SANTA
@ Xs^^^^^Mr|
4. Ezcapozalco
^^JLmJ\ ^
5. La Magdalena
^^^?JlJ
^\ *3? 6-San
^^^^^^^^
Source:
see note
11
18.
-^-W^w^W*^-^-17
Juanico
Los Reyes
Tizapan
66
Map 2. THE FIELDS OF THE HACIENDA SANTA ANA ARAGON, 1766-1768
Source:
see note
11.
67
In 1762 the hacienda Aragon was leased out to Don Miguel de Berrio, Conde
on a lease of 3000 pesos a year, and a contract of 9
de San Mateo Valparaiso,
years. The Conde had bound himself to clean the rivers and the drainage canals
regularly, but a huge flood in 1763 destroyed alle previous investments and the
hope of good returns. He asked for dissolution of the contract. The comunidad
de Tlatelolco, accusing the Conde of non-feasance, refused. The tense atmosphere
between both parties deteriorated daily, but in the end they had to compromise.
if he was free to leave the hacienda
The Conde offered to repair the damages
afterwards. The comunidad agreed. The government appointed one of its officials,
Don Jose Joaquin Moreno, the escribano delJuzgado General de Indios, as supervisor.
In the course of his administration of Aragon
(1765-1768) he had the idea of
on entering
de Guadalupe
benefitting from the transport that passed the Calzada
or leaving the capital. He planned to offer the arable land for grazing. However,
it was not until the administration of his brother, Diego,
(1771-1772) that these
could
into
of wheat (which had
be
effect
instead
put
by producing barley
plans
been the main product) and by setting up a management
for leasing pastures to
the mule-trains.13
The hacienda of San Nicolas de los Pilares was situated in the irrigated lowlands
of the Teotihuacan
close by
Valley, as far to the north as the city of Texcoco,
It was a fertile and irrigated part of the dry Texcoco district.
the town of Acolman.
Pilares was a modest, cereal producing hacienda that, like Aragon, raised some
livestock. It was the property of the Gudiel Roldan family, a Mexico
city clan,
entrenched in the secondary stratum of the city elite according to the criteria of
Tutino. Such a position was typical of the owners of most estates of Central Mexico.
a community
The hacienda drew its workers from the comunidad of Acolman,
whose basic structure corresponded to that analysed for Indian society by Tutino.
From 1791 to 1795, the period of available records - some 30 years later than
Palula and Aragon - one or two hundred villagers laboured at Pilares. They were
all male workers. Tutino was able to identify the labourers who came from outside
some 10 per cent of the workers. About 80 per cent of these came from
Acolman,
villages in the immediate Acolman region. Nine workers were identified as coming
and Apam,
the dry region near or
from a distance, from Otumba, Calpulalpan,
A
eastern
of
the
reliance on workers
the
limit
of
Mexico.
similar
Valley
just beyond
primarily from nearby regions and secondarily from more distant, mountainous
or less fertile areas characterized labour recruitment at Palula, Aragon, and at
de Flores.14 The hacienda Pilares was owned by the Jesuits until their
Molino
of their main college
expulsion in 1767, producing capital for the maintenance
of San Andres and the Casa Profesa in Mexico
city. It had formed a unit with
- other
haciendas like Chapingo, San Antonio Acolman, and San Diego Metepec
estates in the Texcoco-Teotihuacan
districts. Pilares had two ranches: Nestlapa,
which was used for maize production, and Ayapango, where the magueyes for
production of pulque were grown.15 Both ranches were sold with Pilares to the
above-mentioned family late in the 18th century.
I will now proceed to a more detailed discussion of the agricultural schedules
of these haciendas. My purpose is to verify the schedules presented by Gibson
as well as to examine the effects on employment (see appendix 3). The documents
of Aragon will be used to reconstruct the agricultural cycle of a Central Mexican
wheat hacienda. The data will be compared with the data from the hacienda San
- the
Juan Xaltipan
subject of another paper -, the data
(1734-1737) near Palula
from theMolino de Flores published by Swan, and from Pilares. In the concluding
part of the paper coefficients will be presented to correlate the agrarian schedules
and to investigate employment on the basis of the data from Pilares. Thus a period
68
of sixty years of agrarian activity on Central Mexican wheat haciendas is covered.

All the data support the reconstruction of the precise workings of the hacienda
in the second part of the eighteenth century. They show a struggle with the unreliable
climate of highland Central Mexico and its environmental obstacles to prosperous
agriculture.16
Wheat
cultivation
In Central Mexico
the haciendas
that could make use of irrigated fields were
Other
wheat.
producing
important crops were maize, barley and beans, but these
were partly grown for home consumption. The transition to large-scale enterprise
inwheat production occurred in the late sixteenth century, especially between 1563
and 1602.17 The rejection of wheat by the indigenous farmers had provided some
justification for the establishment of farms by Spaniards and their acquisition of
in the cities gave the haciendas
land, while the growing number of non-Spaniards
the growing consumer market they needed. This last point marks above all the
economic history of New Spain in the Era of Independence, a period of the extension
of hacienda production from Spanish markets to Indian markets, not only inwheat
production, but also inmaize, pulque, the seeds (semillas: frijoles, garbanzos, habas,
etc.), and pork (by then an 'Indian' commodity), displacing Indian supplies and
reducing Indian agriculture.18
The Indian communities of eighteenth century Central Mexico
still controlled
significant areas of agricultural lands, but while their populations expanded, their
in
landholding could not because of the all-important presence of the hacienda
the countryside. As has been shown by Tutino, this led inevitably to the proliferation
of agrarian tensions. Moreover,
there was rarely a good agricultural year in the
central highland valleys in the last decades of the century. The hazardous environment
of the highland favoured the irrigated soils of the haciendas, forcing Indian cultivators
to abandon their fields and startworking on the haciendas or in the cities. Although
the Indian villages suffered heavily from the unfavourable weather conditions, this
does not mean that the haciendas could continue to produce without difficulties.
Reports from the estate administrators on various haciendas reveal no year and
no hacienda wholly spared from natural hazards. One might conclude that in the
dry and frosty decades between 1770 and 1820 the haciendas only suffered less,
saved by the reservoirs they could fillwith the precipitation that did fall.
This unfortunate picture does not apply to the agricultural years of 1765 to
1768. The 1760s form a period of abundant harvests and low prices. Here the
favourable for the villagers but a death-blow for many
problem is abundance,
hacienda enterprises. Also the early drought of 1765 was followed by sufficient
rainfall and a regular climatic scheme. Only in 1768 were the rains out of season,
causing droughts and shortages of all grains. In 1769 there were general shortages
of wheat and beans, but not of maize. The year 1771 opened the decades in which
the situation was reversed. Frosts inmid-October destroyed themaize fields, while
the wheat was harvested in sufficient quantities. Nevertheless,
1771 is known as
a year
of
severe
crisis.20
The hacienda of Palula had a good production during the year of 1766-1767.
Its irrigated wheat-field measured about 200 hectares (53 cargas de sembradura)
and yielded 13:1 that year. This Palula yield may be called low for Mexico
in
or
with
the
35:1
was
60:1
calculated
Morin
for
it
but
comparison
Michoacan,
by
equal to some European
yields, like those of the Aljarafe of Sevilla, Spain, in
the eighteenth century, a region with similar conditions to Central Mexico. The
crop year on Palula opened in the summer with the breaking of the ground for
69
the accumulation
of water by teams of oxen with ploughs (juntas) (in the Diary
this was called barbecho). The number of farmhands, boys and men, increased
gradually from 16 to 24, beginning in July. The preparation was followed by irrigation
and sowing, all in a regular way. Only one complaint on the weather can be found
in the diary of Gonzalez
Ruiz: on a day in October
itwas impossible to plough
because of too much rain. The steady number of farmhands involved in the cycles
to Morin each yunta consisted
corresponds to the number of yuntas. According
of about five oxen, of which only two at any time. An oxherd (boyero), sometimes
by a help, took care of the oxen who were resting. The oxherd
accompanierd
also brought the oxen to the fields and afterwards back to the corral, which was
constructed near the fields. The schedule ran from July 15, 1766 (barbecho) until
July 8 next year, with the last twenty-eight farmhands mowing. Several ploughings
had followed the first inAugust and September - crosswise - , and a sowing took
place in autumn. The sower, called desparramador, worked al voleo, broadcast.
Palula had in general two desparramadores.21
A melgero had preceded sowing by making amelgas, a kind of paddyfield for
wheat. Some yuntas followed the sowers tossing the seed into the ground. This
was referred to as tapar la tierra. The wheat stood in the fields from December
to May, when harvest began. During the dry winters regadores irrigated the crop
until the first days ofMay. The plants needed 10 days to dry before reaping could
begin. The harvest occupied many hands, between 16 and 88 a day. Most of these
were seasonal laboureres from outside the hacienda (usually tlaquehuales) while
all the other work on the estate was carried out by the farmhands living on the
hacienda (most of them gananes). There were also workers for binding and storing
there
sheaves. The bulk of the harvest was done inMay and June. Apparently
was no hurry in threshing, because
it took place in autumn and winter, 1767,
every now and again, in small quantities. More than 80 per cent of the production
was sold, 66V2 per cent to only one buyer in the city of Puebla at the price of
5p7 per carga.
In the period under consideration (1765-1768) the situation at Aragon was not
much different. There were three harvests, 1766, 1767, and 1768. The first of these
crops started really from scratch. The seed had to be bought (10 cargas of trigo
blanquillo at 7p4 per carga, plus 2p4 transport costs), the ploughs had to be bought,
repaired or made, the oxen fed and the field had to be protected from flooding.
The barbecho was likewise late in 1765, in September and October because of the
late entry of the administrator on the hacienda. The sowing was in November
Later on the ploughings in October were referred to as cruzar,
and December.
the second and crosswise ploughing. The desparramador, Diego de la Cruz, began
his work in the firstweek of November. The wheat was sown on three big fields,
called tablas (San Francisco, Santiago, and San Joseph). The quantity of men and
yuntas involved was roughly the same as on Palula, although the accounts of Aragon
mention twice as many farmhands. Half of them were, however, busy on themaize
fields. The crops of 1767 and 1768 were sown with seed from the previous harvest,
that was threshed shortly before use (the accounts speak of trillando el que se
ha de sembrar). The hacienda needed an extra staffmember to supervise the threshing
near the trojes (granaries) and contracted a certain Julian Guerrero. As on Palula,
1765 till May
1766,
sowing was followed by irrigation, lasting from December
1767 until April 19,
in 1767 and from late December
from January until May
1768. Apart from the starting-point, the schedule corresponds to that of Palula.
The most important event on a central highland hacienda was the wheat harvest.
The revenues of the hacienda depended on a good yield. On Aragon, before the
or administrator tried to
the hacendado
first labourers started to reap in May,
70
sell his harvest in advance. The prices were higher before harvest, although good
weather reports could depress them in the early months of the year. The crop
of 1767 (sown in 1766) was sold in April, a month before harvest. Most of it,
186 cargas or 51 per cent, was bought by the Santa Monica mill. Another mill,
Prieto, bought 147Vi cargas, 40 per cent. These mills functioned as intermediate
traders, selling the flour to bakers in the capital. Ten per cent of the crop went
in tithes. Almost 80 per cent of the crop was sold at a price of 5p6 per carga,
almost the same price that Palula received on the Puebla market that year. The
total revenue for Aragon was calculated at 1636p4, but it had to be reduced with
transport costs (72p4) and a kind of advertising charges (156p5V2). A year later,
the crop of 1768 was sold in February, four months in advance. In the end it
yielded 380% cargas (I5V2:1). No less than 94 per cent was bought by the Prieto
mill, at a price of 4p6 a carga. This was much lower than in 1767, because the
grain was spoiled by the chahuistle ('perdido en la espiga y chupado mucho con
el chahuistle'). At that time there were no transport costs. It was much cheaper
to transport the sheaves by hacienda mules. Such a policy usually was a real saving.22
All kinds of things were done in the spring besides selling the wheat. A bricklayer
was ordered to repair the granaries. A few extra farmhands were now and then
protecting the fields against cattle. During the winter the administrator had bought
some necessities like baskets, ropes and sickles for the harvest. After sowing, the
wheat field was daily irrigated by one or two regadores, supervising and managing
the water supply and shortly before harvest (but 6 weeks in 1768!) the water was
gradually reduced to let the plants turn yellow (dorado). At that moment a few
boys, children of the farmhands, were sent into the fields to drive the birds
away. The boys chased the birds until the wheat
starlings, thrushes, and sparrows
was stored in the granaries.
The harvest created a big demand for labour in the early summer. It was the
big operation one might expect. Like Palula, the hacienda Aragon contracted workers
from outside, who had to be paid a little more in cash, 0p21/2 a day (gananes
received Op 1V2plus rations in kind), but nothing in kind. The number of men
involved was not regular. The day-labourers were apparently not contracted for
more than a day. It is interesting to note the irregularity: in 1766, on May 25,
for instance, some 52 men were on the fields, more or less the same in June 2
6, but there were 131 men daily in the weeks from June 9 to 21; in 1767, 36
men were working \\9Vimandays from June 7 to 13, 40 men with 154 mandays
from June 21 to 27 and 59 men with 290 mandays from July 5 to 11. At that
time they had to work more because of the pouring rain, while the wheat had
to be stored dry. In 1768 28 to 33 men were working on the fields, clearly a lesser
number. This suggests a failure.
The reapers were followed by men binding the sheaves with ropes. A few boys
walked behind to gather unsheaved ears (this job was called 'pepenar espigas').
The part of the harvest that had been cut off wet was dried in the sun. The dry
sheaves were covered with mats, petates, from Tula. The harvest periode on Aragon
was between May and June 21, in 1766, between May 24 and July 16 in 1767,
and between May 22 and June 29 in 1768. These dates are in striking accordance
with those of Palula. Immediately after harvest the administrator organised and
paid for a big feast on the hacienda. He noted without much enthusiasm that
he had spent money on tameles, bread, chicken, pork and pulque; 'como es costumbre\
Also on Aragon threshing the wheat was something for the autumn, done on the
hacienda's hera near the granary. It was done during the ploughings for the next
crop to get seed. All the other sheaves were sold.
The story repeats itself on the hacienda Pilares, some 25 years later. Ploughing,
71
combined with threshing and sowing occurred during the autumn, with a sower
until the last week of October. Until the harvest inMay
the growing season of
wheat was accompanied by two regador es, Juan de Dios and Cresencio. Both had
an irrigation task seven days a week until the first summer rains. In 1793 the
irrigation was stopped inApril. For the next crop they had to begin during ploughing
and sowing from late September 1793. Apparently,
sowing was over by about
28 until the second week of April 1794 both
Christmas, because after December
regadores worked 7 days per week again. In all this time only Juan de Dios neglected
his job from March 24 to 29. It was then taken over by ganan Leonicio
Santa
Maria. During the first rains in April and May the irrigation was not necessary
10. The regador Juan de Dios
every day, and itwas eventually stopped on May
was missing again from April 12 to 26 and Cresencio did not show up the next
week. Their work was taken over by Jose de la Cruz. Cresencio returned inDecember
on the wheat field, but had obviously left the hacienda shortly thereafter. In 1795
a certain Tomas was working as regador with Juan de Dios. The irrigation that
year lasted until June 15, since the summer rains began late in 1795. The harvest
took four weeks in 1794 (May 26-June 21), and three in 1795 (June 2-22).
Although the schedule resembles that of Palula and Aragon, wheat cultivation
on Pilares was different because of the extremely dry years in the early nineties.
The good harvests made way for mediocre ones. The wheat prices in Texcoco
were twice as high in 1800 as in 1775.23 In Texcoco
the years of 1793 and 1794
were characterised by late rainfall or hardly any rainfall at all. The rains were
also late in 1795 but seemed sufficient. Nevertheless, precipitation in these years
to grow regular irrigated wheatcrops.
could fill the reservoirs of the haciendas
The crops of maize and barley which were not or hardly irrigated suffered extreme
dryness and failed (with the exception of the barley crop of 1795). The results
of the production on Pilares are not known for these years. Earlier, in 1791 and
1792, the situation was the same: the irrigated crops succeeded, the crops that
were not irrigated were lost. The wheat yielded 7:1 in 1791 en 6:1 in 1792. This
may be seen as a bad result on a wheatfield of about 130 hectares.
1775 and 1785 by Marcos Morales,
The series of letters written between
to the owner of the hacienda
administrator of Molino
de Flores near Texcoco,
in the city, and the report of Claudio Pesero, administrator of San Juan Xaltipan
and Pilares.
(1734-1737) can only confirm the data found for Palula, Aragon
Apparently thewheat had to be cultivated within certain periods, with fixed periods
for ploughing, sowing, irrigation and harvest, while threshing was done according
to the wishes and needs of the hacendado.24 This means
that employment on
haciendas was likewise a fixed matter. It clearly depended on the acreage under
cultivation and on climatic restrictions. A Central Mexican wheat hacienda could
not assimilate a big rush of migrant servants from the villages in times of dearth.
Peasants from nearby communities had only a small chance of working as day
labourers on such haciendas: the administrator would only contract extra farmhands
in the summer. All the other work was carried out by gananes, the 20 to 30 regular
workmen of the estates. The summer opportunity of three to four weeks of wheat
harvest could be extended, however, if the hacienda grew maize. Therefore, we
shall turn to themilpa, themaize field.
Work on themilpa
As a native crop of the Indians, maize had at firstbeen produced by the comunidades,
but since the early seventeenth century it was a separate article of commercial
value to the haciendas. The estates had several advantages over the communities,
72
such as the possession of lands for large scale production and better facilities for
storage and transportation. Other points of importance were the power of un
in the maize
derselling the small village producers and the heavy speculation
markets.25 The eighteenth century maize production of the haciendas differed
considerably from the nineteenth century practice of cultivation by humble, hacienda
controlled sharecroppers on the non-irrigated lands (temporal).26 It was cultivated
itself; its cycle was part of the responsibility of the
entirely on the hacienda
administrator; and itwas irrigated.
It
San Antonio Palula forms a good example of late colonial maize-growing.
used a complicated, meticulous administrative schedule, whose illustration required
9 graphs.27 By comparison with wheat, it required more men with different daily
tasks, working according to a system that led them to different fields on succeeding
contributed that year 31 per cent of the revenues of the hacienda,
days. Maize
as compared with 59 V2per cent for wheat. This difference is even more marked
ifwe consider the production costs: maize production accounted for 29 per cent
of the total costs of the 1766-1767-year, wheat for only 25 per cent, the same
percentage as that paid for interest that year. We may conclude that maize was
an expensive crop in comparison to wheat.
It was also more intensive. The preparation of the maize fields still followed
a pattern similar to that used on the wheat fields, starting with a barbecho and
some crosswise ploughings. The actual barbecho of January and December
1766
was preceded by a small operation in September to profit from the tail-end of
the rainy season to accumulate water and to prevent the growing of weeds or
the incubation of plant diseases. The interchange of activities, however, had already
begun by then. The second ploughing, for instance, started inDecember and lasted
1 and finished somewhere in
until April 22, while the sowing began on March
were
a
with
Both
first
May
accompanied by irrigation activities,
resowing.
ploughings
although most of the water was run over the barbecho fields before the crosswise
ploughing began. The alternation of the work on the fields may be illustrated by
that month the ploughing was done by
the accounts of February
1766. During
12 to
6 adult gananes and 10 boys, using 16 yuntas. In the week of February
16 the ratio was 7 adults and 9 boys on the yuntas. The month started with these
labourers on the barbecho fields until February 6 (February 2 was a free Sunday).
On the 7th and 8th the group changed to the second ploughing activities. There
was no work from the 9th to the 11th. Then followed four days on the barbecho
fields again, a free Sunday and two more barbecho days. On the 19th the ploughers
were working on the second ploughing elsewhere. They returned to the barbecho
from the 20th to the 22nd. The 23rd was again a second ploughing day. After
another Sunday the last days of February were spent on the barbecho fields again.
During sowing more labourers were used, especially more adults (10 to 12gananes
more). The technique applied was of combined Spanish and native origin. Some
yuntas opened the ground in linear furrows and were followed by men using digging
sticks (coas) to put the seed into the furrows, in clusters of 3 or 4 grains. To
level the fields other men crossed them with a yunta, shovels or spades. On Palula
I5V2 fanegas were planted inMarch
1766, the equivalent of about 50 to 60 hectares,
a third of the size of its wheatfield. All the work was done by gananes, between
15 to 30 a day, but most of them were boys. Precisely the use of boys made the
ploughing-sowing period not too expensive. The costs of this period totalled 48
per cent of the maize expenses and 44 per cent of the wheat expenses. The use
of more adults would have changed this ratio.
After sowing maize needs much more care than wheat does. This consists of
hilling, the piling up of ground around the stalks. This was done in four operations,
73
called labores (with yuntas, done twice), cajon (done with a different plough), and
aterradura or aporque (done by hand and with shovels). The interchanging of work
on the different fields was by then even more sophisticated than during the preceding
period. The lastmentioned cultivation was in fact themost important one. Because
of their height, the stalks could be damaged by heavy summer rains and were
therefore bound together in bundles of 3 or 4. Extra piling up of earth had to
strengthen the stalks at their base. Nevertheless, themilpa of Palula fell in September
and had to be raised again. It is interesting to note that the aterradura on Palula
was in the hands of tlaquehuales, in June and July like thewheat harvest.
The aterradura took place shortly before the ears were full grown. These ears,
called elotes, could be stolen by passers-by or eaten by animals. The maizefield
had to be watched after the last cultivation. This was the responsibility of a milpero
or field watchman. He walked around the fields daily or sat on top of three ladders,
placed together in the centre of the field.28 On Palula the milpero worked from
July 27, 1766, to the end of the harvest in January 1767, a period of six months.
The maize remained on the fields until themarket offered a good price. This occurred
after the communities had sold their maize in the autumn. Reaping (pisca) began
in November but had its peak in December
and January. It was carried out by
men with baskets, who stripped the elotes from the stalks (the baskets were called
chiquihuetes). The stalks were later cut off and stored as forage. The labourers
were gananes and not the tlaquehuales from outside as on thewheatfield. The number
of men varied between 15 and 25, an increase compared with the barbecho. Some
70 per cent of the labourers were adults. Palula produced 2194 fanegas, a yield
of 142:1. Some 20 per cent of itwas reserved for internal use (raciones, the rations,
part of the salary to the gananes paid in kind), and 10 per cent went in tithes
15 fanegas were reserved for seed. The
(this was not always the case). About
remainder, a little less than 70 per cent, was sold in Puebla for lpl per fanega.
The maize cycle spanned the whole year and belonged to the irrigated crops. Palula
had no maize on the temporal.
An important part of the haciendas' expenses were paid for the wheat harvest:
36 per cent of the wheat outlay. This was caused by the use of tlaquehuales. In
this respect the pisca of the maize was much cheaper and cost only 9 per cent
of its expenses. The tlaquehuales on themaize fields were involved in the aterradura,
which made up 14 per cent of the expenses. This irrigated maize cycle did not
really increase employment for outsiders, as the aterradura offered less than the
wheat
harvest.
switch over to Aragon, we find the same pattern. The Aragon crops of
in the summer (in the first year of the
and 1768 were planted
1767
1766,
to the end of May. Planting was
administrator), or in the spring, from March
preceded by barbechos in February, and in 1767 even by a farmhand manuring
the fields ('uno que ha estado hechando majada en las tierras9). During the barbechos
themanure was ploughed under. In my article on Palula, I expressed some doubts
as to the fertilization of the hacienda fields with animal dung. The hacienda certainly
made use of a corral system, in which sheep and cattle were allowed to graze
on non-irrigated or on fallow-land, spending the night in a corral. This corral
had to be rotated systematically over the fields, which is a labour intensive and
its extended
expensive, but very effective system. Aragon too had such a corral besides
- also to be found
irrigation system. The note on manuring the fields with dung
- contradicts the observation of Ewald and
in the accounts of Palula
Morin, that
Mexican
was
of
Central
schedule
haciendas.29
not
of
the
part
agricultural
manuring
was
on
to
it
not
because
find
data
it
unnecessary
however,
easy
is,
manuring,
Usually
and undesirable to manure the same fields every year with animal dung. On Palula
If we
74
there were 18 man manuring

the fields on April 25, 1766. The small milpa of
be
served by only one man.
could
10-14
hectares,
Aragon,
The piling up of ground around the stalks, clearing the fields of stones and
weeds, in short the labores, were done in August and September 1766, and May
to August 1767 and 1768, by 25 to 50 men. Again the aterradura coincided with
the wheat harvest. After the last cultivation a milpero was instructed to climb his
ladders and make his rounds. He was paid from August to January. Sometimes
he was accompanied
by one or two regadores who supplied water if necessary.
or even January and did not end before March.
Harvest began in late December
it was
In 1767 a part of the Aragon milpa was cut off in September, because
frozen by nightfrosts. The pisca of 1765-1766 had to be dried because of an early
shower. Some of the elotes, called mazorcas after harvest, were rotten because of
this shower. The production of January 1766 was 65% cargas inmazorcas, of which
a part had to be threshed and cleaned for the payments of the Holy Week, Semana
81% cargas in mazorca and 33% cargas
Santa. The next year the pisca managed
were brought to Church (first-fruitsand tithe), a total yield of 38:1, which ismuch
lower in comparison with Palula. Part of the harvest was sold, but in the summer
- therewere still
38% cargas en mazorca
of 1768 - when Moreno retired temporarily
a
in the granary, worth 2p4
carga. Only 4% cargas were planted on the fields,
of which a third was already lost. As Moreno noted, a harvest of 60 cargas could
be expected. It seems as if the bad maize years had begun, and the administrator
was expecting worse: he planted a very small amount.
it remained the classical
The milpa was not just a maize field. In Central Mexico
the cultivation of maize, American beans
system it had been before the Conquest:
inherited the system
in one field. The Spanish hacendados
and squashes (calabasas)
from the Indians. The Palula accounts mention the simultaneous cultivation of
maize and American beans, frijoles. The Aragon reports make reference to the
cultivation of maize with calabasas and alverjon, a pea sort. On the milpa of 1767,
for instance, 2 cargas of alverjon were planted next to 3 cargas of maize; 93/4cargas
were produced, a yield of about 5:1. In the summer of 1768 3% cargas were still
in storage. There are no notes of selling the peas, so they were presumably used
as fodder. The squashes Aragon grew were sold, however, as indicated by a note
of April 1768. So themilpa served many purposes.
Although Aragon did not grow wheat in the period of 1771 to 1772, as mentioned
before, there was cultivation of maize and frijoles on the milpa near the main
buildings. The reports start with a harvest of 50 cargas of maize en mazorca, stored
in sacks. This time the mazorcas were to be threshed later on. But there were
also 7% cargas produced on the fields of themayordomo in a sharecropping agreement
and some 13 to 14 cargas by two other sharecroppers. In June that year, 1771,
the hacienda had exhausted its stock and the administrator had to buy some, for
the rations of the gananes, in Toluca; 23 cargas at a rate of 2p5% and 3 p a carga.
It was sold to the gananes for 4 p a carga. From fear of losing the new crop
only 1% famegas were planted, combined with 1% fanega of frijol in July 1771.
This was no more than a quarter of the usual milpa (about 5 hectares). But even
this small field followed the standard cycle.
The labor es and the other cultivations, referred to as 'dando monton en la milpa\
sat
took place in July, August, and September. The milpero, Juan Bernardino,
on the ladders from September 13 until February 29. Meanwhile,
the beans were
11 cargas
unprooted by hand in October and November
(arrancar) and produced
of frijoles, including 2 cargas of frijol parraleno. The pisca was late, in February.
The reports mention the storage of 1% costales (sacks) of blue maize besides the
usual white maize, of which 21 costales were stored. These 21% costales produced
75
19 fanegas (9*/2cargas), about a costal per fanega. The production of 20:1 was
adequate. The stalks were cut down and stored, the mazorcas were threshed and
served as rations to the farmhands. A few months later, inMay, a little blue maize
was planted on the huerta (vegetable garden) near the main buildings, while the
ploughings were carried out on the other fields. The blue maize was used for the
festal tlacoyos, a special native delicacy. Again the administrator was surprisingly
prudent: hardly 2 fanegas were sown, in combination with not more than 1Vi quartillo
of frijol parraleno. Besides the labores in June and July we read about labores
on thefrijoles in those months. After the aterradura, Pedro Antonio,
the former
watcher over the barley field, started as milpero in September. How long he worked
is not known, because his employer left the enterprise in late September.
Thirty years before Palula and Aragon, the hacienda Xaltipan had been using
the cycle of January-January. In 1763 Xaltipan produced 638 cargas and 8 almudes
en mazorca. After threshing (desgranar) they were able to sell 655 cargas and 9
in 1765 to
almudes. This harvest yielded 62:1, a much better result than Aragon
1768. Almost 75 per cent of the crop was sold in nearby towns. Besides its own
milpa Xaltipan cultivated a milpa in partnership with nearby San Nicolas Panotla,
an Indian community. As might be expected, the milpero, Manuel Esteban, worked
between August 16, 1737 and December 23 that year, protecting the crop.30
Bad results were scored in the later decades of the century. The letters ofMarcos
Morales, administrator of theMolino de Flores, show a lot of preoccupation with
the weather. In fact they only mention problems. All aberrations were reported
in an alarming tone. The production of the hacienda in the period 1775-1785 reflects
in May
1775 some maize - 7 fanegas - remained unseeded
the alarm. Already
because of drought. It was planted in June and immediately attacked by frost.
in July the farmhands were busy with the labores, and in August,
Nevertheless,
behind schedule, with the aterradura. By the end of September Morales wrote to
that the milpa was finally doing well, but frosts around
the owner of theMolino
October 8 caused considerable losses. No wonder the maize-prices went up that
time from 3p to 3p4, to 4p. The pisca of what must have been a bad harvest
was inDecember and January, followed by threshing and even winnowing inMarch.
The next crop began late again, with ploughing and seeding inApril. The drought
in May and June rendered reseeding useless, although the milpa was irrigated.
After some heavy showers in July, which were so excessive that all other work
had to be called to a halt, the drought returned, accompanied by frosts. Of course
that year. Again, the
there were severe losses of wheat and maize on theMolino
was
now
harvest
and
the
did not begin before
behind
in
schedule,
aterradura,
July,
the end of February 1777. The continuing drought postponed the preparation of
the next crop. Seeding was inMay that year. In August the maize, like the barley
on another field, was lacking water and in September frosts annihilated thefrijoles
livestock
that had been sown with the by then almost ruined maize. The Molino's
also suffered similar losses and damage. On July 3, 1780, for instance, 71 oxen
died of thirst.31
The droughts, attended by frost as usual, continued to haunt Marcos Morales'
hacienda in the late seventies and the eighties. The nadir was reached on August
27, 1785. The preceding crop of 1784 had started well with seeding in April and
by irrigation,
May, preceded by irrigation. The labores, likewise accompanied
followed in June. But frosts and droughts were already delaying the work and
a hoarfrost on June 4 dried up the pastures and part of the milpa and froze the
in July the weather recovered. It rained
wheat. No reseeding was tried. However,
was
what was left over on the fields was
that
and
Morales
abundantly
pleased
to borrow from the Church to pay off some
proceeding well. He even managed
76
of his debts. It was in vain. The barley was harvested green that year and thus
of poor quality, and the wheat had suffered immense damage. Morales
called the
frosts of the early eighties unprecedented. The maize of that year had been sufficient.
The succeeding crop was planted in April 1785. But already the early frosts
of that month frustrated the hopes of an equivalent result. Morales
noted again
that he had never experienced such rigorous and repeated frosts. The drought,
a twin brother of frost, continued to the end of April, May and June, alternated
by a hurricane on May 23, all causing severe damage to crops and livestock. The
central highland must have resembled a Siberian prairie. Some scanty rainfall could
support the labores, but a strong frost at the critical time for the milpas by the
end of August destroyed the maize completely, not only on the Molino
but
were
New
all
of
the
frozen
and
the
wheat
barleyfields
throughout
Spain. Likewise,
crop, which was hardly sown in, was halved and needed resowing. Although the
schedule used by Morales was the same as that of Palula and Aragon,
it proved
impossible to follow it.
Again, some six years later, themaize crops of the Texcoco district were reported
to be in bad shape or to have been abandoned. Everything seems to have been
lost on the milpas of Pilares almost every year between 1791 to 1795. This must
have happened rather late in the year. We have references to planting in April
(1795) andMay (1794); labores inMay (1795), June (1794), July (1793 and 1795,
with a resowing), and August (1793 and 1794); cajon and aterradura in August
and September (1794 and 1795). The data suggest the same interchange of work
as shown for Palula. The failure, of course, is indicated by a small or missing
pisca. Indeed, the data of the pisca are scarce: none in 1793, two weeks of harvest
in February 1794, and only one week in January 1795. The maize was planted
with frijol and alverjon, but these crops were lost as a result of the drought.
The accounts of Pilares show, however, that there were in fact two maize crops,
one irrigated (de riego) and one not (temporal). The non-irrigated crop was planted,
on the same schedule as the irrigated one, on the rancho de Nestlapa. This crop
was lost almost every year in the period under consideration. The smaller irrigated
crop was planted near the main buildings of the hacienda and did not fail. In
1791 they harvested about 217 cargas, in 1792 about 150 cargas (a yield of 25:1),
and in 1793 about 225 cargas (45:1). It usually made a lot of difference if the
crops were irrigated or not. But also irrigation was not always possible: the drought
could last too long to fill the reservoirs with sufficient water. The data from the
last decades of the eighteenth century suggest sufficient rains for irrigation but
far too few for temporal cultivation. The fields of the villages were not always
irrigated. And as Swan indicates, the rainy season was even shorter around the
turn of the century.32
The lack of rainfall on Pilares is noted by the activities of the regadores on
the milpas during summer. In 1793 both Juan de Dios and Cresencio
returned
after a break of a few weeks to their ditches and had to open the dams again
to flood the lands from the end of May. They laboured some 3 to 4 days a week
until July 30, complementing the sparsely falling rains. Around the end of July
rainfall was sufficient to stop irrigation. The season lasted until October
14 or
15, when both regadores resumed their work 5 days a week. During the season,
however, some supplementary water had appeared necessary. The rainy season
of 1794 was of the same character, but lasted a bit longer. It began more or less
in the first weeks of June, but it was not sufficient to leave the crops without
irrigation. During themonth both regadores worked 3 to 4 days a week. The rainy
season really broke out in July, only to slow down quickly inAugust. Additional
irrigation was needed to save the crops. The next year (1795) hardly had a rainy
77
season. The
reservoirs had to be exhausted to satisfy the need of the crops, again

supported by Juan de Dios and Tomas working some 4 days a week. The rainfall
was insufficient to stop irrigation until September, almost at the end of the season.
The short barley cycle
On highland wheat-haciendas
barley was a product of second or even third choice.
It was grown, for example, when the wheat was sown on time, and space, labour
to the
and time remained over. In such cases the crop appears as an appendage
wheat crop. But itwas usually sown on the descansaderos, the fallow fields where
a crop had recently been harvested and where the cycle did not permit immediate
resowing. Barley served as fodder or straw for the cattle. The quality of the straw
was very high; itmeans that the risk of not fully developed ears can be taken.
The plant had a shorter cycle than wheat or maize which made late sowing possible.
So there was no special schedule for barley. In case of an early failure of wheat,
barley could and would serve as a 'saviour of solvency', as is shown for the hacienda
in 1734 and 1735.33 Of course, haciendas with cattle production as their
Xaltipan
main activity grew barley in large quantities to feed their animals. These haciendas
were fattening up pigs, stock-breeding, or maintaining ventas, the grazing places
for passing mule-trains. This kind of hacienda was usually located at a greater
- like the
distance from the big cities in dryer, hilly or mountainous
regions, or
near the big roads.34 In both cases the schedules were different from the
ventas
wheat haciendas, as is the case with Aragon in 1771 and 1772. Because
they did
not make use of a lot of tlaquehuales or day labourers they did not offer employment
for Indian villagers.
Palula grew barley on the descansaderos. The wheat of 1765 was harvested in
July 1766 and was immediately followed by ploughing for the barley on the same
field, without preceding barbechos. This suggests rotation, although compared to
wheat the barley was cultivated on a small scale: Palula had sown not more than
5 cargas, about 20 hectares, which is 10 per cent of the wheat-field. As usual on
this hacienda, the barley was irrigated. In some years they also cultivated on the
temporal. Three months after sowing, a part of the crop was cut down. Bad weather
had destroyed all hopes of a good yield. The restwas reaped inDecember. Threshing
began shortly before Christmas. The harvest amounted to 21*/2cargas, a yield of
4:1. This was a poor harvest, caused by a hailstorm inOctober.
Aragon grew its barley between 1765 and 1768 as a wintercrop in the same
in that period was minor.
months as the maize. As on Palula, the production
They had barbechos of about 2 to 4 days, beginning in the midsummer. We may
conclude, that the Aragon barley did not immediately follow the wheat in any
rotation practice. In 1766 the hacienda sowed 23Vi cargas, about 82 hectares. The
seed had been bought on neighbouring haciendas. The harvest took place in January,
like that of maize, and was a job for 20 to 30 gananes a day. Threshing took
place from late February to the end of March. The same schedule was followed
in 1767, ending with harvest in January 1768 and threshing until the end of February.
Barley was threshed much sooner than wheat, because the hacienda needed straw
and forage in the dry spring months. In contrast with the harvest of the preceding
year, the failure of the production of 1768 was caused by too much rain. The
majority of the 102 cargas already threshed was lost. The inventory of 1768 mentions
30 cargas en grano (in grains) and 200 cargas as straw, still in storage, while 9
cargas were sown in the fields. The barley crop of that year was much smaller
than the preceding one. Most of the production was sold in the city, but enough
of it was nevertheless kept in the granaries of the hacienda to feed its livestock
78
to serve passing mule-trains that spent a night on the hacienda's pastures.

By 1771 barley had replaced wheat as the main crop on Aragon. The hacienda
changed from a Mexico-city wheat supplier to a venta for muleteers arriving at
the city. The change was a notable one and brought a different schedule in operation.
This included two crops a year. The first crop mentioned by the reports was sown
on the temporal in July 1771 and harvested in November. A similar temporal
cultivation was done in 1772. Threshing took place between the ploughing, sowing,
and harvesting activities, but sometimes also during sowing itself. The temporal
crop was sown on three fields at a time, Santa Ana, San Malo and a field called
de Guadalupe.
The first two had
del Arco, situated near the arch on the Calzada
previously been used for irrigated wheat. In 1771 the Santa Ana field received
2% cargas temporal next to 14% cargas de riego (irrigated), which were produced
1770 and June 1771. The temporal of Santa Ana was cut
there between October
in April, like that
down in February and March,
1772, the temporal of San Malo
del Arco. The San Malo
fields had been damaged by mules and produced only
19% cargas, but those del Arco were recorded as good with 30% cargas. The total
production of all the temporal fields was 198 cargas after threshing.
The irrigated barley of 1770 was harvested in June and July of 1771 and
immediately threshed and cleaned to be sold. After barbechos in October and
and January, by
November
the new crop was sown near the river in December
sown
la
who
had
wheat.
The crop
de
the
Cruz,
previously
Diego
desparramador
was irrigated by Domingo
Salvador during the months of March, April, and May
and harvested in June, July, August and September. As we saw before on the
milpas, the barley fields needed guarding, a job done by Marcos Antonio. This
cebadero was contracted from February 16 until July 14, 1772. Such a watchman
was not in service on the temporal as there were fewer animals looking for food
in the summer. It is interesting to note how the crops were interlinked. While
the temporal was being harvested they were sowing the irrigated crop, which was
to be harvested during sowing of the temporal.
in the 1760s. It
Pilares grew barley in small amounts, like Palula and Aragon
was a temporal crop, sown inAugust after two months of barbechos and harvested
inNovember and December. We have notes of the harvest in 1793 and the sowing
in 1794. Data concerning sowing in 1795 are lacking. There was probably no crop
that year. A few years before, the production of 1791 was consumed for 60 per
cent by the hacienda swine and 25 per cent by cattle. In 1792, 35 cargas were
harvested of which 3% went in tithes and 5 cargas, as usual, were seeded. The
other 27 cargas, 77 percent, were consumed by swine and cattle. The next year
45 cargas were harvested. Some 30 cargas were consumed on the hacienda (67
per cent) and 4% went in tithes. These crops yielded 7:1 and 9:1, less than a wheatcrop.
It had been a field of about 20 to 25 hectares, one of marginal importance compared
to wheat and maize. However,
like the frijoles, alverjon, habas, and other seeds
on the milpa, barley production, small though itwas, formed an integral part of
the schedules of the Central Mexican wheat-haciendas.
and
Correlation of schedules and labour

The survey of agricultural schedules indicates that employment on this kind of
hacienda depended on the condition of the crops. Late spring frosts, drought, and
early autumn frosts affected both the volume of the harvest and the labour costs.
The very uneven crop yields largely determined the eventual production cost per
fanega or carga in any given year.35 The schedules formed a very regular system.
There was not much of a margin; the crops had to be sown on time and harvested
79
at a given date later on. The system was dominated by wheat as the main cash
crop, but the intensivemaize production also needed a lot of manpower. If something
went wrong with the wheat, extra barley was sown besides the usual small amount
on the descansaderos.
If the maize crop was ruined in the early month of its cycle
a resowing could be tried, but later on in the year itwould be lost. Wheat, some
barley and themilpa were irrigated. Most of the barley and some maize were grown
on the temporal, if the labour costs were not too high, for maize was an expensive
crop, and such a temporal cultivation was not worth the risk of wasting labour.
The unity of the schedules and the regular pattern of cultivation were apparently
in direct relation to the number of labourers needed. The analysis of the accounts
suggests an almost rigid scheme. This might be checked by calculating coefficients
of correlation, using the formula
n
2 (Xi. y,)
i=
R=
/ n
. (X yi2)
Xi2)
/ (X
i=l
i=l
based on the deviations Xi and yi9with regard to the average of the variables X
and Y. The basic question asked concerns the relation between the two variables:
can Y be predicted from X, or X from Y, by a linear rule? The correlational
approach of drawing a random sample of (X,Y) pairing is considered superior
to the ordinary regression approach using fixed values, particularly if the main
purpose of the study is the use of a linear rule for prediction. The coefficients
of correlation predict either variable from the other by such a linear rule. In the
regression equation for standard scores, they play the role of converting a standard
score in X into a predicted standard score in Y. Rather loosely, the coefficents
of correlation can be said to be 'the rate of exchange', the value of a 'standard
deviation's worth' of X in terms of predicted standard deviation units of Y.
Looking at our documents we possess three variables reflecting the labour need
the number of men used every week, the mandays of labour
of the haciendas:
used every week and the amount of labour costs paid by the hacienda per week.
The most valuable of these iswithout doubt the number of mandays. One manday
ran from dawn until sunset every day, thus approximately from 6 to 8 a.m. till
6 to 8 p.m. In an optimum situation one labourer equals one manday, but the
haciendas did not always need the labourers to work the whole day; the alternative
was a half manday running from dawn till noon. Thus the number of labourers
per week should be considered second best for our purpose. Besides this, as we
shall see, not all labourers received the same salary, making the amount of labour
the
labour use. However,
costs even less suited for the analysis of the haciendas'
historian seldom possesses all three variables at the same time. It is therefore useful
to calculate the predictive value of these variables, answering the question if they
can be used as 'rates of exchange'.
The weekly number of men, number of mandays and the amount of labour
costs were grouped together in blocks of 4 weeks to reduce the influence of heavy
fluctuations. The figures available include the labour costs of Palula in 1766; the
in 1767 and 1768;
mandays of labour and the number of labourers of Aragon
and the labour costs and the number of labourers of Pilares from 1791 and 1795,
80
Table 1.COEFFICIENTS OF RELATION OF SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES, MANDAYS,

NUMBER OF LABOURERS AND LABOUR COSTS
1791
A
x
B
C x.965
1793
1792
B
.980
.966
.940
C
.927
.843
see note
of labour
of mandays
of labourers
of labour costs
x=
no figures available
All
coefficients are positive.

coefficients are in italics
High
Source:
.967
1795 A = Number
A B B = Number
B .962 C = Amount
C.987
1794
B
x.979C
.989
A
x
14
as well as the mandays of labour of Pilares for the years 1793, 1794, and 1795.
We also possess as data the weekly paid amount of maize rations of Pilares from
1791 to 1795, but these will be included in calculations
later on. So it is only
for Pilares 1793-1795 that we have a full set of data at our disposal. The correlation
between the number ofmandays of labour, the number of labourers and the amount
of labour costs was very high. As seen in Table
1, the coefficients varied between
about +.8 and +.99, or correlations of 71 per cent to 98 per cent (R2 . 100),
on Pilares. The figures of Aragon are equally high: the mandays and the number
or 93 per cent and 95
of labourers in 1767 correlate +.963
and in 1768 +.973,
per cent. The three variables apparently can be considered to be 'high rates of
exchange'.
Knowing the predictive value of the three variables, itwill be of interest to correlate
the different series of the variables with each other. We find big differences between
high and low correlations. Table 2 shows the coefficients concerning the number
of labourers and the labour costs of Pilares 1791-1795 and the number of mandays
of labour of Pilares 1793-1795, which range from 0.3 percent to 72 per cent. Using
the data of Aragon we calculate coefficients of +.565
for the mandays of 1767
and 1768, and +.734
for the number of labourers of both years, correlations of
31 per cent, which is too low, and 54 per cent, an ordinary one. Correlating the
Pilares data with theAragon data we get the same results. The number of mandays
of Pilares 1793-1795 and those of Aragon 1767-1768 correlate highly for the Pilares'
1767 and low for all other years. The same
years of 1795 (+.718) with Aragon
calculation using the number of labourers of Pilares 1791-1795 and those of Aragon
1767-1768 correlate only high for Pilares 1791 and Aragon
1767. A number of
coefficients just miss the score of 50%, like Pilares 1792 and 1795 with Aragon
1767 (44 per cent and 43 per cent), and Pilares 1791 and 1794 with Aragon
1768
(48 per cent and 44 per cent). The results of the calculations including the data
of Palula are shown in Table 3. We used the variables of labour costs for Palula
and they correlate with the number of labourers and the number of mandays of
1767 (+.624 and +.669),
as well as with the labour costs of Pilares 1795
Aragon
(+.887). The other coefficients may be considered too low.
81
Table 2. SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES, 1791- 1795,COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION;

THE YEARS
MANDAYS OF LABOUR
1793
1792
1791
x .770
1794
x1795x
LABOUR
COSTS
1791
1794
.247
(SALARIES)
1793
1792
TOTAL NUMBER OF LABOURERS

1791
1792
1793
1794
1792
1792 x
.851
.556
.233
1793 x x 1793
1794
-.028
1795
x
.375
.053
.684
.830
.804
.367
.122
no figures available
1794
coefficients are positive, with

the exception of -. (High
coefficients are in italics).
1792 .779 All

1793
.443
-.200
1794
.152
-.079
1795
.649
.777
Source:
see note
.605
.268
-.399
14
Table 3. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION OF SAN ANTONIO PALULA, SANTA ANA

ARAGON AND SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES, VARIOUS VARIABLES
Palula
1766
Palula
1766
Palula
1766
Palula
1766
Palula
1766
Palula
1766
Palula
1766
Palula
1766
Palula
1766
Palula
1766 =
Aragon
1767
Aragon
1768
Aragon
1767
Aragon
Pilares
1768
=
=
=
=
Pilares
1792
Pilares
1793
Pilares
1794
Pilares
1795
: number
.624
(Aragon
.385
(Aragon
: number
.669
(Aragon:
mandays)
of labourers)
of
.453
(Aragon:
.589
(Pilares:
.604
(Pilares:
.503
(Pilares:
.073
(Pilares:
labour costs)
labour costs)
.887
(Pilares:
labour costs)
labourers)
mandays)
labour costs)
labour costs)
labour costs
All coefficients are positive,

Source:
1791
=
=
high coefficients
in italics.
see notes 6, 8, 14.
These differences may be explained by looking at the results of the cultivation

of the crops on the haciendas. The high coefficients of correlation involve good
agricultural years with regular cultivations. The other years gave low results because
of aberrations in the series caused by bad weather. A good example of this is
1767 gave a low correlation with Pilares
provided by Aragon and Pilares. Aragon
1793 and 1794 because of the lack of labour in the early and late summer: the
maize crop of Pilares was probably lost in both years. The deviation was even
1768 and Pilares 1793 and 1794: Aragon
greater in the calculations for Aragon
a
no
bad wheat harvest makes high coefficients
maize
that
and
almost
year
produced
same
noted
between the good Pilares' years (1791,
difference
is
The
impossible.
1792, 1795) and the bad Pilares' years (1793 and 1794). Nevertheless, it is striking
that the haciendas of Palula, Aragon and Pilares, located in different districts,
with series of different periods correlate in this fashion, especially in the good
years. There isonly one explanation: itproves the strong relation between agricultural
schedules on this kind of hacienda. The experiment suggests that we may use the
series to design a hypothetical model of agricultuiral schedules and the use of labour
on Central Mexican wheat haciendas (see figure 1 based on appendix
1 and 2).
We may conclude that the schedules ceteris paribus predict the number of labourers,
82
1. Model
Figure
good
years,
of agricultural
VI
..
.
the use of labour on Central Mexican
and
1.
\???/
\???/
V^*?
'.'
appendix
labourers
.^^O^
????7
Source:
schedules
wheat
haciendas
18th century
*.
,
gananes
m
,
= Ploughing
=
sowing
\
=hming
mHpero
\^?'
j
^?\,
crops:
irrigated wheat
K^^^^>8
\^^^"u
+
= harvest
=
V^3;:
seeds(frijoles,
tic)
bariey
=main croPs
=
irrigation
secondary
crops
2, including figure 3
83
in
the number of mandays and the amount of labour costs these wheat haciendas
will use. The model (figure 1) can therefore serve as a hypothesis for future research.
It demonstrates the rigid scheme to which these haciendas were bound and with
that their clear dependence on the ecological surroundings. As we have seen before,
there were hardly good years. The effect on employment of and bad and good
years can be illustrated by comparing the use of labour on Pilares during the years
1793, 1794, and 1795.
and employment on Pilares
Labourers
As Tutino summarized in his dissertation, the need for a few permanent workers
and numerous temporary workers was met in the late colonial years by three
categories of estate labourers. One group, the sirvientes or servants, were paid
and Mestizos.
monthly and consisted of Spaniards
They worked regularly in
supervisory and skilled positions. A second group, the gananes, were employed
less regularly. They carried out the laborious tasks on the hacienda and were paid
a daily rate. This group consisted of Indians. Finally, alquilados (hired workers)
or tlaquehuales, Indians living in communities and periodically working on the
estates were employed the most irregularly. They, too, were paid a daily rate.36
No estate was without servants; and on a modest enterprise such as Pilares or
Palula, they numbered seven to ten. The gananes formed also a small group; Palula
had about 30 men in regular service, Aragon about 26 to 28, and Pilares about
18 to 20. Ifmore labour was necessary the haciendas hired extra men.
During May and June, when a lot of work was to be done on the aterradura
of themilpas and especially the harvest of the wheat crop, the haciendas contracted
cuadrillas, groups of 10 to 14workers. These groups consisted of community peasants
who were hired through the intermediary of local officials, both Spanish and Indian.
Contrary to what is often stated in the traditional literature, there was no violence
or force involved. The recruitment of gananes and seasonal workers for the haciendas
was considerably more differentiated than was previously assumed.37 The accounts
show that the hacendados were not interested in contracting more labourers than
were really necessary. The gananes were sometimes seen as a problem, because
they formed a permanent work force that was not always needed because of the
haciendas' variable demands, and because theywere expensive. The gananes usually
earned IV2 reales per day plus rations in kind to the value of one cuartillo per
week. Besides this their employers had to pay the Indian workers' tributes and
clerical fees and were supposed to maintain the workers' wives and children also
in case of disablement, illness or sudden death. The extra labourers from outside,
4. LABOURERS
Table
ON
PILARES,
1793, 1794, 1795 (numbers
number of weeks in services
number of labourers
labour days
and percentages)
1794
1793
1795
1794
1793
3Vi
7%
6%
10
6%
44
80%
V/i >
.9
27
25%
14
12%
36
23%
24
44%
.9 >
.1
49
45%
63
52%
90
58%
9%
9%
.1 >
.01
25
23%
36
30%
20
13%
3%
3%
6>
109 100
Source:
of weeks:
120 100
average number of days
28
76%
18 49%
1795
1793
1794
1795
5.9
81%
5.1
5.9
17 40%
4.4
3.8
9%
3.9
3.5
3%
3.4
2.7
35
156 100
see note 14. The average number of days

1793 = 55, 1794 = 37, and 1795 = 43.
is of number
of weeks
actually
in service. The
84
number
the tlaquehuales, only had to be paid two reales per day; there were no protective
obligations, no board and lodging and these workers could be contracted and
dismissed ifnecessary.
The workers of Pilares during the years 1793, 1794, and 1795 can be grouped
according to the days of work performed on the hacienda (see Table 4). The first
group may be considered the permanent labour force working almost completely
in hacienda-service.
The group consisted of shepherds, herdsmen, watchmen,
muleteers
and the like. There were about 7 to 10 and they
irrigation specialists,
cent
to
of
their time at tasks on the hacienda fields, with
76
81
per
performed
an average of 5 to 6 days a week. The second group may equally be considered
a permanent labour force, but dedicated half of their time to work on their own
parcels (pegujales, on hacienda ground and part of their board and lodging) or
to artisan crafts. The rest of their time was taken up with digging, ploughing,
harvesting, and threshing in hacienda service. Their numbers ran between 14 and
36, about 40 per cent to 50 per cent of their time in hacienda service, and with
an average of 4 to 5 days a week. A third group consisted of regular contracted
village workers, usually during the summer. The group numbered 50 to 90 men,
but only performing 9 per cent of the time in hacienda service, with an average
of 4 to 5 days per week if contracted. The last group totalled 20 to 36 men, who
were only occasionally
contracted and who spent hardly 1 per cent of the time
on hacienda fields, about 3 days. This calculation shows above all that some 70
per cent of the labourers in service on the hacienda accounted for less than 10
per cent of the tasks. The margin of employment for outsiders was limited to
some 9 per cent of the working hours. It is also clear that labourers were not
on Pilares:
1791 -
2. Employment
Figure
San Nicolas
de los Pilares,
indices and
index average
of the number
of mandays,
Hacienda
of 4 weeks.
1795, 13 periods
indices
600
500 ' I
4001
J/
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 IQti12
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011
gP*
ttQ* 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910 11
1792 1791
1793
1794
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 l6 11~frfe~
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910 11
1213^
1795
-periodsof 4 weeks
Source:
see appendix
1.
85
contracted to work a day here or an afternoon there, but had to agree to work
for at least half of theweek.38
The gananes were not sure of work, however. The employment on the hacienda
can be illustrated by Figure 2. The index figures of mandays, grouped together
in periods of 4 weeks, follow a falling pattern from 1791 to 1794, but recover
a bit in 1795. The overall decline between 1791 and 1794 was 48 per cent, but
1792 and 1793 with 30%. The decline in
the fastest drop occurred between
employment between 1791 and 1792 was 16 per cent, between 1793 and 1794 about
12 per cent. There was an increase in employment on Pilares in 1795 of 75 per
cent. Bad years like 1793 and 1794 did not only mean such a loss in employment
for village workers (see the declining peaks in periods 6 and 7 of every year in
Figure 2), but above all for the gananes. Nevertheless, the gananes received rations
in kind every week as part of their contract, separate from the salary in cash for
each day in actual service. Village workers were much cheaper. It means that if
the hacienda used gananes instead of village workers, it was actually suffering
financial losses, because of the high labour costs: the rations had to be paid without
their producing anything. It proved impossible to abolish this system and to pay
theworkers only in cash. The workers would not show up.39
The raciones were considered by the farmhands as one of the most attractive
features of hacienda service. It gave them the security of food. The rations were
paid to them weekly in fixed amounts, usually a cuartillo per ganan. In periods
of bad harvests it could happen that the haciendas ran out of stock. In such cases,
the haciendas had to restock by buying on themarket, because the labourers were
not willing to accept extra cash to the value of one cuartillo of maize per week.
Each hacienda solved the problem in its own way. The hacienda Aragon, confronted
with empty maize granaries in 1767, bought a new stock in Toluca, 65 kilometers
to the west of the capital. The gananes continued to receive their raciones as usual,
but the administrator had to book these rations as if they were sold. The Toluca
stock, however, had a higher price and the costs of this ration were thus deducted
from the workers' accounts. The administrator of Pilares kept the same kind of
accountancy over the years 1791-1794. Thus the gananes could receive their weekly
cuartillos as usual. In 1795, however, his successor in the hacienda's despacho chose
another system: the workers had to pay for their rations on delivery. For that
purpose, the salaries were raised by a half real. The result was to the advantage
of the hacienda, since the labourers bought less than before. After all, as is also
mentioned by Nickel, the gananes were granted the privilege of cultivating their
own plot of land on the hacienda's
fields.40Apparently the gananes did not always
need their cuartillos every week.
Tutino did not notice the difference between the bookkeeping of 1795 and that
of the preceding years. He concluded that the workers had to buy their rations
all the time. They paid 12 reales per fanega.
'During most weeks, the villagers working at Pilares devoted three reales
a piece from their wages to purchase one cuartillo of maize. Only in the
autumn, when maize from the recent harvest must have been available at
lower prices in local markets, did they tend to forego the weekly purchase
of hacienda maize. Of course, the administrator at Pilares did not hesitate
to raise the price of maize during years of dearth. And the Indian laborers,
having few alternative sources then, continued to purchase as much as they
could afford, devoting an increased proportion of their earnings to obtain
the staple. The estate always assured thatmaize was available at approximately
themarket price to the Indians it employed.'41
86
On closer inspection of the reports this appears to be valid only for 1795. The
difference between 1793 and 1794 on the one hand and 1795 on the other hand
may be demonstrated by a calculation of coefficients of correlation, including the
quantities of maize delivered and the number of labourers per week.
The maize rations of 1793 correlate +
.975 with the number of labourers of
that year (R2 = .95), and + .943 with the salaries paid to the workers (a correlation
of R2 =
.910 (83%) and +
.958 (92%). In 1793
.89). The figures for 1794 are +
the maize also correlated highly with the number of mandays
that year (+ .961,
92%). But with the falling employment in both years, the maize deliveries of 1794
were less than those of 1793. Nevertheless, they form part of the workers' salaries.
Against the high correlations of both years stand the low ones of 1795. The rations
were paid by the gananes that year and delivered in a rather irregular way. The
coefficients show it: -.173 (3%) with the 1795 number of mandays,
-.076 (.6%)
with the number of labourers, and -.308 (9%) with the salaries paid to the labourers.
There is clearly no correlation found between the maize rations and the number
of labourers in 1795, while this surely was the case for both previous years. So
the fixed raciones had made way for private orders by the gananes, and these were
not
regular.
The question arises why the administrator of 1795 changed the system of payments
used by his predecessor that much. As yet this question remains unanswered. The
relatively high labour costs of 1793 and 1794 (as a result of crop failure) were,
of course, a good excuse for him. But the workers suffered a loss in their living
standard and in addition lost the security of their weekly maize rations. This is
another mark of the bad employment situation in bad agricultural years.
Some final considerations
Summarizing the survey of agricultural schedules, we note in the firstplace a certain
lack of freedom the cultivators had to face, in choosing the agrarian calendar they
to the specific ecological situation of Central Mexico
liked. Due
all crops were
strongly bound to their seasons. The calendar of thewheat haciendas was especially
For reasons of efficiency and output
strict, leaving little room for manoeuvres.
the haciendas cultivated their wheat on irrigated fields. The crop needed a cycle
of almost a year, including ploughing in the late summer, sowing in October and
November,
irrigating during the winter and the spring, and harvesting in April,
May, June, and July. Also maize was cultivated entirely on the hacienda
itself,
mostly on irrigated fields. Maize was an expensive crop in comparison to wheat.
Its cultivation required more men, working on different fields on succeeding days
according to a meticulous administrative schedule. This resulted in relatively high
production costs. The maize cycle spanned the whole year, including ploughing
to February, sowing during March and April, several cultivations
from December
like hilling and weeding until the end of the summer, and harvesting fromDecember
to February again. From August until the end of the harvest the maize field had
to be watched by milperos. Other crops, including barley and beans, were of much
lesser importance and served above all subsistence needs. As we have seen, the
cultivation on this kind of wheat and maize hacienda, so typical for a region like
Central Mexico,
required the use of very rational, labour-intensive production
methods to cover the growing needs of the big cities of the region for food.
The close connection between the use of labour and the agricultural cycle of
irrigated wheat and maize in combination with the cultivation of secondary crops
like barley and beans could be demonstrated by calculating coefficients of correlation
and designing a model of labour use. This brings us to conclude that the schedules
87
of Palula, Aragon and Pilares may be seen as typical in the Central Mexican context.
In broad outlines our model is a sophistication of the schedules published by Gibson,
although we have some doubts on his claim regarding the cultivation of regular,
non-irrigated wheat and maize on this kind of hacienda. Anyway, our model can
be used in analyzing the agricultural schedules of other haciendas.
It makes clear
that the schedules predict the number of labourers, the number of mandays and
the amount of labour costs the haciendas had during the year in an optimum
situation. Comparison will reveal how useful themodel is in a wider context.
In the second place we note that employment depended heavily on the production
capacity of the haciendas. According to the apparently stable number of farmhands
inmore or less permanent service we may conclude that the hacienda in general
used a limited number of labourers, based on the area it could cultivate. As is
known the aterradura of the milpa and the wheat harvest created a big demand
for labour in the summer. This was filled up by seasonal migratory labour from
nearby corporate communities. The overview of the schedules clearly shows that
the haciendas did not contract more labourers than were actually necessary and
that employment for outsiders was strictly limited to both tasks of aterradura and
wheat harvest. Realizing
that in the first place the schedules were restricted to
the ecological possibilities, we clearly admit the ceiling imposed by nature on
agriculture and employment in the Central Mexican
region.
In his dissertation, Tutino argued that the provision of workers to late colonial
estates cemented a symbiosis between the principal institutions of agricultural life:
haciendas and peasant communities. It involved workers from the communities,
labouring seasonally to meet both the estates' fluctuating labour demands as well
as their own subsistence needs with the necessary supplementary income. This
institutional symbiosis should not be mistaken for equality, however. Although
the work was supplementary, it was not casual. As Tutino was able to show, it
was organized by community labour bosses, the capitanes, who assembled
the
cuadrillas, bargained for their services with estate administrators and supervised
these labour bosses belonged to the community
the work in the fields. Because
elites the symbiosis intensified the gap between community elite and the ordinary
peasants. This situation stresses the dependence of the community elite on the
haciendas
hacienda.42 Looking at the agrarian schedules of the Central Mexican
we were able to identify the commercial background of the symbiotic relationship
of haciendas and corporate, peasant communities.
Particularly noteworthy is the fact that employment in a certain region could
be affected by crop failures; in the case under discussion the failure of the maize
crops. Such a failure meant a severe loss in earnings for the workers involved.
It was above all a period of crisis if the maize was affected. Precisely this seems
to have occurred in the late eighteenth century. The problem for the villagers was
twofold: on the one hand, they missed the earnings from the summer tasks on
the haciendas and, on the other hand, they missed their own subsistence crops.
Florescano,
Swan, and Tutino point to these crop failures as one of the main
causes of social unrest in the Mexican
countryside, which eventually led to the
revolts of Hidalgo and Morelos. They are probably right.
But there is also a structural aspect to thematter. The bookkeeping of the haciendas
clearly shows that the irrigated crops usually did not fail. Irrigation inLatin America
was never a Spanish monopoly; Trautmann,
for instance, found indications of
the
colonial
villages. Nevertheless,
irrigation techniques applied by
widespread
was
not
sufficient
late
colonial
in
the
of
the
period
villages
agricultural production
to feed their own population. The communities clearly needed more ground to
subsistence level. But these grounds were owned by haciendas. The
maintain
88
the villages had was that of greater intensification of their already

cultivated
technically
intensively
milpas. This was
hardly possible. The villages
could not stand up to a period of ecological problems, because of the land tenure
system. This system was to culminate eventually in the latifundio-minifundio problem
ithad never been before.43
The general implication of our conclusions for the theoretical issue raised in
the introduction brings us to confirm the colonial central Mexican
hacienda as
a modern business enterprise, working with efficient production methods, attempting
to reduce labour costs to enlarge its margin of profit or, in times of troubles,
to reduce its losses. In the end it was this capitalistic hacienda that almost put
an end to the village economy, a development that began in the decades of climatic
depression in the late eighteenth century. As such the hacienda did play a crucial
role in the struggle for survival of the corporate communities, but it was a role
that deviates from the statements of the traditional view.
To make such a leap from the specificity of three rural haciendas in one region
to generalizations about the rural economics of colonial Latin America must be
hazardous. Perhaps the most that can be expected from the data presented here
is a certain approach to the economic role of the hacienda. Nevertheless, despite
the inexactitude it appears to us quite tenable to assume that microstructural
propositions of this kind tend to have a great potential for generalization. Our
study illustrates the need for more detailed in-depth case studies and a greater
emphasis on regional agricultural variations. We may no longer expect that historians
can provide new models of development in general, because we are still only on
the threshold of serious and systematic research concerning the evolution of Latin
America's agrarian structure. Until we know a great deal more about the internal
functioning of the hacienda under different conditions, itwill be difficult to place
Mexican agriculture or even Mexican development in a comparative context.
alternative
NOTES
1.
2.
Braudel, The structures of everyday life (Volume One of Civilization and capitalism, 16th
Slicher van Bath, Een
18th century) (1981, London;
translated from the French,
1979); B.H.
van het platteland
in Overijssel
repr. 1977,
samenleving onder spanning. Geschiedenis
(1957, Assen;
Utrecht), pp. 1-11.
Fernand
the question
of history and underdevelopment
see, for instance: Joel S. Migdal,
Peasants,
and revolution. Pressures
toward political
and social change in the Third World
(1974,
in Spanish America. An interpretation (1969, London);
Princeton); Keith Griffin, Underdevelopment
On
politics,
E. Feder,
The rape of the peasantry: Latin America's

Solon
landholding system (1971, New York);
Rosemary E. Galli
(ed.), The
Agrarian structure in Latin America (1973, Lexington);
international capital, and the state (1981, Albany);
economy of rural development. Peasants,
Barraclough,
political
Alain de Janvry, The agrarian question and reformism in Latin America
S.J.
(1981, Baltimore);
in Latin America
Hunt, The economics of haciendas and plantations
(1972, Princeton, Discussion
C. Anglade
and C. Fortin, The
Paper 29); Eric Wolf, Sons of the shaking earth (1959, Chicago);
state and capital accumulation
in Latin America
B. Warren,
Imperialism: pioneer
(1985, London);
to modes of production. A critique
J. Taylor, From modernization
of capitalism (1980, London);
D. Goodman
and M.
of the sociologies
of development and underdevelopment
(1979, London);
Redclift, From peasant toproletarian. Capitalist development and agrarian transitions (1981, Oxford);
G.
in historical perspective
M.
(1982, London);
theory in transition. The dependency debate and beyond:
Third World responses (1984, London);
in the Third World.
R. Munck,
Politics and dependency
The case of Latin America (1984, London);
and Andre Gunder Frank, various studies, e.g. Capitalism
and underdevelopment inLatin America (1969, New York).
Kitching, Development
Blomstrom
and B. Hettne,
and
underdevelopment
Development
89
3.
sobre terrenos baldios (1895, Mexico);

Andres Molina
Luis Orozco, Legislacion y jurisprudencia
Los grandes problemas nacionales
The Land Systems
(1909, Mexico);
George M. McBride,
The Mexican
agrarian revolution (1929, New
(1923, New York); Frank Tannenbaum,
to Latin America
El tributo indigena en
and Ten Keys
Jose Miranda,
(1962, New York);
York);
W.
Enriquez,
of Mexico
Francois Chevalier, La formation des grands

Espana durante el siglo XVI (1952, Mexico);
au Mexique:
terre et societe aux XVV-XVIVsiecle
(1952, Paris); Eric R. Wolf and Sidney
W. Mintz,
inMiddle America
and the Antilles', Social and Economic
and plantations
'Haciendas
la Nueva
domaines
(1957), p. 380-412; Stanley and Barbara Stein, The colonial heritage of Latin America (1970,
research since 1970
York). All are a little out of date: see the excellent review of hacienda
of the colonial
the historiography
'Mexican
rural history since Chevalier:
by Eric Van Young,
hacienda', Latin American Research Review 18:3 (1983), pp. 5-61, including a lengthy bibliography.
introduction to his Haciendas
and ranchos in theMexican
Bajio.
Interesting is also David Brading's
Studies
New
Leon
4.
De
5.
An
1700-1860
pp.
(1978, Cambridge),
Janvry, Agrarian
1-12.
question, p. 63.
focusing on social history and incorporating a mass of recent

Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Latin America. A history of colonial
Of high quality are some articles in the first two
Spanish America and Brazil (1983, Cambridge).
volumes of the Cambridge History of Latin America, edited by Leslie Bethell (1983; 1984, Cambridge).
innovative
introductory
is James Lockhart
research
textbook
and
recent article 'Recent anglophone

scholarship on Mexico
study may neglect Eric Van Young's
65
in the Age of Revolution
HAHR
and Central America
pp. 725-743.
(1985),
(1750-1850)',
debate may be of interest: Nancy M. Farriss, Maya
With respect to the development
society under
No
collective enterprise of survival (1984, Princeton); Karen

Spalding, HuarochirL
and Maria
rule (1984, Stanford); Luis Miguel Glave
society under Inca and Spanish
entre los siglos
Isabel Remy, Estructura agraria y vida rural en una region andina: Ollantaytambo
'Hacienda
Indian community relations and
and Erwin Grieshaber,
XVI y XIX (1983, Cuzco),
rule. The
colonial
An Andean
an historiographic
14:3 (1979), pp. 107-128. For the observation
essay', LARR
see his 'Economic
factors and stratification in colonial Spanish America with
Morner,
dictum
63 (1983), pp. 335-369. This reminds us of E.P. Thompson's
special regard to elites', HAHR
informed concepts
that history is about 'an argument between received, inadequate, or ideologically
or hypotheses on the one hand, and fresh and inconvenient evidence on the other.' (The poverty
Indian acculturation:
of Magnus
of theory, 1978, London,
p. 235)
6.
Lucas,
agriculture: Diary 9 of the hacienda San Antonio
'Eighteenth-century Tlaxcalan
in Central Mexico from late colonial times to the
in R. Buve (ed), Haciendas
1765-1766',
Palula,
Revolution (1984, Amsterdam),
pp. 21-83, esp. pp. 22-23
7.
On hacienda
A. Ouweneel
agriculture
in the 1760's see Archivo
General
de Indias, Audiencia
de Mexico,
Legajo
2552.
8.
The Aztecs under Spanish rule. A history of the Indians of the Valley ofMexico,
Gibson,
see pp. 254, 292, 331-332, and 370,
table 25 on p. 330; on Aragon
1519-1810
(1964, Stanford),
Archivo General
see pp. 252 and 331. For Aragon-documents:
de Flores
and on the Molino
Charles
exp. 4; Vol. 917; and Vol. 964, exp. 3. The documents

'Climate, crops, and livestock.
by Susan L. Swan,
of Washington,
State University
Ph. D. Diss.,
Some aspects of colonial Mexican
agriculture',
and Indian towns, 1750
'Creole Mexico:
1977; and by John M. Tutino,
Spanish elites, haciendas
at Austin,
1976; we use the data published
by Swan.
1810', Ph. D. Diss., University of Texas
la Nacion,
of the Molino
de
9.
Delfina
Tierres Vol.
Mexico,
de Flores were also
Conference
32:1 (1982). pp.

10.
Gibson,
Aragon,
11.
Archivo
la parte
analyzed
en el siglo XVIII
and 'Santa Ana
(1957, Mexico),
at the XLIII
Nueva
la
paper
Espana,
presented
indigena
inHistoria Mexicana
at Vancouver,
of Americanists
1979, later published
Una
Lopez Sarrelangue,
una hacienda
comunal
Aragon,
International
991,
villa mexicana
de
1-38.
Aztecs, p. 370. See

pp. 16-17.
also Archivo
General
de
Indias,
Leg.
791, and Lopez
Sarrelangue,
Tierras Vol. 917, exp. 1, f. 23; and Desague,

de la Nacion, Mexico,
General
6, f. 88 (1795). See also Lopez Sarrelangue, Aragon, pp. 23-27.
90
Vol.
28,
12.
'Don Claudio
Pesero
de la hacienda
y la administracion
de Xaltipan
(1734-1737)',
1985, manuscript
Amsterdam.
13.
See Lopez
'Aragon',
Sarrelangue,
Justice by Insurance. The General
Real (1983, Berkeley).
14.
Tutino,
Indian
'Creole Mexico',
p. 303, 320-322, and his masterly article 'Provincial Spaniards,
1750
interrelated agrarian sectors in the Valleys of Mexico
and Toluca,
towns, and haciendas:
Variants of Spanish
and James Lockhart
1810', in Ida Altman
(eds.), Provinces of early Mexico.
American regional evolution (1976, Los Angeles), pp. 177-194. For the documents of Pilares: Archivo
General
15.
The
de la Nacion,
haciendas
are analyzed
16.
de Indios: Woodrow
Borah,
p. 23-27. On the Juzgado General
Indian Court of colonial Mexico
and the Legal Aides of theHalf
On
Vinculos,
Leg.
52-2, 55.
San Andres
and the Casa
of the Colegio
by Peter van der Meer, University of Leiden.
the Central
Mexican
climate:
and Wilhelm
La ciudad y el campo en el Mexico

Central
belts of the vegetation
in the central Mexican
Arctic and Alpine Research V:3 (1973), pp. 99-113; Wilhelm
Arch. Met.
of the Central
Geogh. Bioki,
Mexican
Gibson,
'Creole Mexico',
Tutino,
passim, and 'Provincial
Spaniards',
passim,
Precios del maiz y crisis agricolas enMexico
(1969, Mexico).
(1708-1810)
This
Mexico
Meseta
ser. B., 23 (1975), pp. 343-366.
18.
19.
city
Bataillon,
'The altitudinal
17.
Aztecs,
in Mexico
Claude
Lauer,
(1972, Mexico),
highland and their climatic conditions',
'The thermal circulation
Lauer and Dieter Klaus,
influence of the trade winds',
of the Jesuits
Profesa
region within
p. 323.
is a subject of a book by the author, Werk op schema. Aspecten

in translation.
to be published
(1720-1820),
20.
Gibson,
21.
Ouweneel,
'Palula',
XVIII.
Crecimiento
Aztecs, Appendix
pp.
also
Enrique
van de landbouw
Florescano,
in Centraal
V.
26-45.
were gananes,
people
see James D. Riley,
tlaquehuales
of labor in Tlaxcala,
1680-1750',
farmhands
en la Nueva Espana
also Claude Morin, Michoacdn
del siglo
en una economia colonial (1979, Mexico),
pp. 238, 245. These
On
the differences of gananes
and
living on the hacienda.
laborers and royal government:
the administration
'Landlords,
See
y desigualdad
in E.C. Frost, M.C. Meyer and J. Zoraida

El trabajo
Vazquez,
en la historia de Mexico.
y los trabajadores
pp. 221-241, and 'Crown law and
(1979, Mexico),
rural labor in New Spain: the status of gananes during the eighteenth century', HAHR
64 (1984),
also Herbert
J. Nickel,
Soziale Morphologie
der Mexikanischen
Hacienda
pp. 259-285;
(1978,
e inmovilidad de los trabajadores agricoles en Mexico

and Peonaje
Wiesbaden),
(1980, Bayreuth).
Of much
interest is Arnold J. Bauer,
in Spanish America:
'Rural workers
problems of peonage
and oppression', HAHR
In the traditional view these labourers, often called
59 (1979), pp.34-63.
were presented as living in an informal device of labour coercion,

called peonage
in the mid-nineteenth
view is perfectly
term, appearing
century). The contemporary
in his book Plantation
Gonzalez
expressed by Michael
agriculture and social control inNorthern
Peru, 1875-1933 (1985, Austin), p. 193, though it deals with the Peruvian sugar plantation Cayalti:
debt-peons,
(English
'There is (...) no doubt that laborers were subjected to a regime of debt peonage
on plantations.
at Cayalti debt peonage
never served as a master strategy to form a permanent work
However,
force. In fact, contrary to the traditional interpretation, peonage was not an efficient system of
social control. Planters and contractors both complained
about the large sums of money
that
to peons
they had to advance
and could not be recaptured.
to get them to work, and indebted laborers sometimes ran away

In addition,
the idea of a peon working a lifetime on a coastal
estate, weighed down with debts, was simply impractical.' On theAljarafe: Antonio Herrera Garcia,
El Aljarafe sevillano durante el antiguo regimen (1980, Sevilla).)
22.
Simon Miller,
'Social dislocation
and bourgeois
and Jalisco', Bulletin of Latin American Research
23.
Swan,
'Climate',
pp.
24.
Swan,
'Climate',
figure 12 p. 204 and further; Ouweneel,
on the Mexican
production
2:1 (1982), pp. 72-73.
hacienda:
185-187, table 6.
'Xaltipan',
passim.
91
Queretaro
25.
Gibson,
26.
Simon Miller, The Mexican

hacienda between the Insurgency and the Revolution: maize production
and commercial
16 (1984), pp. 309
triuph on the temporal, Journal of Latin American Studies
336.
27.
Ouweneel,
28.
Note
29.
Ouweneel,
'Palula',
rurales del Colegio
p. 245.
30.
pp. 326-328
Aztecs,
'Palula',
pp. 45-65.
in the church of Zacatelco,

the paintings
Tlaxcala,
Ines Zacatelco,
pp. 14-15.
1648-1812(1913,
Mexico),
Ouweneel,
pp. 28-29; U. Ewald, Estudios sobre la hacienda

(1976, Wiesbaden),
Espiritu Santo en Puebla
colonial
p.
by Morin
enMexico:
in his Santa
las propiedades
142; and Morin,
Michoacdn,
passim.
'Xaltipan',
31.
Swan,
'Climate',
table 1 pp. 62-67
32.
Swan,
'Climate',
table 3 pp. 78-93
33.
Ouweneel,
34.
also mentioned
passim.
'Xaltipan',
not mention
in her Estudios
offers good examples of such ventas
it, Ewald
near the highway. Another
study of a venta was written by Angelica
a Piedras Negras
1580
(Historia de una hacienda Tlaxcalteca,
Huiscolotepec
she does
Although
just outside the city of Puebla
Parker,
San Mateo
1979) (1979,Mexico).
35.
also growing barley and maize, are described by Herman

Sheep haciendas,
hacienda in colonial Mexico.
Santa Lucia, 1576-1767 (1980, Stanford).
36.
Tutino,
'Creole Mexico',
37.
Herbert
J. Nickel,
'Reclutamiento
de los gananes
y peonaje
indigenas de la epoca colonial
Ibero Amerikanisches Archiv NF 5:1 (1979), pp. 71-104.
de Puebla-Tlaxcala',
W.
Konrad,
A Jesuit
pp. 306-307.
en
el altiplano
'Creole Mexico',
similar account was made by Tutino,
pp. 321-336, but was based on different
I think the classification used in this paper shows more clearly the difference between
averages.
farmhands and the
that is the difference between the hacienda
the gananes and the tlaquehuales,
village workers.
38.
39.
See Nickel,
of hacienda
Haciendas,
'The food supply

'Reclutamiento',
passim; Riley, 'Crown Law', passim; and Nickel,
in Buve,
labourers in Puebla-Tlaxcala
during the Porfiriato: a first approximation',
in most
pp. 113-159, for the situation in the 19th century (which was almost equal
respects).
121, and
Nickel,
'Food
41.
Tutino,
'Creole Mexico',
pp. 323.
42.
Tutino,
'Creole Mexico',
passim;
43.
On
40.
supply', p.
127 ff.
and
'Provincial
Spaniards',
pp.
190-193.
Las transformaciones
Trautmann,
irrigation techniques in the early colonial period: Wolfgang
en el paisaje
durante la epoca colonial (1981, Wiesbaden),
cultural de Tlaxcala
specially Ch. 4,
case
tensions: Victor Skipp, Crisis and development. An ecological
pp. 28-65. For the ecological
and I. Carlstein, Time resources, society
study of theForest of Arden, 1570-1674 (1978, Cambridge);
and ecology: on the capacity for human interaction in space and time (1980, Lund). A few interesting
'The plot-plantation
studies on the latifundio-minifundio
system and the
problem: Paul F. Dax,
The
David
Ph.D.
Colombia
of
land
1971;
Diss.,
dynamics of
University,
Grigg,
tenure',
theory
Eduardo Camacho
Rueda, Propiedad
agricultural change. The historical experience (1982, London);
(1984, Sevilla); Felipa

y explotacion agraria en el Aljarafe sevillano: el caso de Pilas (1760-1925)
'Los repartos de tierras concejiles en el Espana del antiguo regimen', inGonzales
Sanchez Salazar,
Anes (ed.), La economia espanola al final del Antiguo Regimen: I. Agricultura
pp.
(1982, Madrid),
1529-1642 (1972, London).
189-258; Lawrence
Stone, The causes of theEnglish Revolution,
92
Appendix
Mandays,
in periods
1:
number of labourers, labour costs, and rations on three Central Mexican
of four weeks, per year
SAN ANTONIO
labour costs i
periods
reales
indices
1163
Labour costs: 1793,period 1

Numberof labourers:1793,period 1
281
453
61076
7767
8323
91
10
56
1147
12
73
13170
Rations
1
1793,
(ifindicated):
period
Rations
of 1794:1794,
I
period
863
I_
615
259
73
45
37
59
136
SANTA ANA ARAGON, Edo deMexico

1767
labourers
periods
mandays
no.
Sources:
indices
161
137
131
127
77
229
266
123
97
168
127
208
157
189
161
154
149
91
269
313
145
114
198
149
245
185
no.
30
24
27
23
12
46
51
29
17
32
28
38
34
100=
1
1793,
Mandays:
period
234
308
4
351
5
566
BASE:
130
2
293
384
3
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
grouped
Tlaxcala
PALULA,
1766
highlands,
indices
193
158
171
146
81
297
329
187
110
206
181
245
219
1768
periods
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
mandays
no.
164
81
76
89
86
168
154
69
60
indices
193
95
89
105
101
198
181
81
71
labourers
no.
33
16
18
20
17
35
36
15
97
16
see notes 6 and 8.
indices
213
103
116
129
110
226
232
103
SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES, Edo deMexico

1791
1792
periods
2
28
22
Sources:
indices
real.
3 179
237437
5 202
385660
524781
189
829
58 99
10 145
2901145
12321
-
31
13-
labour costs
labourers
no.
50
see note
-1
160
185
131
264
408
103
41
113
267
324
128
148
105
211
327
82
33
91
214
259
labour costs
labourers
periods
no.
indices
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
indices
45
15
20
45
29
34
77
32
21
20
35
22
292
93
131
291
190
221
497
206
134
132
224
143
real.
indices
320
103
99 124
244 304
191
153
169211
404 504
123154
138
117
146
206257
98 122
257
82
111
14
1793
periods
2
3
4
Sources:
no.
1
85
48
51
52
87
5
6
216
130 7
145 8
59
89 10
132 11
127 12
109 13
15
9
12
11
21
50
31
37
12
20
28
27
25
see note
100
57
60
61
102
254
153
170
69
105
154
149
128
labour costs
labourers
mandays
no.
indices
indices
100
58
79
73
134
323
198
237
77
132
181
179
163
real.
125
68
64
74
118
267
159
174
68
89
146
142
132
indices
rations
real.
indices
100
100 85
55
46
51
70
59
67
95
133
156
214
293
345
127
191
139
215
253
54
52
71
140 119
117
196
166
114
151
106 112 95
54
83
78
225
61
178
14
1794
periods
no.
1 92
97 2 82
41
49
84
71
45
53
218
6 256
118
101 7
58
67
70
60
19
26
8
14
8
52
27
15
13
78
3
4
5
8
9
10
11
12
13
Sources:
labour costs
labourers
mandays
no.
indices
indices
124
171
48
93
53
334
176
95
84
real.
84
68
49
74
42
211
111
45
56
indices
rations
qlls.
68
100 42
55 151 64
13
39
59
39
34
16
131
169
308
89 116
49
41
36
45
27
indices
32
92
37
98
64
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
see note
--
14
94
1795
1
2
3
141
120
118
222
218
250
229
174
154
-
10
165
140
138
260
255
292
268
203
180
see note
--
--
number
indices
78
58 49
78
92
146124
163138
169144
173147
89
76
57
67
92
--
Percentage
Total
_1_2_3_4_5_6_7_8
19^156
of
6.7
5.4
202
190
242
91
453
385
221
308
269
863
524
497
343
313
615
10
11
12
189 58 145 290 321 206 134 132 224 143 235 226 145 114 198 149 245 185
259 73 45 37 59 136
182 245 236 409~~458" 207
121 130 175 ~192~160

4.2
8.5
8.2
14.3
16.
7.2
4.5
6.1
6.7
on high correlating
years and may
serve to design a model
of four weeks,
of labour.
18th century (1-13=100%)
labourers
=village
=gananes
.
.
2
"/'
**.."
i1 _' 3' 4' s' e1

* ^1 y"Mo'ii1
" ?1
* 'g'c**
13
6.3
number of labourers per period
/ ;/
J V
P
18th century (indices)
99.7%
Figure 3. Average
"
179 237
292 93 131 291
163 137 140 266
189 161 154 149
130 234 308 281
figures are based

1.
appendix
-\
of four weeks,
of labourers per period
Periods _^_
Average
18
1
207
167
157
283
275
338
319
233
206
real.
14
Pilares 1791
Pilares 1792
Pilares 1795
Aragon 1767
Palula 1766
--
--
Haciendas
/0
258
211
196
353
343
422
398
291
257
163
137
140
266
242
308
343
235
226
rations
indices
________
Appendix 2:
of the average
Calculation
Source:
real.
indices
25
21
22
41
37
48
53
36
35
--
12
13
These
no.
________
11
Sources:
4
5
6
7
labour costs
labourers
mandays
no.
indices
periods
~
-
Periods
months
of 4 weeks
of the year -
AMJJ A S 0 N D
95
5.6
Appendix 3:
Schedules
in hacienda
agriculture,
Regular
Maize
Month
January
February
the Gibson
Irrigated
Maize
table
Regular
Wheat
Irrigated
Wheat
Regular
Barley
Irrigated
Barley
harvesting,
harvesting,
storing
winnowing
harvesting,
winnowing
irrigating
plowing
irrigating
harvesting
harvesting plowing,
harvesting
irrigating
harvesting
Beans
(Frijoles)
irrigating
harvesting
storing
Marchplowing,
sowing
April
plowing,
sowing
sowing
May
June
plowing,
sowing
sowing,
first labor
weeding,
first labor,
second labor
weeding,
labor
July
second
August
other labores,
sowing
sowing
harvesting
sowing
sowing,
winnowing
sowing,
irrigating
irrigating
weeding
weeding
weeding
winnowing
weeding
sowing
sowing
mounding
September
mounding
October
guarding
plowing
plowing
harvesting harvesting sowing
harvesting sowing,
harvesting
irrigating
November guarding,
harvesting harvesting sowing
harvesting
December
harvesting
harvesting sowing,
irrigating
harvesting
irrigating
harvesting
sowing,
irrigating
Gibson,
Aztecs,
table 25 p. 330. See note 8 of our text.
96
harvesting
Appendix
4: Location
of Arag6n,
Pilares,
Palula
and Xaltipan
i i !
-Si
2:5
SIID*
o.
//
ii" &/
\
^^^^^^^
'^^^
<>
<
Map: A.C.
economies
van Oss, Architectural

activity, demography
JbLA 16 (1979), p. 143.
of colonial Mexico',
and economic
diversification:
regional
97

Ouweneel 1986 - BELC - Schedules in Hacienda Agriculture - Aragon &amp; Pilares 1765-95

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SCHEDULES IN HACIENDA AGRICULTURE: THE CASES OF SANTA ANA ARAGON (1765-1768) AND

SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES (1793-1795), VALLEY OF MEXICO

THE CASES OF SANTA ANA ARAGON (1765-1768) AND

The scene: Palula, Aragon and Pilares

Map 2. THE FIELDS OF THE HACIENDA SANTA ANA ARAGON, 1766-1768

of sixty years of agrarian activity on Central Mexican wheat haciendas is covered.

there were 18 man manuring

reservoirs had to be exhausted to satisfy the need of the crops, again

to serve passing mule-trains that spent a night on the hacienda's pastures.

Correlation of schedules and labour

Table 1.COEFFICIENTS OF RELATION OF SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES, MANDAYS,

coefficients are positive.

Table 2. SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES, 1791- 1795,COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION;

TOTAL NUMBER OF LABOURERS

coefficients are positive, with

1792 .779 All

Table 3. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION OF SAN ANTONIO PALULA, SANTA ANA

All coefficients are positive,

see notes 6, 8, 14.

These differences may be explained by looking at the results of the cultivation

the use of labour on Central Mexican

1793, 1794, 1795 (numbers

number of weeks in services

average number of days

see note 14. The average number of days

the villages had was that of greater intensification of their already

The rape of the peasantry: Latin America's

sobre terrenos baldios (1895, Mexico);

Francois Chevalier, La formation des grands

focusing on social history and incorporating a mass of recent

recent article 'Recent anglophone

collective enterprise of survival (1984, Princeton); Karen

of theory, 1978, London,

in the 1760's see Archivo

exp. 4; Vol. 917; and Vol. 964, exp. 3. The documents

32:1 (1982). pp.

Aztecs, p. 370. See

791, and Lopez

Tierras Vol. 917, exp. 1, f. 23; and Desague,

La ciudad y el campo en el Mexico

ser. B., 23 (1975), pp. 343-366.

is a subject of a book by the author, Werk op schema. Aspecten

in E.C. Frost, M.C. Meyer and J. Zoraida

e inmovilidad de los trabajadores agricoles en Mexico

were presented as living in an informal device of labour coercion,

to get them to work, and indebted laborers sometimes ran away

figure 12 p. 204 and further; Ouweneel,

Simon Miller, The Mexican

in the church of Zacatelco,

pp. 28-29; U. Ewald, Estudios sobre la hacienda

142; and Morin,

table 1 pp. 62-67

table 3 pp. 78-93

also growing barley and maize, are described by Herman

'The food supply

(1984, Sevilla); Felipa

Labour costs: 1793,period 1

SANTA ANA ARAGON, Edo deMexico

see notes 6 and 8.

SAN NICOLAS DE LOS PILARES, Edo deMexico

182 245 236 409~~458" 207

121 130 175 ~192~160

years and may

serve to design a model

Ouweneel 1986 - BELC - Schedules in Hacienda Agriculture - Aragon & Pilares 1765-95

Ouweneel 1986 - BELC - Schedules in Hacienda Agriculture - Aragon & Pilares 1765-95