![San Antonio Coapa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/San_Antonio_Coapa.jpg)
Before the 1910
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, most land in post-independence Mexico was owned by wealthy Mexicans and foreigners, with small holders and indigenous communities possessing little productive land. During the
colonial era, the Spanish crown protected holdings of indigenous communities that were mostly engaged in
subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...
to countervail the ''
encomienda
The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...
'' and ''
repartimiento
The ''Repartimiento'' () (Spanish, "distribution, partition, or division") was a colonial labor system imposed upon the indigenous population of Spanish America. In concept, it was similar to other tribute-labor systems, such as the ''mit'a'' of t ...
'' systems. In the 19th century, Mexican elites consolidated large landed estates (
''haciendas'') in many parts of the country while small holders, many of whom were mixed-race
mestizo
(; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...
s, engaged with the commercial economy.
After the
War of Independence
This is a list of wars of independence (also called liberation wars). These wars may or may not have been successful in achieving a goal of independence.
List
See also
* Lists of active separatist movements
* List of civil wars
* List of o ...
, Mexican liberals sought to modernize the economy, promoting
commercial agriculture
Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of crop plants and of animals, with higher levels of input and output per unit of ag ...
through the dissolution of common lands, most of which were then property of the Catholic Church, and indigenous communities. When liberals came to power in the mid nineteenth century, they
implemented laws that mandated the breakup and sale of these corporate lands. When liberal general
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
took office in 1877, he embarked on a more sweeping program of modernization and economic development. His land policies sought to attract foreign investment to Mexican mining, agriculture, and ranching, resulting in Mexican and foreign investors controlling the majority of Mexican territory by the outbreak of the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
in 1910. Peasant mobilization against landed elites during the revolution prompted
land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
in the post-revolutionary period and led to the creation of the ''
ejido
An ''ejido'' (, from Latin ''exitum'') is an area of communal land used for agriculture in which community members have usufruct rights rather than ownership rights to land, which in Mexico is held by the Mexican state. People awarded ejidos in ...
'' system, enshrined in the
Mexican Constitution of 1917
The Constitution of Mexico, formally the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States ( es, Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in th ...
.
During the first five years of agrarian reform, very few hectares were distributed. Land reform attempts by past leaders and governments proved futile, as the revolution from 1910 to 1920 had been a battle of dependent labor, capitalism, and industrial ownership. Fixing the agrarian problem was a question of education, methods, and creating new social relationships through co-operative effort and government assistance. Initially the agrarian reform led to the development of many ejidos for communal land use, while parceled ejidos emerged in the later years. Land reform in Mexico ended in 1991 after the
Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...
amended Article 27 of the Constitution.
History of land tenure in Central Mexico
Land tenure in Mexico has over the long term seen the transfer of lands into the hands of private proprietors engaged in agricultural production for profit. But the social and economic problems that resulted from this concentration of ownership brought reformist solutions that attempted to reverse this trend. In the current era, there is a retreat from agrarian land reform and a return to consolidation of land holding of large enterprises.
Prehispanic era
The rich lands of central and southern Mexico were the home to dense, hierarchically organized, settled populations that produced agricultural surpluses, allowing the development of sectors that did not directly cultivate the soil. These populations lived in settlements and held land in common, although generally they worked individual plots. During the
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
period, roughly 1450 to 1521, the
Nahuas
The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...
of central Mexico had names for civil categories of land, many of which persisted into the colonial era. There were special lands attached to the office of ruler (''
tlatoani
''Tlatoani'' ( , "one who speaks, ruler"; plural ' or tlatoque) is the Classical Nahuatl term for the ruler of an , a pre-Hispanic state. It is the noun form of the verb "tlahtoa" meaning "speak, command, rule". As a result, it has been various ...
'') called ''tlatocatlalli''; land devoted to the support of temples, ''tecpantlalli'', but also private lands of the nobility, ''pillalli''. Lands owned by the ''
calpulli'', the local kin-based social organization, were ''calpullalli''. Most commoners held individual plots of land, often in scattered locations, which were worked by a family and rights passed to subsequent generations. A community member could lose those
usufruct
Usufruct () is a limited real right (or ''in rem'' right) found in civil-law and mixed jurisdictions that unites the two property interests of ''usus'' and ''fructus'':
* ''Usus'' (''use'') is the right to use or enjoy a thing possessed, directl ...
rights if they did not cultivate the land. A person could lose land as a result of gambling debts, a type of alienation from which the inference can be drawn that land was private property.
It is important to note that there were lands classified as "purchased land" (in Nahuatl, ''tlalcohualli''). In the
Texcoco area, there were prehispanic legal rules for land sales, indicating that transfers by sale were not a post-conquest innovation. Local-level records in
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
from the 16th century show that individuals and community members kept track of these categories, including purchased land, and often the previous owners of particular plots.
Colonial era
![Oztoticpac_Lands_Aztec_1540_milcocolli_tlahuelmantli](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Oztoticpac_Lands_Aztec_1540_milcocolli_tlahuelmantli.jpg)
After the
Spanish conquest of central Mexico in the early 16th century, indigenous land tenure was initially left intact, with the exception of the disappearance of lands devoted to the gods.
[Charles Gibson, ''The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule''. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1964.] A 16th-century Spanish judge in New Spain, Alonso de Zorita, collected extensive information about the Nahuas in the Cuauhtinchan region, including land tenure. Zorita notes there was a diversity of land tenure in central Mexico, so that if the information he gives for one place contradicts information in another it is due to that very diversity. Zorita, along with Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, a member of the noble family that ruled Texcoco, and Franciscan
Fray Juan de Torquemada
Juan de Torquemada (c. 1562 – 1624) was a Franciscan friar, active as missionary in colonial Mexico and considered the "leading Franciscan chronicler of his generation." Administrator, engineer, architect and ethnographer, he is most fam ...
are the most important sources for prehispanic and early colonial indigenous land tenure in central Mexico.
There is considerable documentation on indigenous land holding, including estates held by indigenous lords (
cacique
A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a Spa ...
s), known as
cacicazgo
''Cacicazgo'' is a phonetic Spanish transliteration (or a derivative) of the Taíno word for the lands ruled by a ''cacique''. The Spanish colonial system recognized indigenous elites as nobles in Mexico and Peru, and other areas. Nobles could en ...
s. Litigation over title to property date from the very early colonial era. Most notable is the dispute over lands held by don
Carlos Ometochtzin of Texcoco, who was executed by the inquisition in 1539. The
Oztoticpac Lands Map of Texcoco
The Oztoticpac Lands Map of Texcoco is a pictorial Aztec codex on native paper (''amatl'') from Texcoco ca. 1540. It is held by the manuscript division of the Library of Congress, measuring and now on display in the Library of Congress as part o ...
is documentation for the dispute following his death.
In early
colonial Mexico
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 au ...
, many Spanish conquerors (and a few indigenous allies) received grants of labor and tribute from particular indigenous communities as rewards for services via an institution called
encomienda
The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...
. These grants did not include land, which in the immediate post-conquest era was not as important as the tribute and labor service that Indians could provide as a continuation from the prehispanic period. Spaniards were interested in appropriating products and labor from their grants, but they saw no need to acquire the land itself. The crown began to phase out the encomienda in the mid-16th century, limiting the number of times the grant could be inherited. At the same time, decreases in indigenous populations and Spanish migration to Mexico created a demand for foodstuffs familiar to them, such as wheat rather than maize, European fruits, and animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats for meat and hides or wool. Spaniards began acquiring land and securing labor separate from the encomienda grants. This was the initial stage of the formation of Spanish landed estates.
Spaniards bought land from individual Indians and from Indian communities; they also usurped Indians’ land; and they occupied land that was deemed "empty" (''terrenos baldíos'') and requested grants (''mercedes'') to acquire title to it. There is evidence that nobles sold common land to Spaniards, treating that land as private property. Some Indians were alarmed at this transfer of land, and explicitly forbade sale of land to Spaniards.
The Spanish crown was concerned about the material welfare of its indigenous vassals and in 1567 set aside an endowment of land adjacent to Indian towns that were legally held by the community, the ''fundo legal'', initially 500 ''varas''. The legal framework for these entailed indigenous community lands was the establishment of settlements (designated ''pueblos de indios'' or merely ''pueblos'') as legal entities in Spanish colonial law, with a framework for rule established with via the town council (''
cabildo''). Land traditionally held by pueblos was now transformed to entailed community lands. There was not a unitary process of the creation of these lands, but a combination of claims based on occupation and use since time immemorial, grants, purchase, and a process of regularization of land titles via a process known as ''composición''.
To protect Indians' legal rights, the Spanish crown also set up the
General Indian Court in 1590, where Indians and indigenous communities could litigate over property. Although the ''Juzgado de Naturales'' supposedly did not have jurisdiction in cases where Indians sought redress against Spaniards, an analysis of the actual cases shows that a high percentage of the court's casework included such complaints. For the Spanish crown, the court not only protected the interests of its Indian vassals, but it was also a way to rein in Spaniards who might seek greater autonomy from the crown.
Indian communities experienced devastating population losses due to epidemics, which meant that there was for a period more land than individual Indians or Indian communities needed. The crown attempted to cluster remaining indigenous populations, relocating them in new communities in a process known as ''congregacion'' or ''
reducción'', with mixed results. During this period Spaniards acquired land, often with no immediate damage to Indians’ access to land. In the 17th century, Indian populations began to recover, but the loss of land could not be reversed. Indian communities rented land to Spanish
haciendas
An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or ''finca''), similar to a Roman ''latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), ...
, which over time left those lands vulnerable to appropriation. There were crown regulations about sale or rental of Indian lands, with requirements for the public posting of the proposed transaction and an investigation as to whether the land on offer was, in fact, the property of the ones offering it.
Since the crown held title to all vacant land in Central Mexico, it could grant title to whomever it chose. In theory, there was to be an investigation to see if there were claims on the property, with notice given to those in the vicinity of the proposed grant. The Spanish crown granted ''mercedes'' to favored Spaniards, and in the case of the conqueror
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...
, created the entailment of the
Marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca.
In the 17th century, there was a push to regularize land titles via the process of ''composición'', in which for a fee paid to the crown clouded titles could be cleared, and indigenous communities had to prove title to land that they had held "since time immemorial," as the legal phrase went. This was the period when Spaniards began regularizing their titles via composición.
Landless or land-poor Indians were often driven to sell their labor to Spanish landed estates,
hacienda
An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or ''finca''), similar to a Roman ''latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), ...
s on a seasonal basis. Others took up residence on haciendas on a permanent basis. Others migrated to the cities or to other regions, such as the northern mining districts where labor was well paid. However, many indigenous communities continued to exist with the fundo legal held in common a guarantee of some access to land.
In the 18th century, the Spanish crown was concerned about concentration of land in the hands of a few in Spain and the lack of productiveness of those landed estates.
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (born Gaspar Melchor de Jove y Llanos, 5 January 1744 – 27 November 1811) was a Spanish neoclassical statesman, author, philosopher and a major figure of the Age of Enlightenment in Spain.
Life and influence of ...
drafted the ''
Informe para una ley Agraria'' ("A report for an Agrarian Law") published in 1795 for the Royal Society of Friends of the Country of Madrid ("
:es:Real Sociedad Económica Matritense de Amigos del País") calling for reform. He saw the need for disentailment of landed estates, sale of land owned by the Catholic Church and privatizing common lands as key to making agriculture more productive in Spain. Barriers to productive use of land and a real estate market that would attract investors kept land scare and prices high and for investors was not a profitable enough enterprise to enter agriculture. Jovellanos was influenced by
Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——— ...
’s ''
The Wealth of Nations
''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', generally referred to by its shortened title ''The Wealth of Nations'', is the ''magnum opus'' of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in 1 ...
'' (1776), which asserted that the impetus for economic activity was self-interest.
![Francisco de Goya y Lucientes - Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Francisco_de_Goya_y_Lucientes_-_Gaspar_Melchor_de_Jovellanos.jpg)
Jovellanos’s writings influenced (without attribution) a prominent cleric in independence-era
New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
,
Manuel Abad y Queipo
Manuel Abad y Queipo (26 August 1751 – 15 September 1825) was a Spanish Roman Catholic Bishop of Michoacán in the Viceroyalty of New Spain at the time of the Mexican War of Independence. He was "an acute social commentator of late colonial Me ...
, who compiled copious data about the agrarian situation in the late 18th century and who conveyed it to
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...
. Humboldt incorporated it into his ''Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain'',
[Brading, ''The First America'', p. 568.] an important text on economic and social conditions in New Spain around 1800. Abad y Queipo "fixed upon the inequitable distribution of property as the chief cause of New Spain’s social squalor and advocated ownership of land as the chief remedy."
![StatueAlexHumboldtMexico](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/StatueAlexHumboldtMexico.JPG)
The crown did not undertake major land reform in New Spain, but it moved against the wealthy and influential
Society of Jesus
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
in its realms, expelling them in 1767. In Mexico, the Jesuits had created prosperous haciendas whose profits helped fund the Jesuits’ missions in northern Mexico and its ''colegios'' for elite American-born Spaniards. The most well-studied of the Jesuit haciendas in Mexico is that Santa Lucía. With their expulsion, their estates were sold, mainly to private-land owning elites. Although the Jesuits owned and ran large estates, in Mexico the more common pattern was for the Church to extend credit to private individuals of means for long-term real estate mortgages. Small holders had little access to credit, which meant it was difficult for them to acquire property or expand their operations, thereby privileging large land owners over small.
The landed elite and the Catholic Church as an institution were closely connected financially. The church was the recipient of donations for pious works (''obras pías'') for particular charities as well as chantries (''capellanías)''. Through the institution of the chantry, a family would lien income from a particular piece of property to pay a priest to say masses for the soul of the one endowing the funds. In many cases, families had sons who had become priests and the chantry became a source of income for the family member. At the turn of the 19th century the Spanish crown attempted to tap what it thought was the vast wealth of the church by demanding that those holding mortgages pay the principal as a lump sum immediately rather than incrementally over the long term. The Act of Consolidation in 1804 threatened to bring down the whole structure of credit to landed elites who were seldom in the position of enough liquidity. Bishop-elect of Michoacan Manuel Abad y Queipo protested the crown's demands and drafted a lengthy memorial to the crown analyzing the situation. From the point of view of the landed elite, the crown's demands were "a savage capital levy" which would "destroy the country’s credit system and drain the economy of its currency."
The availability of credit had enabled haciendas to increase in size, but they were not efficiently run in general, with much land not planted. Hacienda owners were reluctant to lease lands to Indians for fear that they would then claim land as part of the fundo legal for a newly established community. Abad y Queipo concluded "The indivisibility of haciendas, the difficulty in managing them, the lack of property among the people, has produced and continues to produce deplorable effects for agriculture, for the population, and for the State in general." One scholar has suggested that "Abad y Queipo is best regarded as the intellectual progenitor of Mexican Liberalism." Mexican liberalism in mid-19th-century
Reforma
REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, more commonly known as REFORMA, is an affiliate of the American Library Association formed in 1971 to promote library services to Lati ...
attacked the legal basis of corporate land ownership of the
Catholic Church in Mexico
, native_name_lang =
, image = Catedral_de_México.jpg
, imagewidth = 250px
, alt =
, caption = The Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.
, abbreviation =
, type = ...
and indigenous communities, seeking these reforms to create a nation of small yeoman farmers. Once Mexico achieved independence in 1821, the paternalistic crown protections of the Indians institutionalized in the General Indian Court and the special status of Indians before the law ceased to exist, leaving the indigenous population and their lands vulnerable to those more powerful.
Insurgency for independence and agrarian violence 1810–21
The outbreak of the insurgency in September 1810 led by secular cleric
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
Don (honorific), Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor (8 May 1753 – 30 July 1811), more commonly known as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or Miguel Hidalgo (), was a Catholic priest, leader ...
was joined by Indians and castas in huge numbers in the commercial agricultural region of the Bajío. The Bajío did not have an established sedentary indigenous population prior to the arrival of the Spaniards even though the area had fertile soils. Once the Spanish defeated fierce northern indigenous from the region, Spaniards created towns and commercial agricultural enterprises that were cultivated by workers who had no rights to land via indigenous communities. Workers were dependent on the haciendas for employment and sustenance. When Hidalgo denounced bad government to his parishioners during the
Cry of Dolores
The Cry of Dolores ( es, Grito de Dolores, links=no, region=MX) occurred in Dolores, Mexico, on 16 September 1810, when Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang his church bell and gave the call to arms that triggered the Mexican War ...
, he quickly gained a following, which then expanded to tens of thousands.
![Orozco Hidalgo mural](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Orozco_Hidalgo_mural.jpg)
The Spanish crown had not seen such a challenge from below during its nearly 300 years of colonial rule. Most rural protests were brief, had local grievances, and were resolved quickly often in the colonial courts. Hidalgo's political call for a rising against bad government during the period when Napoleon's forces controlled the Iberian peninsula and Spain's Bourbon monarch had been forced to abdicate in favor of Joseph Bonaparte meant that there was a crisis of authority and legitimacy in the Spanish empire, touching off the
Spanish American wars of independence
The Spanish American wars of independence (25 September 1808 – 29 September 1833; es, Guerras de independencia hispanoamericanas) were numerous wars in Spanish America with the aim of political independence from Spanish rule during the early ...
.
Until Hidalgo's revolt, there had been no large mobilization in New Spain. It has been argued that the perception that the ruling elites were divided in 1810, embodied in the authority figure of a Spanish priest denouncing bad government, gave the masses in the Bajío the idea that violent rebellion might succeed in changing their circumstances for the better. Those following Hidalgo's call went from town to town in the Bajío, looting and sacking haciendas in their path. Hacendados did not resist, but watched the destruction unfold, since they had no means to effectively suppress it. Hidalgo had hoped to gain the support of creole elites for the cause of independence and he tried to prevent attacks on haciendas owned by potential supporters, but the mob made no distinction between Iberian-born Spaniards’ estates and those of American-born Spaniards. Any support those creole estate owners might have for independence disappeared as the mob destroyed their property. Although for the largely landless peasants of the Bajío inequality of land ownership fueled their violence, Hidalgo himself did not have an economic program of land reform. Only after Hidalgo's defeat on the march to Mexico City did he issue a proclamation to return lands rented by villages to their residents.
Hidalgo appealed to indigenous communities in central Mexico to join his movement, but they did not. It is argued that the crown's protection of indigenous communities’ rights and lands made them loyal to the regime and that the symbiotic relationship between indigenous communities and haciendas created a strong economic incentive to preserve the existing relationships. In central Mexico, loss of land was incremental so that there was no perception that the crown or the haciendas were the agents of the difficulties of the indigenous. Although the Hidalgo revolt showed the extent of mass discontent among some rural populations, it was a short-lived regional revolt that did not expand beyond the Bajío.
![Vicente Guerrero (1865)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Vicente_Guerrero_%281865%29.png)
More successful in demonstrating that agrarian violence could achieve gains for peasants was the guerrilla warfare that continued after the failure of the Hidalgo revolt and the execution of its leaders. Rather than a massed group of men attempting to achieve a quick and decisive victory pitted against the small but effective royal army, guerrilla warfare waged over time undermined the security and stability of the colonial regime. The survival of guerrilla movements was dependent on support from surrounding villages and the continuing violence undermined the local economies, however, they did not formulate an ideology of agrarian reform.
Hidalgo did not formulate a program of land reform, although the inequality of land ownership was at the core of the Bajío peasants’ economic situation. The political plan of secular priest
José María Morelos
José María Teclo Morelos Pérez y Pavón () (30 September 1765 – 22 December 1815) was a Mexican Catholic priest, statesman and military leader who led the Mexican War of Independence movement, assuming its leadership after the execution of ...
likewise did not revolve around land reform, nor did the Plan de Iguala of
Agustín de Iturbide
Agustín de Iturbide (; 27 September 178319 July 1824), full name Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu and also known as Agustín of Mexico, was a Mexican army general and politician. During the Mexican War of Independence, he built a ...
. But the alliance that former royalist officer Iturbide with guerrilla leader
Vicente Guerrero
Vicente Ramón Guerrero (; baptized August 10, 1782 – February 14, 1831) was one of the leading revolutionary generals of the Mexican War of Independence. He fought against Spain for independence in the early 19th century, and later served as ...
to create the
Army of the Three Guarantees
At the end of the Mexican War of Independence, the Army of the Three Guarantees ( es, Ejército Trigarante or ) was the name given to the army after the unification of the Spanish troops led by Agustín de Iturbide and the Mexican insurgent troo ...
that bought about Mexican independence in September 1821 is rooted in the political force that agrarian guerrillas exerted. The agrarian violence of the independence era was the start of more than a century of peasant struggle.
Post-independence era, 1821–1910
Armed peasant struggle to regain land
As a response to the loss of land, a number of indigenous communities sought to regain land through rebellion in post-independence Mexico. In the nineteenth century, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, central Mexico, Yucatan, and the northwest regions of the Yaqui and Mayo saw serious rebellions. The
Caste War of Yucatan
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural ...
and the
Yaqui Wars
The Yaqui Wars, were a series of armed conflicts between New Spain, and its successor state, the Mexican Republic, against the Yaqui Natives. The period began in 1533 and lasted until 1929. The Yaqui Wars, along with the Caste War against the M ...
were lengthy conflicts, lasting into the twentieth century. During the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, many peasants fought for the return of community lands, most notably in Morelos under the leadership of
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar (; August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919) was a Mexican revolutionary. He was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, the main leader of the people's revolution in the Mexican state of Morelos, and the ins ...
. Armed struggle or its threat were key to the post-revolutionary Mexican government's approach to land reform. Land reform "helped to stifle peasant revolts, succeeded in modifying land tenure relationships, and was of paramount importance in the institutionalization of the new regime."
Liberal reform and the 1856 Lerdo Law
In the years previous to the
Reform War
The Reform War, or War of Reform ( es, Guerra de Reforma), also known as the Three Years' War ( es, Guerra de los Tres Años), was a civil war in Mexico lasting from January 11, 1858 to January 11, 1861, fought between liberals and conservativ ...
, a series of reforms were instituted by the liberals who came to power following the ouster of
Antonio López de Santa Anna
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (; 21 February 1794 – 21 June 1876),Callcott, Wilfred H., "Santa Anna, Antonio Lopez De,''Handbook of Texas Online'' Retrieved 18 April 2017. usually known as Santa Ann ...
in 1854 and were aimed at restructuring the country under liberal principles. These laws were known as
Reform Laws
The Reform War, or War of Reform ( es, Guerra de Reforma), also known as the Three Years' War ( es, Guerra de los Tres Años), was a civil war in Mexico lasting from January 11, 1858 to January 11, 1861, fought between liberals and conservativ ...
(known in Spanish as ''Leyes de Reforma''). One of these laws dealt with all concepts related to land tenure and was named after the Finance Minister,
Miguel Lerdo de Tejada
Miguel Lerdo de Tejada (July 6, 1812 – March 22, 1861) was a Mexican statesman, a leader of the Revolution of Ayutla, and author of the Lerdo Law, extinguishing the right of corporations, including the Roman Catholic Church and indigenous ...
.
The
Lerdo Law
The Lerdo Law (Spanish: ''Ley Lerdo'') was the common name for the Reform law that was formally known as the Confiscation of Law and Urban Ruins of the Civil and Religious Corporations of Mexico. It targeted not only property owned by the Cathol ...
(known in Spanish as ''
Ley Lerdo'') empowered the Mexican state to force the sale of corporately held property, specifically those of the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in Mexico and the lands held by indigenous communities. The Lerdo Law did not directly expropriate ecclesiastical property or peasant communities but were to be sold to those renting the properties and the price to be amortized over 20 years. Properties not being rented or claimed could be auctioned. The church and indigenous communities were to receive the proceeds of the sale and the state would receive a transaction tax payment. Not all church land was confiscated; however, land not used for specific religious purposes was sold to private individuals.
This law changed the nature of land ownership allowing more individuals to own land, rather than institutions.
One of the aims of the reform government was to develop the economy by returning to productive cultivation the underutilized lands of the Church and the municipal communities (Indian commons), which required the distribution of these lands to small owners. This was to be accomplished through the provisions of Ley Lerdo that prohibited ownership of land by the Church and the municipalities. The reform government also financed its war effort by seizing and selling church property and other large estates.
The aim of the Lerdo Law with Indian corporate land was to transform Indian peasants pursuing subsistence agriculture into Mexican yeoman farmers. This did not happen. Most Indian land was acquired by large estates, which had the means to purchase it and made Indians even further dependent on landed estates.
Porfiriato - Land expropriation and foreign ownership (1876-1910)
![Porfirio Diaz in uniform](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Porfirio_Diaz_in_uniform.jpg)
During the presidency of liberal general
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
, the regime embarked on a sweeping project of modernization, inviting foreign entrepreneurs to invest in Mexican mining, agriculture, industry, and infrastructure. The laws of the Liberal Reform established the basis for extinguishing corporate ownership of land by the Roman Catholic Church and indigenous communities. The liberal regime under Díaz vastly expanded the state's role in land policy by mandating that so-called "unoccupied lands" (''terrenos baldíos'') be surveyed and opened to development by Mexicans and foreign individuals and corporate entities. The government hired private survey companies for all land not previously surveyed so that land could then be sold, while the company would retain one-third of the land its surveyed. The surveys were intended to give buyers security of title to the land they bought and was a tool in encouraging investment. For Mexicans who could not prove title to land or had informal usufruct rights to pastures and woodlands, the surveys put an end to such common usage and put land into private hands. The regime's aim was that the land would then become more efficiently used and productive.
There were many absentee investors from the U.S. who were involved in finance or other business enterprises, including
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...
and wheat magnate
William Wallace Cargill
William Wallace Cargill (December 15, 1844 – October 17, 1909) was an American businessman. In 1865, he founded Cargill, which by 2008 was the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue, employing over 150, ...
, who bought land from survey companies or from private Mexican estate owners. Díaz loyalists, such
Matías Romero
Matías Romero Avendaño (24 February 1837 – 30 December 1898) was a Mexican politician and diplomat who served three times as Secretary of Finance and twice as ambassador of Mexico to the United States during the 19th century.
Early life
R ...
,
José Yves Limantour
José Yves Limantour Marquet (; 26 December 1854 – 26 August 1935) was a Mexican financier who served as Secretary of the Finance of Mexico from 1893 until the fall of the Porfirio Díaz regime in 1911. Limantour established the gold standa ...
, and
Manuel Romero Rubio, as well as the Díaz family took advantage of the opportunities to increase their wealth by acquiring large tracts of land. Investors in productive land further increased its value by their proximity to railway lines that linked properties to regional and international markets. Some entrepreneurs built spur railway lines to connect with the trunk lines. U.S. investors acquired land along the Mexico's northern border, especially Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, but also on both coasts as well as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
The situation of landless Mexicans became increasingly worse, so that by the end of the Porfiriato, virtually all (95%) of villages lost their lands. In Morelos, the expansion of sugar plantations triggered peasant protests against the Díaz regime and were a major factor in the outbreak and outcomes of the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
. There was resistance in Michoacán.
Land loss accelerated for small holders during the Porfiriato as well as indigenous communities. Small holders were further disadvantaged in that they could not get bank loans for their enterprises since the amounts were not worth the expense to the bank of assessing the property. Molina Enríquez's work published just prior to the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution had a tremendous impact on the legal framework on land tenure that was codified in Article 27 of the
Mexican Constitution of 1917
The Constitution of Mexico, formally the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States ( es, Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in th ...
. Peasant mobilization during the Revolution brought about state-directed land reform, but the intellectual and legal framework for how it was accomplished is extremely important.
Calls for land reform
![Partido Liberal Mexicano button 1911](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Partido_Liberal_Mexicano_button_1911.svg)
In 1906, the
Liberal Party of Mexico
The Mexican Liberal Party (PLM; es, Partido Liberal Mexicano) was started in August 1900 when engineer Camilo Arriaga published a manifesto entitled ''Invitacion al Partido Liberal'' (Invitation to the Liberal Party). The invitation was addr ...
wrote a program of specific demands, many of which were incorporated into the
Constitution of 1917
The Constitution of Mexico, formally the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States ( es, Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in th ...
. Leftist
Ricardo Flores Magón
Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magón (, known as Ricardo Flores Magón; September 16, 1874 – November 21, 1922) was a noted Mexican anarchist and social reform activist. His brothers Enrique and Jesús were also active in politics. Followers of ...
was president of the PLM and his brother
Enrique Flores Magón
Enrique Flores Magón (13 April 1877 – 28 October 1954) was a Mexican journalist and politician, associated with the Mexican Liberal Party and anarchism. His name is most frequently linked with that of his elder brother, Ricardo Flores Mag ...
was treasurer. Two demands that were adopted were (Point 34) that landowners needed to make their land productive or risk confiscation by the state. (Point 35) demands that "The Government will grant land to anyone who solicits it, without any conditions other than that the land be used for agricultural production and not be sold. The maximum amount of land that the Government may allot to one person will be fixed."
A key influence on agrarian land reform in revolutionary Mexico was of
Andrés Molina Enríquez Andrés Molina Enríquez (November 30, 1868, Jilotepec de Abasolo, State of Mexico – 1940) was a Mexican revolutionary intellectual, author of ''The Great National Problems '' (1909) which drew on his experiences as a notary and Justice of the Pe ...
, who is considered the intellectual father of Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution. His 1909 book, ''Los Grandes Problemas Nacionales'' (The Great National Problems) laid out his analysis of Mexico's unequal land tenure system and his vision of land reform. On his mother's side Molina Enríquez had come from a prominent, politically well-connected, land-owning family, but his father's side was from a far more modest background and he himself had modest circumstances. For nine years in the late 19th century, Molina Enríquez was a notary in Mexico State, where he observed first-hand how the legal system in Porfirian Mexico was slanted in favor of large estate owners, as he dealt with large estate owners (''hacendados''), small holders (''rancheros''), and peasants who were buying, transferring, or titling land. In his observations, it was not the large estates or the subsistence peasants that produced the largest amount of maize in the region, but rather the ''rancheros''; he considered the hacendado group "inherently evil". In his views on the need for land reform in Mexico, he advocated for the increase in the ranchero group.
In ''The Great National Problems'', Molina Enríquez concluded that the Porfirio Díaz regime had promoted the growth of large haciendas although they were not as productive as small holdings. Citing his nearly decade long tenure as a notary, his claims were well-founded that haciendas were vastly under-assessed for tax purposes and that small holders were disadvantaged against the wealth and political connections of large estate owners. Since title transfers of property required payment of fees and that the fee was high enough to negatively affect small holders but not large. In addition, the local tax on title transfers was based on a property's assessment, so in a similar fashion, small holders paid a higher percentage than large holders who had ample means to pay such taxes. Large estates often occupied more land than they actually held title to, counting on their size and clout to survive challenges by those on whom they infringed. A great number of individual small holders had only imperfect title to their land, some no title at all, so that Díaz's requirement that land be properly titled or be subject to appropriation under the "vacant lands" law (''terrenos baldíos'') meant that they were at risk for losing their land. Indian pueblos also lost their land, but the two processes of land loss were not one and the same.
Land reform, 1911-1946
The
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
reversed the Porfirian trend towards land concentration and set in motion a long process of agrarian mobilization that the post-revolutionary state sought to control and prevent further major peasant uprisings. The power and legitimacy of the traditional landlord class, which had underpinned Porfirian rule, never recovered. The radical and egalitarian sentiments produced by the revolution had made landlord rule of the old kind impossible, but the Mexican state moved to stifle peasant mobilization and the recreation of indigenous community power.
Revolutionary peasant movements
![Emiliano Zapata - LOC](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Emiliano_Zapata_-_LOC.jpg)
During the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, two leaders stand out as carrying out immediate land reform without formal state intervention,
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar (; August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919) was a Mexican revolutionary. He was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, the main leader of the people's revolution in the Mexican state of Morelos, and the ins ...
in the state of Morelos and
in northern Mexico. Although the political program of wealthy northern landowner
Francisco I. Madero
Francisco Ignacio Madero González (; 30 October 1873 – 22 February 1913) was a Mexican businessman, revolutionary, writer and statesman, who became the 37th president of Mexico from 1911 until he was deposed in a coup d'etat in February 1 ...
, the
Plan of San Luis Potosí
230px, Francisco I. Madero, future President of Mexico
The Plan of San Luis de Potosí () is a key political document of the Mexican Revolution, written by Mexican presidential candidate Francisco I. Madero, following his escape from jail. He ...
, promised the return of village lands unlawfully confiscated by large estate owners, when the Díaz regime fell and Madero was elected president of Mexico, he took little action on land reform. Zapata led peasants in the central state of Morelos, who divided up large sugar haciendas into plots for subsistence agriculture; in northern Mexico,
Zapata and others in Morelos drafted the
Plan of Ayala
The Plan of Ayala (Spanish: ''Plan de Ayala'') was a document drafted by revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata during the Mexican Revolution. In it, Zapata denounced President Francisco Madero for his perceived betrayal of the revolutionary idea ...
, which called for land reform and put the region in rebellion against the government. Unlike many other revolutionary plans, Zapata's was actually implemented, with villagers in areas under his forces control regaining village lands, but also seizing lands of sugar plantations and dividing them. The seizing of sugar plantations and distribution to peasants for small-scale cultivation was the only significant land reform during the Revolution. They remained in opposition to the government in its subsequent forms under reactionary general
Victoriano Huerta
José Victoriano Huerta Márquez (; 22 December 1854 – 13 January 1916) was a general in the Mexican Federal Army and 39th President of Mexico, who came to power by coup against the democratically elected government of Francisco I. Madero wit ...
and then Constitutionalist leader
Venustiano Carranza
José Venustiano Carranza de la Garza (; 29 December 1859 – 21 May 1920) was a Mexican wealthy land owner and politician who was Governor of Coahuila when the constitutionally elected president Francisco I. Madero was overthrown in a February ...
. Peasants sought land of their own to pursue subsistence agriculture, not the continuation of commercial sugar cultivation. Although Carranza's government after 1915 fought a bloody war against Zapatista forces and Zapata was assassinated by an agent of Carranza's in 1919, land reform there could not be reversed. When Alvaro Obregón became president in 1920, he recognized the land reform in Morelos and Zapatistas were given control of Morelos.
![Villa close up](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Villa_close_up.jpg)
The situation in northern Mexico was different from the Zapatista area of central Mexico, with few subsistence peasants, a tradition of military colonies to fight indigenous groups such as the Apaches, the development of large cattle haciendas and small ranchos. During the Porfiriato, the central Mexican state gained more control over the region, and hacienda owners who had previously not encroached on small holders' lands or limited access to large expanses of public lands began consolidating their holdings at the expense of small holders. The Mexican government contracted with private companies to survey the "empty lands," (''tierras baldíos'') and those companies gained a third of all land they surveyed. The rest of these lands were bought by wealthy landowners. Most important was the
Terrazas-Creel family, who already owned vast estates and wielded tremendous political and economic power. Under their influence, Chihuahua passed a law forcing military colonies to sell their lands, which they or their allies bought. The economic
Panic of 1907
The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis, was a financial crisis that took place in the United States over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from ...
in the U.S. had an impact on the border state of Chihuahua, where newly unemployed miners, embittered former military colonists, and small holders joined to support Francisco I. Madero's movement to oust Díaz. Once in power, however, president Madero's promises of land reform were unfulfilled causing disgruntled former supporters to rebel. In 1913 after Madero's assassination, Pancho Villa joined the movement to oust Victoriano Huerta and under his military leadership, Chihuahua came under his control. As governor of the state, Villa issued decrees that placed large estates under the control of the state. They continued to be operated as haciendas with the revenues used to finance the revolutionary military and support widows and orphans of Villa's soldiers. Armed men fighting with Villa saw one of their rewards as being access to land, but Villa expected them to fight far outside where they currently lived, unlike the men following Zapata, who fought where they lived and had little incentive to fight elsewhere. Villa's men would be rewarded following the Revolution. Villa issued a decree declaring that nationally all estates above a certain size would be divided among peasants, with owners to be given some compensation. Northerners sought more than a small plot of land for subsistence agriculture, but rather a parcel large enough to be designated a ''rancho'' on which they could cultivate and/or ranch cattle independently. Although Villa was defeated by Venustiano Carranza's best general, Alvaro Obregón, in 1915 and his sweeping land reform could not be implemented, the Terrazas-Creel's properties were not returned to them following the Revolution.
Land reform under Carranza, 1915-1920
![Venustiano_Carranza_ca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Venustiano_Carranza_ca._1917.jpg)
Land reform was an important issue in the Mexican Revolution, but the leader of the winning faction, wealthy landowner
Venustiano Carranza
José Venustiano Carranza de la Garza (; 29 December 1859 – 21 May 1920) was a Mexican wealthy land owner and politician who was Governor of Coahuila when the constitutionally elected president Francisco I. Madero was overthrown in a February ...
was disinclined to pursue land reform. But in 1914 the two important Constitutionalist generals,
Alvaro Obregón and
, called on him to articulate a policy of land distribution.
[Linda Hall, "Alvaro Obregon and the Politics of Mexican Land Reform, 1920-1924,"'']Hispanic American Historical Review
''The Hispanic American Historical Review'' is a quarterly, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal of Latin American history, the official publication of the Conference on Latin American History, the professional organization of Latin American historia ...
'' 60:2 (May 1980):213 One of Carranza's principal aides,
Luis Cabrera, the law partner of
Andrés Molina Enríquez Andrés Molina Enríquez (November 30, 1868, Jilotepec de Abasolo, State of Mexico – 1940) was a Mexican revolutionary intellectual, author of ''The Great National Problems '' (1909) which drew on his experiences as a notary and Justice of the Pe ...
, drafted the Agrarian Decree of January 6, 1915, promising to provide land for those in need of it.
The driving idea behind the law was to blunt the appeal of Zapatismo and to give peasants access to land to supplement income during periods when they were not employed as day laborers on large haciendas and fought against the Constitutionalists. Central to their notion was the re-emergence of the
ejido
An ''ejido'' (, from Latin ''exitum'') is an area of communal land used for agriculture in which community members have usufruct rights rather than ownership rights to land, which in Mexico is held by the Mexican state. People awarded ejidos in ...
, lands traditionally under control of communities. Cabrera became the point person for Carranza's agrarian policy, pitching the proposal as a military necessity, as a way to pacify communities in rebellion. "The mere announcement that the government is going to proceed to the study of the reconstitution of the ejidos will result in the concentration of people in the villages, and it will facilitate, therefore the domination of the region." With the defeat of
Victoriano Huerta
José Victoriano Huerta Márquez (; 22 December 1854 – 13 January 1916) was a general in the Mexican Federal Army and 39th President of Mexico, who came to power by coup against the democratically elected government of Francisco I. Madero wit ...
, the Constitutionalist faction split, with Villa and Zapata, who advocated more radical agrarian policies, opposing Carranza and Obregón. In order to defeat them both militarily and on the social and political fronts, Carranza had to counter their appeal to the peasantry. Constitutionalist military units expropriated some haciendas to award the lands to villages potentially supporting more radical solutions, but the Agrarian Decree did not call for wholesale expropriations. Although the lands expropriated were called ejidos, they were not structured as restitution to villages, but as new grants conferred by the state, often of poor quality and smaller than what villages previously held. Carranza's government set up a bureaucracy to deal with land reform, which in practice sought to limit implementation of any sweeping changes favorable to the peasantry. Many landlords whose estates had been expropriated were restored to them during the Carranza era. Villages that were to receive grants had to agree to pay the government for the land. The colonial-era documentation for villages' land claims were deemed invalid. As the Carranza presidency ended in 1920, the government was asserting power to prevent serious land reform or any peasant control over its course. Carranza had only supported limited land reform as a strategy, but once in power, he assured estate owners that their land would be returned to them. Although his resistance to land reform prevented its implementation, he could not block the adoption of article 27 of the revolutionary constitution of 1917 that recognized villages' rights to land and the power of the state over subsoil rights.
Under Obregón, 1920-1924
![Obregón Salido, Álvaro](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Obreg%C3%B3n_Salido%2C_%C3%81lvaro.jpg)
Wealthy landowner and brilliant general of the Revolution, Alvaro Obregón came to power in a coup against Carranza. Since the Zapatistas had supported his bid for power, he placated them by ending attempts to recover seized land and return them to big sugar estate owners. However, his plan was to make the peasantry there dependent on the Mexican state and viewed agrarian reform as a way to strengthen the revolutionary state. During his presidency, Mexico it was clear that some land reform needed to be carried out. Agrarian reform was a revolutionary goal for land redistribution as part of a process of nationalization and "Mexicanization". Land distribution began almost immediately and affected both foreign and large domestic land owners (''hacendados''). The process was deliberately very slow, since generally Obregón did not consider it a top priority. However, in order to maintain the social peace with the peasantry, he began land reform in earnest. As president, Obregón distributed 1.7 million hectares, which was 1.3Ò% of agricultural land. The land distributed was mostly not existing cultivated lands, consisting of forests, pastures, mountainous land, and other uncultivable land (ranging from 51%-64.6%). Rain-fed land was the next largest category (ranging from 31.2% to 41.4%). The smallest amount of land distributed was irrigable land, ranging from a high of 8.2% in 1920 to just 4.2% in 1924. When Obregón sought to ensure his fellow Sonoran revolutionary general Plutarco Elías Calles was his successor, Obregón and Calles promised land reform to mobilize peasants against their rival
Adolfo de la Huerta
Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta Marcor (; 26 May 1881 – 9 July 1955) was a Mexican politician, the 45th President of Mexico from 1 June to 30 November 1920, following the overthrow of Mexican president Venustiano Carranza, with Sonoran generals ...
. Their faction prevailed and when Calles became president in 1924, he did increase distribution of land.
Calles and the Maximato, 1924-1934
Plutarco Elías Calles
Plutarco Elías Calles (25 September 1877 – 19 October 1945) was a general in the Mexican Revolution and a Sonoran politician, serving as President of Mexico from 1924 to 1928.
The 1924 Calles presidential campaign was the first populist ...
was the successor to Obregón in the election of 1924 and when Obregón assassinated in 1928 after being re-elected president Calles remained in power 1928-1934 as the ''jefe máximo'' (maximum chief) in a period known as the ''
Maximato
The ''Maximato'' was a transitional period in the historical and political development of Mexico from 1928 to 1934. Named after former president Plutarco Elías Calles's sobriquet ''el Jefe Máximo'' (the maximum leader), the ''Maximato'' was ...
''. Along with fellow Sonoran Obregón, Calles was not an advocate of land reform, and sought to create a vital industrial sector in Mexico. In general, Calles blocked measures for land reform and sided with landlords. During his presidency, the U.S. government was opposed to land reform in Mexico, since some of its citizens owned land and petroleum enterprises there. Although ejidos had been created under Obregón's presidency, Calles envisioned them being turned into private holdings. Calles's administration did seek to expand the agricultural sector by colonizing areas not previously cultivated or existing lands that were deemed inefficiently used. Extending credit to agricultural enterprises benefited large land owners rather than the peasantry. State-constructed Irrigation projects to increase production likewise benefited them. Since many revolutionary leaders, including Obregón and Calles, were recipients of large tracts of land, they were direct beneficiaries of state-directed agricultural infrastructure and credit. During Calles's presidency (1924–28), 3.2 million hectares of agricultural land were distributed, 2.4% of all agricultural land. The largest category of land distributed was non-agricultural land ranging from forests, pastures, mountainous, and other uncultivable lands, ranging from 60% to nearly 80% in 1928. Rainfed land was the next largest category, ranging from 35% to 20%. The smallest amount was irrigable land, just 3-4%.
Cardenista land reform 1934 to 1940
![Lazaro Cardenas Jijilpan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Lazaro_Cardenas_Jijilpan.JPG)
President
Lázaro Cárdenas
Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940.
Born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán, to a working-class family, Cárdenas joined the M ...
is credited with revitalizing land reform, along with other measures in keeping with the rhetoric of the Revolution. Although he was from the southern state of Michoacan, Cárdenas was part of the northern Constitutionalist revolutionary forces that emerged victorious during the Revolution. He did not join with the forces of Emiliano Zapata or Pancho Villa, who advocated sweeping land reform. Cárdenas distributed most land between 1936 and 1938, after he had ousted Calles and took full control of the government and before his expropriation of foreign oil companies in 1938. He was determined to distribute land to the peasantry, but also keep control of the process rather than have peasants seize land. His most prominent expropriation of land was in the Comarca Lagunera, with rich, irrigated soil. Some 448,000 hectares of land there were expropriated in 1936, of which 150,000 were irrigated. he directed similar expropriations in Yucatán and the Yaqui valley in 1937; Lombardía and Nueva Italia, Michoacan; Los Mochis, Sinaloa; and Soconusco Chiapas in 1938. Rather than dividing land into individual ejidos, which peasants preferred and on which they pursued subsistence agriculture, Cárdenas created collective ejidos. Communities were awarded land but they were worked as a single unit. This was done for lands producing commercial crops such as cotton, wheat, henequen, rice, sugar, citrus, and cattle, so that they would continue to be commercially viable for the domestic and export markets. Collective ejidos received more government support than individual ejidos.
Agrarian reform had come close to extinction in the early 1930s during the Maximato, since Calles was increasingly hostile to it as a revolutionary program. The first few years of the Cárdenas's reform were marked by high food prices, falling wages, high inflation, and low agricultural yields. In 1935 land reform began sweeping across the country in the periphery and core of commercial agriculture. The Cárdenas alliance with peasant groups has been credited with the destruction of the hacienda system. Cárdenas distributed more land than all his revolutionary predecessors put together, a 400% increase. Cárdenas wanted the peasantry tied to the Mexican state and did so by organizing peasant leagues that collectively represented the peasantry, the National Confederation of Peasants (CNC), within the new, sectoral party structure that Cárdenas created within the
Party of the Mexican Revolution
The Institutional Revolutionary Party ( es, Partido Revolucionario Institucional, ; abbr. PRI) is a political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 and held uninterrupted power in the country for 71 years, from 1929 to 2000, first as the Nati ...
.
During his administration, he redistributed of land, of which were expropriated from U.S. nationals who owned agricultural property.
[John Dwyer, "Diplomatic Weapons of the Weak: Mexican Policymaking during the U.S.-Mexican Agrarian Dispute, 1934-1941,''Diplomatic History,'' 26:3 (2002): 375] This caused conflict between Mexico and the United States. Cárdenas employed tactics of noncompliance and deception to gain leverage in this international dispute.
End of land reform, 1940-present
Starting the government of
Miguel Alemán (1946–52), land reform steps made in previous governments were rolled back. Alemán's government allowed entrepreneurs to rent peasant land. This created phenomenon known as "neolatifundismo," where land owners build up large-scale private farms on the basis of controlling land which remains
ejidal but is not cultivated by the peasants to whom it is assigned.
Echeverría's populist land reform
In 1970, President
Luis Echeverría
Luis Echeverría Álvarez (; 17 January 1922 – 8 July 2022) was a Mexican lawyer, academic, and politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who served as the 57th president of Mexico from 1970 to 1976. Previously, ...
began his term by declaring land reform dead. In the face of peasant revolt, he was forced to backtrack, and embarked on the biggest land reform program since Cárdenas. Echeverría legalized take-overs of huge foreign-owned private farms, which were turned into new collective
ejido
An ''ejido'' (, from Latin ''exitum'') is an area of communal land used for agriculture in which community members have usufruct rights rather than ownership rights to land, which in Mexico is held by the Mexican state. People awarded ejidos in ...
s.
Land reform from 1991 to present
In 1988, President
Carlos Salinas de Gortari
Carlos Salinas de Gortari CYC DMN (; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist and politician who served as 60th president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), earlier in his career he wor ...
was elected. In December 1991, he amended Article 27 of the Constitution, making it legal to sell
ejido
An ''ejido'' (, from Latin ''exitum'') is an area of communal land used for agriculture in which community members have usufruct rights rather than ownership rights to land, which in Mexico is held by the Mexican state. People awarded ejidos in ...
land and allow peasants to put up their land as collateral for a loan. Neverthess, land regulation is still permitted in Mexico by Article 27.
See also
*
Index of Mexico-related articles
The following is an alphabetical index topics related to the Mexico.
0–8
* .mx – Internet country code top-level domain for México
A
*Adjacent countries:
:
:
:
*Adjacent states, departments, and districts
:Arizona (United States)
:Ca ...
*
Economic history of Mexico
Since the colonial era, Mexico's economic history has been characterized by resource extraction, agriculture, and a relatively underdeveloped industrial sector. Economic elites in the colonial period were predominantly Spanish-born, active as ...
*
Ejido
An ''ejido'' (, from Latin ''exitum'') is an area of communal land used for agriculture in which community members have usufruct rights rather than ownership rights to land, which in Mexico is held by the Mexican state. People awarded ejidos in ...
*
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
*
Foreign relations of Mexico
References
Further reading
*Albertus, Michael, et al. "Authoritarian survival and poverty traps: Land reform in Mexico." ''World Development'' 77 (2016): 154–170.
*Bazant, Jan. ''The Alienation of Church Wealth in Mexico''. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 1971.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Agrarian Land Reform In Mexico
Mexican Revolution
History of agriculture in Mexico
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
Legal history of Mexico
Reform in Mexico