1 - Introduction: the Mexican hacienda

Summary

In his classic account of the formation of the great estate in New Spain, François Chevalier observed with some surprise that it is not until the latter part of the eighteenth century that we encounter any contemporary description of the Mexican hacienda. Moreover, it is startling to note that the first comments by travellers from abroad were almost invariably hostile. On his journey to the North in 1777–78, Juan Agustín de Morfi, a friar from the Peninsula, sharply criticised the concentration of landownership in the colony, which left the countryside vacant and uncultivated. Passing through the district of San Miguel el Grande he found that the hacienda of La Erre devoted a vast area of land to mere pasture, whereas the Indians of the neighbouring village of Dolores lacked space to plant their maize. Much the same reaction was expressed by the British Minister, H. G. Ward, who in 1827 deprecated the stark contrast on Jaral between the great fortified casco and the squalid huts of its peons.

Official opinion coincided with the views of the travellers. By the late eighteenth century belief in the economic virtues of the proprietary farmer, with the consequent condemnation of any monopoly in landownership, had become articles of faith among the enlightened, administrators who served the Bourbon dynasty. The same doctrines were embraced by the Liberal politicians who fought to transform Mexican society in the decades after Independence.