9 - Epilogue: agrarian reform 1919–40

Summary

Whatever occurred elsewhere in Mexico, in the Bajío there is no evidence to suggest that the period known as the Porfiriato (1876–1910) witnessed any concentration of landownership. Indeed, since the census recorded that the number of haciendas and ranchos in the State of Guanajuato respectively increased from 442 and 2,716 in 1882 to 534 and 3,999 in 1910 the average size of these units obviously diminished. Certainly in León, although the largest haciendas such as Otates, Santa Rosa and Sandía continued without partition, other estates like Palote, Sauces, Pompa, Losa, and Hoya were divided and sections sold. By far the most striking example in this latter group is afforded by San Nicolás which in 1894 was broken up into ten separate farms or ranchos by the widow and children of Miguel Urteaga Septién. Moreover, since these properties only comprised 1¾ caballerías or 75 acres, it is clear that the outlying rancho called Noria de Septién already had been sold. In this fashion the estate so patiently pieced together by Agustín de Septién y Montero in the 1740s, after four generations of subsequent possession by the same family, finally disappeared from the map. It is a commentary on the value of lands situated close to the expanding limits of the city that in 1922 just one caballeria of the former San Nicolás sold for 19,000 pesos.