4 - The structure of agricultural production

Summary

Until the first decade of the eighteenth century, the distribution of landed property in León cannot be determined with any degree of precision. For the terms of the original viceregal mercedes for estancias were remarkably vague, so that owners either occupied more territory than had been assigned to them, or alternatively encountered difficulties in enforcing their claims against neighbours already in possession. The title of one large sitio later called Los Sapos described its location as follows: ‘three leagues from the said town (León) once past a wood of mezquites and entering some flat slopes called San Cristóbal, in a gully little more than a league from the river which runs from the meadows of the said town, which is said to be the source of the River Turbio’. Fortunately, for both historian and landowner, in the years 1711–12, a royal judge, juez de composiciones was despatched to León to inspect all titles and to compare them with the area of land actually occupied. From the subsequent settlement – all de facto possession was recognised in return for a small fee – we can establish a relatively accurate survey of land tenure in the district.

The first impression is of a variegated, complex pattern of holdings characterised by extraordinary disparities in dimension. One great latifundium called Gavia and Santa Ana dominated the entire southeastern corner of the district, reaching across the plains into the parish of Silao.