amanda_cat (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} amanda_cat) wrote,@ 2008-07-22 12:22:00 |
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Resistance and Rebellion in Mexican Economy
Independence brought new patterns of rural resistance. During the late colonial era, large and enduring insurrections were few and generally confined to peripheral regions. Most resistance took the form of brief local riots, as much demonstrations as uprisings. They claimed the attention of the authorities and brought disputes over such issues as lands, work, and taxes into the colonial courts. The goal was to force judicial mediation by the colonial courts. The Hidalgo Revolt of 1810 began a decade of insurrection. Within the diverse conflicts over Independence, rural Mexicans, ranging from estate residents in the Bajío, to villagers in Jalisco, to rancheros in the Pacific hot country, took arms to demand their versions of justice and independence. The conflicts that began in 1810 added an insurrectionary tradition to the history of resistance among rural Mexicans.
The Independence engineered in 1821 by elites and the military brought only a short-term recession of insurrectionary conflicts. The rural poor did not stop pressing their interests and resisting the designs of those who would rule them. The post-Independence years brought two decades of weak, divided, and disorganized state powers, allowing the pursuit of agrarian goals through more local and less violent means. In the Bajío region of north-central Mexico, where insurrection had been most intense and enduring after 1810, in the 1820s rural families pressured estates into dividing lands into tenant holdings, effectively decentralizing estate production and creating a family-based ranchero economy. In the Valley of Toluca in central Mexico, villagers around Tenango del Valle went to court and in 1826 won long-disputed lands from the Condes de Santiago Calimaya, among the colony's greatest landlords. That judicial victory—although later reversed—reverberated among villages across the central highlands, leading many communities to reopen old disputes. At Chalco, post-Independence financial difficulties among landed elites allowed villagers to press estates for higher wages and more favorable working conditions. It was in the context of such agrarian pressures that the 1824 Constitutional Convention considered the privatization of community lands. Many delegates supported such a program, but they chose not to implement it, fearing destabilizing resistance.
Independence brought new patterns of rural resistance. During the late colonial era, large and enduring insurrections were few and generally confined to peripheral regions. Most resistance took the form of brief local riots, as much demonstrations as uprisings. They claimed the attention of the authorities and brought disputes over such issues as lands, work, and taxes into the colonial courts. The goal was to force judicial mediation by the colonial courts. The Hidalgo Revolt of 1810 began a decade of insurrection. Within the diverse conflicts over Independence, rural Mexicans, ranging from estate residents in the Bajío, to villagers in Jalisco, to rancheros in the Pacific hot country, took arms to demand their versions of justice and independence. The conflicts that began in 1810 added an insurrectionary tradition to the history of resistance among rural Mexicans.
The Independence engineered in 1821 by elites and the military brought only a short-term recession of insurrectionary conflicts. The rural poor did not stop pressing their interests and resisting the designs of those who would rule them. The post-Independence years brought two decades of weak, divided, and disorganized state powers, allowing the pursuit of agrarian goals through more local and less violent means. In the Bajío region of north-central Mexico, where insurrection had been most intense and enduring after 1810, in the 1820s rural families pressured estates into dividing lands into tenant holdings, effectively decentralizing estate production and creating a family-based ranchero economy. In the Valley of Toluca in central Mexico, villagers around Tenango del Valle went to court and in 1826 won long-disputed lands from the Condes de Santiago Calimaya, among the colony's greatest landlords. That judicial victory—although later reversed—reverberated among villages across the central highlands, leading many communities to reopen old disputes. At Chalco, post-Independence financial difficulties among landed elites allowed villagers to press estates for higher wages and more favorable working conditions. It was in the context of such agrarian pressures that the 1824 Constitutional Convention considered the privatization of community lands. Many delegates supported such a program, but they chose not to implement it, fearing destabilizing resistance.