alan knight haciendas

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Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico

University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States

Land and Society in Revolutionary Mexico: The Destruction of the Great HaciendasAuthor(s): Alan KnightSource: Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Winter, 1991), pp. 73-104Published by: University of California Presson behalf of the University of California Institute for Mexicoand the United Statesand the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de MxicoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1052028.

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Land and Society in Revolutionary Mexico:The Destruction of the Great HaciendasAlan Knight

University of Texas, Austin

Este ensayo trata de analizar el caracter y significado de la reforma agrariaque surgi6 de la Revoluci6n Mexicana, tomando en cuenta algunos estu-dios recientes. Sostiene que la reforma si represent6 una ruptura socio-econ6mica de gran importancia que cambi6 de manera radical la sociedadrural mexicana, aunque este cambio asumi6 formas que no siempre sedemuestran en las estadisticas y, como cualquier transformaci6n de talmagnitud, involucr6 bastante violencia, ambiciones y desviaciones.

In a classic pioneering study, Francois Chevalier analyzed thecreation of the great haciendas in colonial New Spain: a processwhich indelibly marked Mexican society for centuries to come. Nosynthetic study of the destruction of the great hacienda has been at-tempted,2 but, as articles, monographs and case studies accumulate,it may be possible to review the field and consider the implicationsof recent research. This paper begins with a consideration of twoimportant revisionist works which set out to correct statistical mis-conceptions concerning the Porfirian hacienda; it then broadens theargument to take in the process of agrarian reform which began withthe Revolution of 1910, and which has also been the subject of am-ple revisionist writing. The focus is primarily sociopolitical, but the

1. Francois Chevalier, Land and Society in Colonial Mexico: The Great Ha-ciendas (Berkeley, 1963).2. John Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico. Social Bases ofAgrarian Violence 1750-1940 (Princeton, 1986) is a valuable synthesis, but it is muchstronger on the colonial and early national periods than the Porfiriato and Revolution.Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 7(1), Winter 1991. ? 1991 Regents of the University of California.

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanosfinal section briefly addresses the question of the economic fate ofthe great hacienda in the post-1910 period. Based on a range ofsecondary sources (and a smattering of primary data) the articlecontends that the Revolution brought about a severe weakening-in some cases the outright destruction-of the old agrarian order,within which the hacienda and the village formed antagonistic coun-terpoints; and that this transformation was central to the broaderprocess of change which radically affected Mexico in the years after1910.

According to the old leyenda negra of the Porfirian hacienda-as propagated by Molina Enriquez, Wistano Luis Orozco, Frank Tan-nenbaum and others-the hacienda was a sprawling, seigneurial in-stitution which swallowed up village lands, which retarded socialdevelopment, and whose basic rationale was pre- or noncapitalist(above all, in the sense that it spurned profit and risk taking in favorof nonmonetary gratification). As Molina Enriquez is often quoted:la hacienda no es negocio. 3 Such a view, of course, carries impor-tant implications for analyses of the Revolution. An oppressive, ex-pansionist hacienda implies a popular agrarian revolution; afeudal hacienda also presupposes an ultimately bourgeois revo-lution. At the same time, a benign hacienda suggests a different kindof revolution (one that is more careerist, narrowly political, ideo-logical and top-down ); a capitalist hacienda implies a socialistrevolution manque, or a revolution lacking any real significance interms of class hegemony.In recent years the old Molina Enriquez/Tannenbaum stereotypehas come in for sustained criticism, some of it justified, some of itnot. Sometimes, critics have caricatured Molina Enriquez's or Tan-nenbaum's views, setting up straw men for demolition. Sometimes,however, they have leveled valid criticisms. On the one hand, theyhave correctly pointed that haciendas were profit-seeking enterpriseswhich frequently changed hands (they were not entailed heirlooms,nor were they run chiefly to gratify the landlord's libido dominandi).On the other hand, recent critics have also de-emphasised the roleand importance of the hacienda, stressing, instead, the significanceof other rural groups, such as rancheros (who, they say, figured littlein the old stereotype); and, by the same token, they have playeddown the degree of hacienda expansion and oppression, pointingout (a) that village holdings had by no means been eliminated on theeve of the Revolution and (b) that many peasants (broadly defined)

3. Andres Molina Enriquez, Losgrandesproblemas nacionales (Mexico, 1978,first ed., 1909), p. 162.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendaswere tied to the hacienda by voluntaristic ties, social, economic andideological. Thus, they argue, the Revolution cannot be seen as aquintessentially popular agrarian movement, mounted by an ag-grieved peasantry and directed against the hacienda.The first point-the profit-seeking rationale of the hacienda-is well-taken, but is of limited (and diminishing) utility. As studiesof colonial and national period haciendas have overwhelminglyshown, profit-seeking was the norm over centuries (it was no Por-firian innovation). True, profitability increased with the exportboom and more general agrarian commercialization of the Porfiri-ato: in this respect the Porfiriato witnessed important changes. Butthe Porfiriato did not witness the birth of an entirely new acquisi-tive ethic. Rather, it witnessed the growth of material conditions un-usually favorable to an existing acquisitive ethic. Furthermore,assessments of the hacienda's external balance sheet, though valu-able, represent only part of the picture. They ignore the internal re-lations of production and all that these entail in terms of laborrecruitment and control, coercion as against voluntary methods,tenancy arrangements, and forms of remuneration (cash, kind, laborservice). These factors are of obvious theoretical importance since,unless one adheres to a simple Frankian definition of capitalism, thefact that haciendas sought profits fails to resolve the old question ofthe hacienda's theoretical status (feudal, capitalist, colonial, seigneu-rial or whatever: you pay your money and take your choice). Andthe Frankian definition seems to be both historically stultifying andtheoretically questionable. Since the pursuit of profit is to be foundwherever the historian looks, theorists-Marx, Weber, Kula-refuseto equate profit-seeking with capitalism. A neat conclusion, ade-quate for some historical inquiries even if theoretically heterodox,might be to denote the hacienda as capitalist with regard to its ex-ternal relations of exchange and non- or precapitalist withregard to its internal relations of production. More specifically-and more boldly-one might attempt a more positive typology (1.feudal ; 2. slave ; 3. capitalist ), depending on whether, for ex-ample, the internal relations of production were based upon 1. laborservice tenancy, traditional peonage, and, perhaps, share crop-ping; 2. slavery or coercive peonage; or 3. free wage labor.Irrespective of the theoretical arguments for or against this kindof productionist analysis, there are also important empiricalproblems which historians encounter if and when they attempt it.It is hard enough to research the hacienda's external balance sheet;it is harder still to plumb the hacienda's internal relations of pro-duction. What was the balance of these relations (since, invariably,

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanoshaciendas combined a variety of labor practices)? Was labor recruit-ment voluntary or coercive (e.g., was debt used as a perk or a bond?).Were cash payments largely illusory, in that cash was recycled forgoods either produced on the hacienda (foodstuffs) or imported andsold at a big markup, such that formal cash wages masked ( feu-dal? ) payment in kind? As recent research has shown, it is not easyto answer these questions even at the level of the individual enter-prise, let alone the entire agrarian economy.4 Nevertheless, it is clearfrom some studies that the Porfirian hacienda, for all its externally

capitalist (i.e., profit-maximizing) appearance, often depended onforms of labor exploitation that were far removed from free wagelabor and that, instead, relied on combinations of coercion, corporalpunishment, monopoly of land, paternalism, and politicalbackup: in other words, on an entire barrage of extra-economicmechanisms.5

Finally, the neat formula of external capitalism and internal non-capitalism raises important questions concerning the macroeco-nomic system within which the hacienda operated. Indeed, it is verynecessary to raise these questions, since the significance of the en-tire debate cannot be fully appreciated except at that macroeco-nomic level. To put it another way, it is of limited use to debate thefeudal or capitalist status of an individual enterprise, of a spe-cific case study; it can, indeed, smack of a rather sterile formalism,inviting the empiricist's cheap shot: what difference does it makeanyway? It does make a difference if, on the basis of several cases,some general trends can be discerned, and if these in turn can sug-gest links between the hacienda's character and that of society as awhole. If, for example, the internal regime of the hacienda reliedheavily on coercion, this had consequences for society at large,which had to support a coercive labor system and a powerful appa-ratus of social control. If-coerced or not-hacienda workers re-ceived payments in kind rather than cash, the implications for thedomestic market were significant. If, by virtue of coercion or landedmonopoly, haciendas could assure themselves of cheap-even free-labor, the pressures to innovate technologically were reduced andthe incentives to invest in land (rather than industry) were en-hanced. Here, of course, we enter the old theoretical landscape of

4. I have briefly addressed some of these problems in Alan Knight, MexicanPeonage: What Was It and Why Was It?, Journal of Latin American Studies, 18(1986), pp. 41-74.5. John Gledhill, Casi Nada: A Case Study of Agrarian Reform in theHomeland of Cardenismo (publication forthcoming) ch. 3 describes the HaciendaGuaracha in these terms.

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Knight:Destruction of the Haciendaspaths : Junker, farmer, and English.6 Whatever that landscapeoffers-whether pointless safarisor lucrative treasure hunts-it doesat least point up the potential significance of the whole inquiry: theevolution of the hacienda has major implications for the evolution-or revolution-of agrarian societies; and the implications will begreater or less depending on the degree of hacienda hegemonywhich is assumed to exist. Furthermore, this is not a one-dimen-sional economic landscape. The choice of theJunker path carries im-portant political consequences, as Lenin stressed. Barrington Moore,operating within a different if related paradigm, also stresses the im-

plications of a labor-repressive agrarian system (i.e., of his ver-sion of the Junker path).7 The Junker path echoes to the soundof jackboots; the farmer path-at least in Latin America-is troddenby wearers, first, of simple huaraches then of stout, factory-madefootwear.The corpus of revisionist criticism of the leyenda negra has re-ceived two recent and important contributions. Jean Meyer haspointed out certain statistical fallacies in the work of Tannenbaumand others.8 He argues that the Porfirian hacienda was lessdominant, less monopolistic, than previously imagined; conversely,landholding (sic) villages and smallholders were more numerous.Much of Meyer's argument is persuasive (how novel it is is anotherquestion).9 But how conclusive is it-meaning by that, how power-ful are the conclusions which it draws? Complex statistical debatesdo not always yield conclusions proportionate to their complexity:consider, for example, the long debates concerning the preconquestpopulation of Middle America; or the recent highly sophisticatedwrangles over race mixture during the colony. To what extent dothe resulting hard-won conclusions dramatically affect our under-standing of either preconquest or colonial Mexico? Meyer certainlyrefutes Tannenbaum's sweeping assertions concerning the hacienda'smonopoly of land and labor, thus he corrects the many historians(including himself, he generously admits) who have been influenced

6. Alain de Janvry, TheAgrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America(Baltimore, 1981), pp. 106-8.7. Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Lordand Peasant in the Making of the Moder World (Harmondsworth, 1969), pp. 433-6.8. Jean Meyer, Haciendas y ranchos, peones y campesinos en el Porfiriato. Al-gunas falacias estadisticas, Historia Mexicana, 35/3 (1986), pp. 477-509.9. Moises Gonzalez Navarro, Falacias, calumnias y el descubrimiento del medi-terraneo, Historia Mexicana, 36/2 (1986), pp. 363-7. In fact, Tannenbaum's useof census data was questioned-from a different standpoint-many years ago: EylerB. Simpson, The Ejido Mexico's Way Out (Chapel Hill, 1937), pp. 36-7.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendaslikely immiseration than rising expectations. Of course, this is a verybroadbrush comparison; differences by individual cases or regionsmust be taken into consideration (a good deal of Meyer's evidenceis drawn from center-west Mexico, which, of course, was less

revolutionary than central or even parts of northern Mexico). Atthe aggregate level, however, the point remains: land dispersal viasharecropping-or other tenancy agreements-does not constituteproof of either a languishing or a generous hacienda. It may qualifythe traditional picture of monolithic haciendas populated by a massof toiling peons; as such, however, it is precisely a qualificationrather than a refutation of the traditional picture of widespread-and in some senses exploitative-hacienda hegemony in the Por-firian period.A second point is no less important. Even if Jean Meyer's revisedfigures are a substantial improvement over the old figures, as theyvery likely are, then, so what? As simple quantitative indicators ofprerevolutionary agrarian conditions they cannot refute the notionof a popular agrarian revolution, since they contain no clear causa-tional or subjective implications; that is, they do not purport to ex-plain why the Revolution happened or what its protagonists soughtto achieve. They may suggest that, if rural property was morewidely distributed than generally supposed, then, perhaps, the no-tion of a popular agrarian revolution is open to question; but whatwe have here are a suggestion and a question, not a coherent argu-ment. In fact, Meyer's central argument-that the hacienda did notdominate rural society to the overwhelming extent Tannenbaumsupposed-is quite compatible with (and, one might even say, sup-portive of) the notion of a popular agrarian revolution. For if, asTannenbaum wrongly supposed, the hacienda was so pervasive andhegemonic, and if free landed villages were so few and feeble,whence came the forces which propelled the popular (sic), agrarian(sic) revolution? Not, most authorities agree, from thepeonaje. Nor-I would argue-from an upwardly mobile middle class, rural orurban.'5 IfJean Meyer's figures expand the free peasant population-meaning by that villagers, sharecroppers and smallholders who werenot resident hacienda workers-then so much the better for theagrarian/popularthesis. Tannenbaum's evocative image of the Revo-lution may remain valid, even if his statistical apparatus is shown tobe deficient.

15. Cf. Ruiz, Great Rebellion ch. 14; Romana Falc6n, Los origines popularesde la revoluci6n de 1910: El caso de San Luis Potosi, Historia Mexicana, 29 (1979),pp. 197-240.

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Mexican Studies/Estudios MexicanosJean Meyer's argument is partly derived from Fran4ois-XavierGuerra's massive reevaluation of the Porfirian old regime-in par-

ticular, Guerra's acute dissection of census data and nomenclature.16But Guerra's work-two big volumes as against Meyer's single, con-cise article-goes much further. It is both more ambitious and moretendentious. Unlike Meyer, Guerra goes beyond the statistics, be-yond the compendious prosopographical data he has assembled, andpresents a strongly interpretative analysis of the old regime, includ-ing the place of the hacienda within it. In this respect, Guerra's isperhaps the most thoughtful, thorough and radical piece of revi-sionism yet attempted. Though it focuses on the old regime ratherthan the revolution (the book stops in 1911, hence only the precur-sor movement and the Maderista revolution are discussed) it plainlyoffers a commentary on the Revolution, both explicitly and implic-itly. And, to the extent that the old regime is rehabilitated, the revo-lution is damned; at times, it seems, Guerra writes as a reincarnationof the aristocratic and antirevolutionary Augustin Cochin, ventinghis spleen against Mexico's perverse liberals, radicals and free-masons.17 It is strong stuff, and has excited some strong reactions.18For Guerra, the hacienda is an archetype of the old regime:traditional, paternalist, holistic. Hacienda communities are in-tegral organic, gemeinschaftlich communities, based on face-to-facepersonal relations (as compared to the cerebral ties of modern as-sociations: political clubs, parties, masonic lodges).19 Despite somedegree of hacienda-village conflict, the social profile of the two issubstantially similar; hacienda and village alike belong to oldMexico and are both challenged by the new forces of modernity-intellectuals, reformers, radicals, party politicians. Furthermore,conflict is kept within bounds by the judicious, quasi-Hapsburgpaternalism of Diaz, at least until the 1890s. Diaz and Zapata arebound in a pact of mutual respect and support, which is emblematicof broader state-peasant relations. Dfaz conciliates the peasantry ashe does the Church. Indeed, the Porfirian regime is built less on op-pression than consensus. From the 1890s, however, with the rise of

16. Francois-Xavier Guerra, Le Mexique De l'ancien regime a la revolution (2vols., Paris, 1985), II, annexe V.17. Francois Furet, Augustin Cochin: the theory ofJacobinism in Interpret-ing the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 164-204.18. Moises Gonzalez Navarro, Laguerra y la paz, o un nuevo refuerzo francesa la derecha mexicana, Secuencia Revista Americana de Ciencias Sociales, 7 (1987),pp. 57-69. I have briefly summarized what I see as the pro's and cons of Guerra'smagnum opus: Hispanic American Historical Review, 68 (1988), pp. 139-143.19. Guerra, Le Mexique, I, pp. 119-24, 157.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendasthe Cientificos (Guerra is a political rather than an economic deter-minist), Porfirian paternalism weakens, the social pact is broken, andvillage landholdings come under threat. Now, Guerra perceives anew sort of hacendado coming to the fore: rootless, absenteeist,profit-seeking, who sees the land not so much as an essential ele-ment of social rank as a resource from which an economic returnis expected. 20 Previously, it would seem, Mexico's landlords werefeckless, feudal and folksy. Nevertheless-and here Guerra andMeyer link up-the dispossession of the villages remained limited.2'

Writing an ambitious national study, Guerra perforce general-izes. Behind his generalizations lie theoretical assumptions-basedon the old tradition/modernity dichotomy-which are often vague,circular and inappropriately Eurocentric. His arguments thus tend tobe more evocative than lucid. For our purposes, however, Guerra'schief contentions would seem to be: that the hacienda was a benign,legitimate, paternalist institution, a keystone of old holistic Mex-ico; that Mexico's villages had more in common with haciendas thaneither did with the meddlesome modernizing elites who sought torevolutionize both such traditional institutions; that, after 1890,the rise of new modern landlords, modern political elites anda modern political project, brought a degree of peasant dispos-session and the erosion of some (much?) of the old Porfirian con-sensus; and that the Revolution was not a class revolution (class islargely banished from Guerra's scheme), but rather a political move-ment, led by elites, characterized by a modern political discourse,and triggered by a political succession crisis; a movement which-inways that are not fully explained-took advantage of social griev-ances in order to win recruits and to topple an already moribundregime. Local notables (a nice French import) provide the leader-ship and inspiration; the common people often find that the onlyresort which allows them to survive is to join the revolutionariesand live on pay or some eventual booty. 22Needless to say, Guerra's theoretical stance, with its acknowl-edged debt to French historiography and social theory (Cochin,Furet, Chaunu, Dumont) and Mexican conservatism (Bulnes, VeraEstafiol), and its unacknowledged debt to modernization theory,rules out any engagement with Marxist debates: there are no Junkeror farmer paths winding their way through Guerra's prosopographi-cal jungle. Guerra therefore offers no sense of the dynamics and

20. Ibid., pp. 124-5, 212, 256-8.21. Ibid., pp. 211, 329-31 and II, annexe V.22. Ibid., pp. 284-5, 289, 297.

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanosdirection of Porfirian agrarian society: was it stuck in a rut, vig-orously proceeding down a Junker road, or even edging towards afarmer road? Guerra rightly stresses the continued landholdings ofthe village (in this, Meyer follows Guerra and the preceding com-ments apropos of Meyer remain relevant), but his explanation of vil-lage dispossession remains heavily political, dependent on the failingwill of Diaz and the rising coterie of the Cientificos. How such dis-possession helped determine the revolutionary process is notexplained-only the onset of the revolution is discussed-and, whilepopular participation and agrarian grievances are mentioned, theyare buried within an analysis which clearly places its emphases else-where. Basically, Guerra's revolution is-ab initio23-the workof ambitious modernizing elites, bent on a task of political re-structuring.

The implications of revisionist scholarship carry over into inter-pretations of both the armed revolution and its institutional after-math. If the hacienda was a more benign-and less expansionist-enterprise than traditionally believed, it becomes much more plau-sible to see the agrarian reform as a manipulative project, enactedby the new revolutionary elite in order to win support, undercuttheir enemies, and enhance the power of the revolutionary state. Itis the latter's rise which counts; the Revolution is again apoliticalevent/process; it represents a continuation of Porfirian state build-ing. The appeal of such a view is enhanced by the fact not only thatit is, in Mexican terms, revisionist and iconoclastic, but also that itis congruent with currently fashionable analyses of the French Revo-lution and, indeed, of revolutions in general.24 On the other hand,if the hacienda was oppressive and expansionist, the agrarian reformresponded more closely to popular demands, even to considerationsof social justice. Of course, these are broad and extreme formula-tions. One thing we all know and agree upon is that the Revolutionwas a diverse phenomenon, that there were many revolutions, andprobably many agrarian reforms. It is not difficult to find examples

23. The qualification is important since to argue that thefinal outcome of theRevolution (the Carrancistatriumph) involved an ambitious modernizing elite, benton a task of political restructuring, would be a more true, less contentious, thoughsomewhat partial view. Here, however, it is the 1910-14 period which is at issue andhere (I believe) Guerra overstates the role of politically-motivated elites, at the ex-pense of socially-motivated nonelites (with apologies for another couple of crudedichotomies).24. Furet, The Revolutionary Catechism, in Interpeting the French Revolu-tion, pp. 81-131; Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge, 1980).

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Knight:Destructionof the Haciendasat either end of the spectrum. But can we go beyond the tradingof individual examples? Can this fundamental debate be-if not re-solved-at least meaningfully tackled and advanced?Like most historical debates, this one hinges upon questions ofdegree: how oppressive, expansionist, illegitimate was the hacienda;how cynical, manipulative, top-down was the agrarian reform?To such questions of degree a quantitative answer would be mostappropriate. But there are two obvious problems here. First, thereis the basic problem of reliable data. Jean Meyer shows how far andhow long historians were misled by Tannenbaum's erroneousfigures concerning Porfirian land concentration. Francois Chevalierhas expressed a justified scepticism concerning the agrarian reformfigures.25Similarly, figures of rural real wages, important for any dis-cussion of pre- and postrevolutionary living standards, are open toquestion; as are figures of agrarian production, which are in turncrucial for debates concerning the viability/success of the agrarianreform.26 So we are left trying to answer quantitative questions onthe basis of doubtful quantitative data.But there is a second, more serious problem. Even if valid statis-tical series existed, they would not answer many of the questionsposed. For example, suppose the conventional figures for the pre-Cardenista agrarian reform were correct: 7.6m hectares granted indefinitive distribution to some 750,000 campesinos up to Decem-ber 1933; ejidos comprising 6.3 percent of total farm properties byarea and 9.4 percent by value in 1930.27 Does this imply a pictureof minimal change, modest change, significant change, dramaticchange? Eyler Simpson-who spent eight years researching the sub-ject-considered this the outstanding achievement of the Revo-lution.28 Recent authors, in contrast, have tended to play down thepre-1934 agrarianreform, stressing continuity rather than rupture.29Trading land distribution figures to and fro, however, is unlikely to

25. FranSois Chevalier, The Ejido and Political Stability in Mexico, in Clau-dio Veliz, ed., The Politics of Conformity in Latin America (Oxford, 1967), pp. 159-61. Note also Simpson, The Ejido, p. 172.26. John H. Coatsworth, Anotaciones sobre la producci6n de alimentos duranteel Porfiriato, Historia Mexicana, 26 (1976), pp. 167-87; Simpson, The Ejido, pp.498-509.27. Simpson, The Ejido, pp. 613, 626-627.28. Ibid., pp. 43, 77.29. Cf. Lorenzo Meyer, Historia de la revoluci6n mexicana. 1928-34. El con-flicto socialy los gobiernos del maximato (Mexico, 1978), pp. 174-175; ArmandoBarta, Los herederos de Zapata: Movimientos campesinos posrevolucionarios enMexico (Mexico, 1985) p. 24.

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanosresolve the debate (I assume there is an implicit debate). How longis a piece of string? Statistics only become meaningful in the light ofinterpretation. We would need to know more not only about thequality of the land transferred, but also about the social, economic,political and psychological impact of the transferal.30 For example,we are familiar with bogus agrarian reform figures-indices ofapparent upheaval-which disguise continuity of ownership andexploitation. But alternative biases are also possible: statisticalcontinuities may conceal social upheaval, or at least significant so-cial change. An hacienda's loss of only a fraction of its land mayform part of a broader, nonquantifiable process which grievously af-fects hacienda operations: it may, for example, accompany (and ac-celerate) diminished control of labor, rising wage costs, ruralunionization and political mobilization, loss of business confidence,disinvestment. Furthermore, bald statistics cannot reflect changes inmentalite. A land grant could bolster campesino self-confidence,just as it could erode hacendado faith in the future; a grant in favorof one community could have a demonstration effect elsewhere; agrant today presaged further grants tomorrow. Land reform in onestate or region could have a spill-over effect in neighboring states/regions.31 Such considerations lead me to suggest that the ostensi-bly statistically modest land grants of the 1920s had a disproportion-ate impact, economically, socially, politically, and psychologically.They represented a loss to the landlord class of more than a few su-perfluous hectares. They laid the groundwork for the more sweep-ing reform of 1935-40. By the same token-if we return to our

paths -they could induce a shift, perhaps from Junker tofarmer paths, perhaps even from no path (a directionless stagna-tion) to a more purposive capitalist development within agriculture.If aggregate statistical measurements are difficult and inconclu-

sive, the only viable alternative is the comparison of case studies-ofwhich we have an increasing number-and the elaboration of trendsand typologies. We may not be able to say, with any precision, thatsuch and such a case is typical of the whole; but we may at least be30. As Marte R. G6mez expressed it to President Cardenas, when discussing a

celebrated case of reform in Tamaulipas: the question at El Mante was not a simpleone of theodolites, tapes, and measurements. It was a question of talking with thecampesinos, taking note of their opinion, unraveling why they insisted on asking forcertain lands, and working to persuade the resident peons to join in the (ejidal) cen-suses : G6mez to Cardenas, 18 Nov. 1939, Archivo General de la Naci6n, Mexico,Presidentes (Cardenas), 562.11/222.31. Ann L. Craig, The First Agraristas: An Oral History of a Mexican Agrar-ian Reform Movement (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 82-83.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendasable to discern recurrent patterns and categories of greater or lesserimportance. It has been reasonably demonstrated, I think, that theagrarian revolts of the Porfiriato and, a fortiori, the Revolution,mobilized villagers rather than resident peons. Indeed, it may be thata rough correlation can be shown between revolutionary participa-tion and campesino autonomy. Thus, if we take the Baraona/Kaymodel and employ the concept of internal and external peasantry,asedio interno and asedio externo, the propensity for organization,protest and armed revolt would seem to grow as we move along thecontinuum.32

Internal Peasantry - External Peasantryresident peons - day laborers - tenants, sharecroppers - free villagersFor example, we know that in Morelos the hacienda peons laggedbehind the villagers. In San Luis, the smallholding Cedillos initiallyrecruited sharecroppers-and later peons. In Chihuahua, and pos-sibly the Laguna too, peasant communities (Namiquipa, Bachiniva,Cuencame) provided the focal points for rebellions which recruitedmore widely amongst the diverse population of the north. In Tlax-cala, it was the southern part of the state, where peasant villages de-fied the power of the hacienda, that the revolution took off, whilethe hacienda-dominated north remained more quiescent; likewise,in Yucatan, rebellion was more marked in the inland zones wherethe big henequen plantation did not exercise such marked control,and where free peasants were more numerous.33The grievances of the free peasants who, while enjoying somesocial and political autonomy, faced the threat of economic dispos-session, have been amply discussed. But what of the hacienda peons-or, more generally, of campesinos closer to the lefthand, depen-dent end of the continuum? Was their passivity the result of tightsocial control (indicative of an oppressive but efficient hacienda)?Or of relative contentment (indicative of the continued legitimacy

32. Crist6bal Kay, The development of the Chilean hacienda system, 1850-1973, in Kenneth Duncan and Ian Rutledge, eds., Land and Labour in Latin Amer-ica (Cambridge, 1977) pp. 103-105.33. The case of Tlaxcala is particularly illuminating in this respect: see RaymondTh. J. Buve, Peasant Movements, Caudillos and Land Reform during the Revolution(1910-17) in Tlaxcala, Mexico, Boletin de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe,18 (1975), pp. 112-152, and MargaritaMenegus Bornemann andJuan Felipe Leal, Lostrabajadores de las haciendas de Mazaquiahuac y El Rosario, Tlaxcala, en los alboresde la revoluci6n agraria, 1910-1914, in Heriberto Moreno Garcia, Despues de loslatifundios (La disintegracidn de la gran propiedad agraria en Mexico) (Zamora,1982) pp. 143-165.

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MexicanStudies/EstudiosMexicanosand paternalism of the hacienda)? The question is obviously impor-tant, and central to the revisionist/traditional debate over the charac-ter of the Porfirian hacienda. We will address it in a moment, as weconsider the process of agrarian reform.Revisionist historians have made much of the manipulative, top-down (and, we should add, center-out ) character of the postrev-olutionary agrarianreform.34It was, they argue, less a popular causethan a political strategem. Its supposed beneficiaries feared the cen-tral government, even when it brought gifts. For the gifts had stringsattached: ejidatarios became clients of the regime, lacking free-hold title to their plots, compelled to vote, mobilize, even fight atthe behest of their revolutionary benefactors. All this was necessarybecause, according to the revisionist argument, Porfirianagrarianso-ciety had not been racked by class tensions, nor had the Revolutiondisplayed a primary popular and agrariancharcter. The hacienda re-tained legitimacy and thus had to be forcibly dismantled by the newrevolutionary elite, who were above all concerned, not to impartsocial justice or to satisfy peasant demands (which were not sopressing anyway), but rather to solidify the state, to cement nationalloyalties, and to break down centers of countervailing provincial,landlord and clerical power.As with many of the revisionists' arguments, there is a measureof truth in all this. The agrarian reform was certainly a political in-strument (I will return to that point in a moment). Furthermore,there was popular resistance-and/or indifference-to the reform.The lamentations and exhortations of the revolutionaries make thisclear. Carrillo Puerto had to work hard to get his message across toYucatan's peons; the pioneer agrarians of Jalisco, too, took uponthemselves a formidable labor de conscientizacion; in Michoacan,reformers were frustrated by those peasants who out of fanaticismor poverty or the intrigues of landlords did not want to accept theejido. 35Very likely, many recipients would have preferred freeholdplots to community-owned ejidos (the notion that the Mexican peas-antry in general clove to communal land tenure, derivative, perhaps,of the Aztec calpullali, seems to me much exaggerated).36

34. By center-out I mean reform directed by the center in order to fosterpolitical centralization and to break down provincial autonomy.35. G. M.Joseph, Revolution From Without: Yucatdn, Mexico, and the UnitedStates, 1880-1924 (Cambridge, 1982), ch. 8; Craig, The First Agraristas, p. 96; Vic-toriano Anguiano Equihua, Ldzaro Cdrdenas: Sufeudo y la politica nacional (Mex-ico, 1951), p. 48.36. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, stresses the continuities of peasant protest,from Precolumbian times to the Revolution, and makes a good deal of peasant com-munalism: e.g., pp. 28, 33-4, 238, 364.

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Knight: Destruction of the HaciendasThe degree of resistance/indifference, however, must be relatedto the Baraona/Kay continuum given above. Just as the armed revo-lution mobilized the external peasantry, so, too, the agrarianreformwon their support rather than that of the internal peasantry. In partthis was the direct consequence of agrarian policy. For some twenty

years resident peons were largely debarred from petitioning for land(it is important to stress largely, and to note cases in which liber-ated peons might become beneficiaries of land distribution).37 Inthe main, peones acasillados had good reason to stick with the ha-cienda. First, out of fear: the repressive capacity of the hacienda,now backed in some instances by revolutionary collaborators,was not entirely spent; the penalties of protest were often severeand, of course, hardly indicative of benign hacienda paternalism.38But peon economic self-interest also counted. It is clear that somehaciendas cultivated the support of their peons by offering perks andbenefits, which might be particularly attractive in time of social andeconomic upheaval. Apart from overt paternalism-acts of charity,fiestas, relations of compadrazgo-the hacienda offered access toland, seed, animals, and credit. The secure dependence of the res-ident peon was often perceived as preferable to the precarious in-dependence of the day laborer-the Yucatan half-timer or themigrant and temporary worker of central Mexico.39 If the residentpeon was offered the choice, not between peonage and smallhold-ing, but rather between peonage and day laboring, it is not surprisingthat many opted for peonage. Stripped of their secure but dependentstatus, as they were in Morelos, they became the orphans of the ha-cienda, cast adrift in a hostile universe.40 Not surprisingly, manypeons resisted an agrarianreform which threatened their livelihoodto the benefit of outsiders (external peasants-and sometimes noteven peasants) and, in some cases, peons proved to be loyal clientsof the landlord, even when the landlord fell upon hard times. Nor

37. In practice, matters were not quite so simple. Simpson, The Ejido, p. 83,points out that hacienda communities could achieve the necessary political status topetition for land; furthermore, abandoned haciendas were vulnerable. Luis Aboites,La revoluci6n en Espita Yucatdn (1910-1940) (Merida, 1985), pp. 72-80, 101-106,shows how liberated peons occupied land and successfully petitioned for ejidal grants.Note also Ernest Gruening, Mexico and its Heritage (London, 1928), pp. 153-4.38. There is an abundant literature: see, for example, Heather Fowler Salamini,Agrarian Radicalism in Veracruz, 1920-1938 (Lincoln, 1978), pp. 37, 41; Craig,The First Agraristas, pp. 77-78, 92; Paul Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt in a MexicanVillage (Chicago, 1977).39. Knight, Mexican Peonage, pp. 64-5; Warman, Y venimos a contradecir,pp. 67-73.40. Warman, Y venimos a contradecir, p. 124.

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanoswere resident peons the sole victims. Sharecroppers, too, were dis-placed when external peasants successfully petitioned for haciendaland.41

The agrarian reform was therefore bound to divide the peas-antry and to generate intrapeasant conflicts. Over and above thesimple peon-agrarian conflict the reform also pitted agrarian againstranchero, village against village, father against son. We know thatthe early victims of the reform were often rancheros rather thanlatifundistas. This did not mean, necessarily, the dispossession ofstout yeomen by conniving agrarians. Rancheros -lesser land-lords/caciques-had often been responsible for taking over villagelandholding during the Porfiriato; in some regions they, rather thanbig hacendados, were the chief agents of agrarian commercializa-tion and accumulation.42 It is wrong, therefore, to see the dispos-session of rancheros as an inherent betrayal or perversion of theagrarian reform.43 But, in addition, the reform both engendered newintercommunal conflicts (e.g., Zacualpan vs Temoac, Mor.) andprovided an extra resource in old feuds (Soyaltepec vs Amilpas,Oax.); it also stimulated sectoral disputes (ejidatarios against truckfarmers) and splits within communities, of which more in a mo-ment.44 No doubt some of this conflict was deliberately stirred upfor political reasons, not least by hacendados. But, I suggest, a largemeasure of conflict was inevitable in such a prolonged and sweep-ing redistribution of property, enacted in a country where rural con-flicts (hacienda versus village, village versus village) were endemicanyway. Even if the official protagonists of the agrarian reform hadwanted a neat, clean, orderly, bureaucratic reform it is difficult tosee how they could have accomplished it.In reviewing the course of the reform it is useful to note conti-nuities and ruptures. In some states and regions, revolutionarymobilization in 1910-20 laid the groundwork for-relatively-swiftinstitutional reform during the 1920s. Again, Morelos was the clas-sic case; but it was not unique. Elsewhere, too, pioneer agrarian pro-test achieved results: in Tlaxcala and other central plateau states; inwestern Chihuahua; with Cedillo in San Luis; in the case of those

41. Simpson, The Ejido, p. 105.42. Knight, Mexican Revolution, I, pp. 99-101, 112-114.43. Sometimes, the targeted rancheros were petty landlords-cum-caciques(or gamonales): e.g., Carlos GarciaMora, Tierra y movimiento agraristaen la SierraPurepecha, inJornadas de Occidente: Movimientos populares en el occidente deMexico, siglos XIX y XX (iquilpan, 1981), pp. 67-68.44. Warman, Yvenimos a contradecir, 152-3; Philip A. Dennis, Conflictosportierras en el valle de Oaxaca (Mexico, 1976), pp. 106-107.

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Knight: Destruction of the HaciendasMichoacan communities which bucked the local trend and displayeda tenacious agrarianism. In a good many instances, therefore, theinstitutional agrarian reform correlated with-and in some clearsense responded to-prior revolutionary mobilization. We may re-gard these as cases of primary agrarianreform. In other instancescontinuity was less evident; hence the presumption of top-down,center-out, manipulative reform must be greater. Yucatan experi-enced relatively radical reform in the early 1920s-Carrillo Puerto'sdelivery of the goods previously promised by Alvarado. Alvaradistaor Carrillista, this reform had a top-down quality: it required stateorganization and exhortation; it encountered not only predictablelandlord opposition but also a degree of popular apathy (or caution);and it proved-in places-to be fragile and reversible. Yucatan maythus be taken as an exemplar of secondary reform.

Again, we should see these contrasting forms as ends of a con-tinuum rather than discrete boxes. We should also be cautious of fol-lowing the practice, conventional and sometimes unavoidable, ofgeneralizing at the level of states, and thus of collapsing together re-gions or localities which might better be disaggregated.45 However,for the purpose of general analysis, let us say that Morelos and Yu-catan represent approximate extremes of primary and secon-dary reform, with many other cases lying in between. Among theseintermediate cases would be Veracruz or Michoacan, states in whichthe institutional reform of the 1920s was built upon shaky-but ex-isting-foundations, laid by the incipient popular agrarianismof therevolution. Fowler and Falc6n, able analysts of Veracruzagrarianism,tend to see the state's agrarian reform as springing, fully formed,from the head of Tejedismo; its pioneers are often urban intellec-tuals, politicos and labor leaders.46 Yet Veracruz produced a richcrop of agrarian movements during the nineteenth century, and itscontribution during the armed revolution was by no means negligi-ble either.47 Likewise Michoacan: as governors, Mfigicaand Cardenasgave decisive top-down support for agrarianism;but they also en-countered ready support from below, support which attested to the

45. Morelos-which, of course, possesses its own internal contrasts-appearsa more unanimously agrarian state than any other partly because it is small, henceit can more easily attain unanimity; larger states possessed pockets of agrarianismwhich, in terms of area, exceeded Morelos and, in terms of population, came close.46. Fowler, Agrarian Radicalism; Romana Falc6n, El agrarismo en Veracruz:La etapa radical (1928-1935) (Mexico, 1977) and, with Soledad Garcia, La semillaen el surco: Adalberto Tejeda y el radicalismo en Veracruz, 1883-1960 (Mexico,1986).47. Knight, Mexican Revolution, II, pp. 54-55.

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanosprior popular mobilization of the armed revolution, which had dis-tinctly agrarian connotations.48 Michoacan's revolution did not mea-sure up to Morelos's in terms of agrarian intensity; but it was moredynamic than that of many states.

Indeed, an extreme top-down interpretation of the reform-one which stresses above all its elitist and manipulative character-begs an important question. If popular support and mobilizationwere lacking-if the ejido was a blatant imposition on a reluctantpeople-what was in it for the elite manipulators? Manipulation im-plies some form of trade-off-an unequal trade-off, to be sure-buta trade-off nonetheless. If in fact the peasant beneficiaries of thereform perceived few or no concrete benefits, then their presumed

manipulators played the role not of deft puppeteers, but rather ofnaive social engineers, espousing a policy which did not win friendsand which influenced people only in a negative sense. This perspec-tive may apply, in good measure, to revolutionary anticlericalism,or-even more-to the socialist education program of the 1930s.Both were doctrinaire ideological projects; both were vote-losersrather than vote-winners. The agrarian reform was a different prop-osition. True, it encountered a range of reactions, as we have recog-nised; but for manipulation to work, there had to be a substantialground swell of support for the policy. Furthermore, if such supportexisted, making manipulation possible, we should perhaps becareful of using terms (like manipulation ) which imply a heavilyone-sided relationship. Of course agrarian caudillos enjoyed morepower than peasant communities. But if there was a perceived com-mon interest, and if peasant support was freely given,49 we mightbetter refer to trade-offs and reciprocal bargains rather than manip-ulation. After all, when similar political relationships transpire else-where-when, for example, FDR and the New Dealers forged an

48. Garcia Mora, Tierra y movimiento agrarista en la Sierra Purepecha, pp.59-89; Paul Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt in a Mexican Village.49. A Sartrean disquisition on freedom might be appropriate at this point.Of course, economically and politically subordinate peasants did not enjoy a widerange of options from which they could choose in leisurely reflective fashion. Butthere were options, debates and decisions. Maybe this was a form of political free-dom analogous to the economic freedom of the market: on the one hand, it wasconstrained by a harsh reality (the abstract economic freedom to starve was paralleled,we may say, by the abstract political freedom to go it alone and eschew politics); onthe other hand, it did imply freedom from a given and ineluctable political mo-nopoly (the political counterpart of serfdom or slavery). Peasants did possess somescope for maneuver between the competing authorities of landlord, cleric, bureaucratand caudillo. I suspect, too, that there was greater scope during the turbulent post-revolutionary period (1920-40) than there has been since 1940.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendasalliance with organized labor during the 1930s-we do not usuallyassume that this is a simple case of top-down manipulation. And inthe case of Mexican agrarianism it is clear that peasant activists ac-quired a sophisticated knowledge of the revolutionary system andworked it to the best of their advantage. They operated from a po-sition of subordination (subordination, of course, is diagnostic ofpeasantries, according to most theories), but that did not makethem mere puppets. The point is well made by Craig, whose studyfocusses on a conservative region within a conservative state,where peasant agrarianism had been traditionally weak. Yet, shenotes, agrarian mobilization did evoke a positive response, whichcannot be understood in simple manipulative terms; even if theLagos agrarians depended heavily on external and superordinate al-lies, there is no evidence to suggest that they were alliances forcedupon the Laguenses or into which they entered naively. 50 FowlerSalamini, too, in discussing the Tejedista peasant alliance in Vera-cruz, talks of a combination of symbiosis and clientelism. 51This leads logically to the next point. It may be objected, reason-ably, that, although top-down reform may have required a sup-portive (manipulable) constituency, that constituency may havecomprised only a small minority within a given region/community.Of course, that minority still had to be large or influential enoughto merit manipulation. If it was not, devious manipulationlooks like pretty dumb politics. The point which reemerges is thatthe agrarian reform was inherently divisive and conflictual. It elic-ited both support and opposition; hence the business of buying po-litical capital with agrarian currency was especially difficult andcomplex. Land grants were not like across-the-board tax cuts. Sinceland tenure was a zero-sum game, each grant implied a correspond-ing loss and beneficiaries were-to varying degrees-offset by vic-tims. Morelos, again, was something of a special case, given thesheer extent of Zapatismo and the widespread elimination of the su-gar plantations during the Revolution. Here, the reparto of the early1920s appears to have enjoyed unusually broad support, which per-haps contributed to the bucolic atmosphere witnessed by Redfield.52Elsewhere, the reform divided rural society much more profoundly.The basic divide involved (external) peasants and landlords and wasmanifested in the running battles-political, ideological and even

50. Craig, The First Agraristas, p. 10.51. Fowler Salamini, Agrarian Radicalism, p. 67.52. Peter Coy, A Watershed in Mexican Rural History: Some Thoughts on theReconciliation of Conflicting Interpretations, Journal of Latin American Studies,3 (1978), pp. 39-57.

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Mexican Studies/EstudiosMexicanosliteral--which stretched through the 1920s: Primo Tapia and theNaranja agrarians against the Noriegas; Francisco Rojas and his Bol-sheviki against the ill-fated Rosalie Evans in Puebla; Mateo Sanchezand his Indian crew against the Hacienda Providencia north ofToluca.53

In such conflicts, the hacendado did not fight alone, nor did he/she rely solely on the strong-arm support of the army, white guards,or, in the case of Rosalie Evans, her pack of slavering hounds. Forcewas important, but it was not the hacendado's sole weapon. Revi-sionist scholarship notwithstanding, there is plenty of evidence ofclerical support for the hacendado in his battle with agrarianism.54More important, for our purposes, the hacendado could also counton popular support (freely given, with the same caveat as before).Resident peons, as well as tenants and sharecroppers, often resistedagrarianism; the conflict thus posed internal against externalpeasantries. At Providencia, the majority of the peons spurned Ma-teo Sanchez's incipient agrarianism: their loyalties remained withthe hacendado and they sided with the hacendado, the estatemanager recalled.55 In Veracruz and San Luis, likewise, residentpeons often spurned agrarianism until well into the 1930s-until,that is, the demise of the hacienda was imminent.56 The rough di-vision evident during the armed revolution was thus repeated dur-ing the postrevolutionary reform. If agrarianleaders manipulatedtheir followers, so, too, embattled landlords manipulated theirpeons; or, to put it differently, the rival causes enlisted rival con-stituencies, bound together by sentiments of self-interest as well ascommon ideological perceptions.

On the agrarian side, it should be added, the assembled constit-uency included more than just peasants and their caudillo leaders(Tejeda, Migica, Cedillo, Zuno and others). Areas of secondary mo-bilization were also distinguished by an important admixture of(loosely) urban allies: city radicals, teachers, labor leaders, middle-

53. Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt; Rosalie Evans, The Rosalie Evans LettersfromMexico (Indianapolis, 1926), p. 136; Margolies, Princes of the Earth, pp. 39-40.54. Craig, The First Agraristas, pp. 70-1; Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt, pp. 48,120; Luis Gonzalez, Pueblo en vilo: Microhistoria de San Jose de Gracia (Mexico,1972), pp. 173-174; Beatriz Rojas,La destruccidn de la hacienda en Aguascalientes,1910-1931 (Zamora, 1981), p. 69. Cf. the case of Morelos, where-given the sweep-ing and primary character of the agrarianreform-clerical opposition was absent:Warman, Y venimos a contradecir, p. 174.55. Margolies, Princes of the Earth, p. 39.56. Fowler, Agrarian Radicalism, p. 40; Jan Bazant, Cinco haciendas mexi-canas: Tres siglos de vida rural en San Luis Potosi (Mexico, 1975), p. 185.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendasclass intellectuals, even the occasional military officer (not all therevolutionary military were repressive cossacks).57Again, we shouldhesitate to denote these as mere manipulators. For one thing, eventhe quintessential peasant movements of the armed revolution dis-played a mixed leadership, which included nonpeasants.58 It wouldbe narrowly formalistic to deny a movement peasant status sim-ply because its leaders were not wholly peasant in origin. Asregards the institutional reformers of post-1920s, they responded toa variety of motives. The CROM eadership may have sought peasantrecruitment in somewhat cynical fashion, but not all CROMistamo-bilization was ipso facto cynical and manipulative. Other groups, too,were active: Communists in Veracruz and the Laguna; radical arti-sans (Mexico's equivalents of the pioneers of Andalusian anarchism,it would seem) in Jalisco. Some, like Macedonio Ayala of Lagos, weregenuine idealists, who paid for their idealism with their lives.59 Weshould also mention that important but indeterminate groups, peas-ant migrants, especially the growing number of nortenos.60 Suchbrokers helped impart a new consciousness and, perhaps more im-portant, helped build a new organization. Their extracommunitycontacts enabled them to advance supracommunity mobilization:via peasant leagues, unions, and links with state and national parties.

Agrarian mobilization, however, faced formidable obstacles,which in turn contributed to the halting, violent and conflictualcharacter of the agrarianreform. Reform was slow, risky and expen-sive. It could take a community years of petitioning and politicking;it could incur heavy costs, financial and others; and it meant chart-ing an uncertain course through an ever-changing sea of agrarianlegislation. Its protagonists faced not only violent reprisals, but alsoeconomic sanctions, such as the loss of jobs and credit; they mighteven suffer social ostracism.61 Landlords could stymie reform in avariety of ways: by direct violence, by political alliances, by tacti-cal preemptive reform (successfully attempted by William Jenkinsand others; unsuccessfully tried by the Laguna planters in the early1930s).62 They could string out the process of litigation, resorting

57. Craig,TheFirstAgraristas,pp. 45, 100.58. Warman,Y venimos a contradecir,p. 133, lists Zapatistaeaders.59. Craig, The First Agraristas, pp. 118-120.60. Craig, The First Agraristas, pp. 91-94, 178-180; Friedrich, AgrarianRevolt, pp. 69-70.61. Gledhill, Casi Nada, p. 85.62. David Ronfeldt, Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexi-can Ejido (Stanford,1973).

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanosto the agrarian amparo; they could also employ dirty tricks (for ex-ample, intercepting their opponents' mail).63 Ultimately, as expro-priation loomed, they even sabotaged their properties.64Landlord resistance was the more effective in that the agrarians'ultimate goal-the acquisition of ejidal land-was not an unmiti-gated boon. This is not to say that ejidos were regularly foisted ona reluctant peasantry by a conniving state. The state's role washighly ambivalent, at least until 1935, and ejidal grants were rarelyforthcoming without prior local mobilization. And there are few ifany cases of ejidatarios handing back their lands in disgust.65 Thepoint, rather, is to see the ejido in perspective, as it was seen bynecessarily cautious campesinos. In practical terms, ejidal lands wereof varying quality; their access to water supplies was often a prob-lem; and, especially prior to the 1930s, their recipients lacked anyinstitutional backup. Ejidatarios got access to land, but that was oflittle use without credit, seeds, fertilizer, animals. These, formerlysupplied to peons, sharecroppers or tenants by the hacendado, wererarely forthcoming under the new dispensation. The campesinos ofMorelos did not want for land in the 1920s, but there was an acuteshortage of oxen, just as there were conflicts over access to watersupplies.66 Even during the Cardenas years, when governmental ef-forts were much greater, plenty of newly created ejidos languishedfor want of adequate seeds, tools and credit.67We must suppose, therefore, a counterdemonstration effect: onthe one hand, agrarian agitation might prove contagious, but, on theother, awareness of the problems which ejidatarios faced could in-still a measure of diffidence and caution. Rural workers perceivedthat, in some (many?) instances, the reparto would give them moreresponsibilities and would not guarantee them an immediate im-

63. The politics of the agrarianamparo during this period are complex and noteasy to unravel: see Simpson, TheEjido, pp. 119-120. The dirty tricks are recountedin Craig, The First Agraristas, p. 86.64. G6mez to Cardenas (n. 30 above).65. As Luis Gonzalez puts it, Pueblo en vilo, p. 193: although ejidatarios maylive in poverty, seeking some amelioration through petitions for new land distribu-tions, nevertheless, none aspires to return to his earlier status as peon or sharecrop-per. Perhaps they are as poor as before, but they are more free and human. Thenonmaterial benefits of the reform were similarly noted by Simpson, The Ejido, p.108.

66. Warman, Y venimos a contradecir, p. 179.67. Several examples are to be found in the Francisco Migica archive, Centrode Estudios de la Revoluci6n Mexicana LazaroCardenas, Jiquilpan, Michoacan: e.g.,Mugicato Cardenas, 2 Feb. 1937, vol. 179 p. 27, describing how almost all the agrar-ian communities of Zamora lacked credit, oxen and tools.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendasprovement. 68 Diffidence and caution were also justified by theejido's novel form. It seems clear that many recipients would havepreferred outright grants of freehold land: parcellization --in ef-fect, a return to the old Law of Ejidal Patrimony-became a recur-rent demand in the later 1930s, after the sweeping Cardenistareforms.69The conditionality of the ejidal grant offended peasants-like those of Namiquipa-who, while they were dogged agrarians,did not relish receiving their lands at the hands of the revolutionarystate.70Given the prevalence of dotacion over restituci6n, we mayassume that such an attitude was not confined to Namiquipa. Theconditionality of the grant created other misgivings. How securewas the ejido? With the benefit of hindsight we see it as a keystoneof postrevolutionary rural society. During the 1920s and '30s it wasa novel experiment, the subject of widespread opposition and criti-cism (e.g., in the press and among the veteranos).71 Who wouldpredict its longevity? Some campesinos, even in Morelos, feared thereturn of the hacendado and hesitated to compromise themselves asagrarians.72And how legitimate was it? Opponents of the reform,clerical and lay, made a good deal of the illegitimate character of theejido: it was a bastard form of property, born of thievery.73Agrarianismthus aroused strong misgivings and outright opposi-tion, as well as fierce loyalties. It was bound to polarize ruralsocietyand produce endemic conflict; in a sense, it was the continuationof the revolution by other means. There is a tendency to cite theviolence, conflict and corruption of the reform as evidence of itsphony, contrived, controlled character. A proper reform, as itwere, would have been peaceful, decorous and uncontentious, con-ducted by saintly social engineers, twentieth-century equivalents of

68. The quote refers to sugarmill workers in Veracruz(a special case, to be sure):Juana MartinezAlarc6n, San Crist6bal: Un ingenio y sus trabajadores (Xalapa, 1986),p. 142.69. A demand even embraced by the Communists: see Thomas Louis Benjamin,Passages to Leviathan: Chiapas and the Mexican State, 1891-1947 (Ph.D. diss.,Michigan State University, 1981), p. 254.70. Daniel Nugent, Land, Labor and Politics in a Serrano Society (publicationforthcoming). Note also Jean Meyer, La Cristiada (Mexico, 3 vols., 1985) III, p. 74.71. E.g., El Universal, 19 March 1922, urges the government to rescue a declin-ing agriculturalsector by giving complete guarantees ... as to property and also . ..capital and labor invested ... [thus] creating confidence and holding legitimateproperty rights to be inviolate. Avila Camacho complied twenty years later. On theveterans : Simpson, The Ejido, pp. 439-440.72. Warman, Y venimos a contradecir, p. 159.73. Simpson, The Ejido, p. 106; Gruening, Mexico and its Heritage, pp.216-218.

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanosthe millenarian Franciscans of the conquest. This seems unrealistic.The reform involved big material stakes and bitter class and factionalstruggles. In the course of some thirty years it ended the regime ofthe great estate and reconstituted the Mexican peasantry. An ancientinstitution was killed off and secular trends were reversed. Such aprocess was bound to be messy and violent. Its peasant protagonists-like the Princes of Naranja portrayed by Paul Friedrich-werebound to be Machiavellian figures, children of poverty and strugglewho combined individual ruthlessness with some genuine regard forthe common good (the latter defined in terms of the agrarian com-munity).74 Thus, the Naranja ejido, born amid bloodshed and sacri-fice and sustained through endemic strife, did represent a genuinereordering of power and property in the region. If it was ruled by(agrarian) caciques, this did not nullify its significance in terms ofagrarian change, even revolution. Caciquismo was a natural, perhapsinevitable, mode of leadership, given historical and social precon-ditions. It occurred everywhere: in regions of primary reform likeMorelos or of secondary reform like Yucatan.75 Conversely, demo-cratic agrarian reform-reform on the lines of (say) Scandinaviansocial democracy-was absent from the agenda; so, too, was reformmediated through a militant vanguard party such as the CCP (Chi-nese Communist Party); however, that too would very likely haveembodied a good deal of party bossism-vanguard caciquismo. Theprevalence of individual power brokers and fixers, versed in polit-ical skills and familiar with violence, was an inevitable consequenceof the Revolution, and of Mexico's inherited political culture; agrar-ian reform would be caciquista (to some degree), or it would be noreform at all. Ejidatarios were known to lament the disappearanceof the old boss: the creation of new revolutionary bosses was in parta response to this vacuum.76 What mattered, over time, was thecharacter of the emerging ejidal caciquismo. Caciques came in manyguises-popular and unpopular, responsible and tyrannical. Overtime, however, as the reform was consolidated, as pioneer strugglesgave way to routine politics, and, above all, as the revolutionary

74. Paul Friedrich, The Princes of Naranja: An Essay in AnthrohistoricalMethod (Austin, 1986).75. Warman, Y venimos a contradecir, p. 167-8, 181, where the author stressesthat the Morelense caciques were men of the people and convinced agrarians;compared to the old landlord elite, they were rustic, combative, shrewd and cruel,they were compadres, nephews and neighbours ... their power was not remote butdown-to-earth (concreto). On Yucatan, see Joseph, Revolution From Without, pp.117-119, 207-209 and Aboites, La revoluci6n mexicana en Espita, pp. 86-7, 109.76. Simpson, The Ejido, p. 379.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendasstate of the 1920s and '30s gave way to the new institutional regimeof the 1940s, so ejidal bossism tended to lose its earlier demotic andquasi-representative character.77This, the political dimension of the agrarianreform, deservescloser analysis. The notion that the agrarian reform was a highlypoliticized process, shot through with intrigue and factionalism, isno new discovery.78 The point, therefore, is not to trumpet this (ob-vious) fact, but to try to analyze its significance. I have suggestedthat the top-down model should be replaced by a dialecticalmodel which sees manipulation (or, we might better say, recipro-cal political bargaining) as proceeding both ways, top-down andbottom-up. But the perspective can be yet further broadened.Agrarianism may be seen as a new political resource, brought intobeing by the Revolution. Like it or not, agrarianism could not bewished away. All sociopolitical actors therefore had to reckon withit. Some espoused it enthusiastically, some more cautiously; someopposed it vigorously, whether in the press, in politics, or in armedconflict; some sought to evade and deflect it. Few could ignore it.Thus, groups other than those initially involved in agrarian conflictsoon began to take up positions: the agrarian arena expanded, en-compassing urban-dwellers, sindicatos, politicians, intellectuals and,most importantly, campesinos who had played no role in the revo-lution (who had been untouched by the initial phase of primary mo-bilization and reform). The decision to take sides was not necessarilycareful, logical and reflective, but very often hasty, expedient and,in some senses, ineluctable. In regions or communities lacking a rev-olutionary record-those of secondary mobilization-reactionsto agrarianism were less historically predetermined, but reactionscould not be avoided. Neutrality was a difficult stance to maintain.Agrarianism thus figured, like anticlericalism or indigenismo, as anew fact of revolutionary life which had to be reckoned with.Some communities, tranquil during the revolution, rapidly es-poused the agrariancause: we may conclude that their previous pas-sivity derived less from bucolic contentment than from effectivesocial control.79 Others eschewed agrarianism, either because land

77. See the interesting analysis in Susana Glantz, El ejido colectivo de NuevaItalia (Mexico, 1974) pp. 133-141.78. The parcelling out still goes on and will doubtless continue indefinitely,gifts of land being apparently used as bribes by the political party in power to con-solidate its position: Notes on the Agrarian Problem in Mexico by US consul-general Alexander Weddell, Mexico City, 19 July 1927, in Department of StateRecords, Internal Affairs of Mexico, 812.52/1459. See also Simpson, TheEjido, p. 348.79. Aboites, La revoluci6n mexicana en Espita, makes the point that the revo-

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanosdistribution seemed superfluous and disruptive (e.g., San Jose deGracia), or because the hacienda-for all its political and economicproblems-retained both control and legitimacy (e.g., San Diego deRio Verde).80 A very common outcome, however, was neitherunanimous support nor unanimous opposition, but, rather, internaldivision and polarization, which landlords might choose to foster.81This could follow class lines: poor peasants favored land distribu-tion, kulaks-or, alternatively, campesinos closely and clientelisti-cally linked to the local hacienda-opposed it.82 But it was notalways as simple as that. Agrarianism, penetrating regions of sec-ondary mobilization, came as a message and a resource. As a mes-sage, it emanated from the loose radical agrarian constituency and(sometimes) from the state itself; at any rate, it came from outside,as a ray of hope or an alien blight. As a resource, it offered externalaid and comfort. To become an agrarian was to throw in one's lotwith a regional caudillo, a reforming governor, an emergent peasantleague, a labor confederation. Local autonomy might be compro-mised, but local causes might also be advanced. Those causes mightbe disinterested and highminded, or self-serving and personalist(often they combined the two), but the fact remained that agrarian-ism-like anticlericalism or indigenismo-represented a new factorin local equations of power. The decision to endorse or opposethus depended not just on class alignments, important though thesewere, but also on questions of age,83 of historical predisposition, andof tactical maneuvering.Consider historical disposition. For some ardent provincials, theagrarian reform was suspect because it emanated from without,from state or national capital; it was a center-out imposition. ForCatholics-Jean Meyer argues-the reform was repugnant not be-cause Catholics opposed reform per se, but because it came at theinstigation of an authoritarian, anticlerical state (the obverse of thislution could have a powerful and profound effect even on communities which hadappeared passive during the armed upheaval: the fact that there had been no armedstruggle against the Porfirian regime in Espita and its environs did not mean that thesocial contradictions which had generated and impelled that struggle elsewhere didnot exist there [too].80. Gonzalez, Pueblo en vilo, p. 174; Marijose Amerlinck de Bontempo, Lareforma agrariaen la hacienda de San Diego de Rio Verde, in GarciaMoreno, Despuesde los latifundios, pp. 183-198.81. Simpson, The Ejido, p. 349.82. Ibid., p. 358. The Naranja agrarian movement began as one of Indian vil-lagers opposed to landlords and their mestizo peones; but, with time, many of thelatter switched sides: Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt, pp. 112-113.83. Gledhill, Casi Nada, p. 89.

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Knight: Destruction of the Haciendasequation was that die-hard agrariansbecame anticlericals, sometimesrather spurious anticlericals).84 Traditionally liberal pueblos, on theother hand were more receptive: they had identified with previousprogressive causes; they-or, we should say, elements within them-were ready for a new historic compromise with the (new revolu-tionary) state. It was the political provenance as well as the socialcontent of the reform which mattered.

Agrarianismalso appeared as a political resource, to be used tac-tically. It offered tangible benefits-and threats. We are familiarwiththe opportunist agrarians-caciques, landlords, governors-who es-poused a phony agrarianismin the hope of advantage: the Pisafloresbosses, WilliamJenkins, a host of pseudo-Cardenista converts of thelater 1930s.85 Such characters populate revisionist studies, they areliving proof-revisionists argue-of the reform's shallow cynicism.Yet the fact that cynics and opportunists turned agrarianis itself sig-nificant: they bowed to pressures that were compelling.86 Nor canit be assumed that opportunistic agrarianism invariably lacked realconsequence. Controlled mobilizations have a habit of getting outof control (foreign observers, for example, compared Cardenas toDr. Frankenstein).87More important, the notion of agrarianism as atactical weapon should not be confined to analyses of narrow elites.Broad groups within civil society perceived its importance and util-ity. In some communities, it seems, agrarianism was espoused byparticular families/factions, in opposition to rivals. The division didnot necessarily follow class lines. Rather, agrarianismoffered a newway to fight old feuds-and, of course, the old feuds did not ceasewith the ejidal grant.88

The same would apply to conflicts between neighboring com-munities: ostensibly progressive pueblos, embracing the agrariancause, could steal a march on their conservative rivals.89 Eitherway, agrarian mobilization assumed a political and instrumental

84. Meyer, La Cristiada, III, pp. 74-90; Friedrich, Princes ofNaranja, p. 175.85. Frans J. Schryer, The Rancheros of Pisaflores: The History of a PeasantBourgeoisie in Twentieth-Century Mexico (Toronto, 1980); Ronfeldt, Atencingo;Tomas Martinez Saldafia and Leticia Gandara Mendoza, Politica y sociedad en Me-xico: el caso de los Altos deJalisco (Mexico, 1976), pp. 69-70; MartinezAlarc6n, SanCrist6bal, p. 142.86. Note the case of Ruben C. Carrizosa analyzed by Raymond Buve, StateGovernors and Peasant Mobilization in Tlaxcala, in Brading, ed., Caudillo andPeasant, p. 241.87. Murray,Mexico City, to Foreign Office, 15 Feb. 1935, F0371/18705,A2058.88. Forexamples of continued feuding: Friedrich,Princes ofNaranja; AnguianoEquihua, Ldzaro Cdrdenas, pp. 40-1, 44; Ronfeldt, Atencingo, especially ch. 7.89. Dennis, Conflictos por tierras, p. 120

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Knight: Destruction of the HaciendasIn Chiapas and Oaxaca, too, both tax rates and cadastral valuationsrose significantly during the 1920s.92 Real wages also inched up: lessbecause of formal legislation (Article 123 and the rest), than becausethe labor supply had contracted, coerced labor had greatlydiminished in importance, and incipient unionization had begun.Landlords in the Laguna fondly remembered the old times, beforethe days of the sindicato, when wages had been significantly lowerand the ability to hire and fire appreciably greater.93These factors, coupled with the economic ravages of the revo-lution, undermined hacienda profitability in many areas. During therevolution, many landlords quit the big house for the town andsome never returned; some went bust and sold up, some chose todiversify into urban businesses, some divided up their lands amongfamily members.94 In general, rural real estate represented a less se-cure investment than it had during the belle epoque of the Porfiriato.Consequently, some landlords faced the emergent challenge of agrar-ianism with an air of resignation. The hacienda, they complained,no longer guaranteed income as it had in the past. Lamentationscame thick and fast, well before the agrarian reform reached its1930s crescendo: landlords felt desilusionados y decepcionados (theworthlessness of the government's agrarian bonds compoundedtheir feeling), the hacienda was in decadence, one observed, theagrarian movement was on top of us; the hacienda wasn't function-ing as in the old days. 95As regards markets, the picture was rosier.Producers of staple crops may have suffered from low profits dur-ing the 1920s, but commercial crops, especially export crops, re-mained buoyant, at least until the late 1920s. Zones of exportagriculture such as Soconusco (Chiapas) and the Yaqui Valley(Sonora) prospered during the 1920s (significantly, both were zones

92. Thomas Benjamin, A Rich Land A Poor People: Politics and Society inModern Chiapas, (Albuquerque, 1989), p. 165.93. T. Fairbairn to R. Benson, 14 Aug. 1936, Mexican Cotton Estates of Tlahua-lilo Papers, Kleinwort Benson Archive, Speen, Berks., UK. The contraction of the laborsupply in turn related to falls and shifts in the population brought about by the Revo-lution: the depopulation of certain rural areas-notably hacienda communities-wasconsiderable.

94. E.g., Bazant, Cinco haciendas, p. 181; Margolies, Princes of the Earth, pp.39-40; Craig, The First Agraristas, p. 38; Martinez Saldariaand Gandara Mendoza,Politica y sociedad en Mexico, p. 195-6 (dealing with the 1920s, in a Cristero region).The list could easily be extended.95. Simpson, The Ejido, pp. 106-107; Margolies, Princes of the Earth, p. 39.Men are now doing what a few years ago they would have been incapable of,Rosalie Evans complained; all my Mexican neighbours, she went on, who do notbelong to the party in power are losing their places. They would not stay behind anddefend them : Letters, pp. 63, 154.

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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanosof high foreign investment). The national government, keen forreconstruction and exports, protected commercial farmers and ex-porters, such that the chief victims of land distribution were to befound in the traditional sector, especially in central Mexico.96 Acombination of factors thus made s

alan knight haciendas

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