Property Rights and Ecology in Michoacan, Mexico, 1821-1910

PROPERTY RIGHTS AND ECOLOGY IN MICHOACAN, MEXICO, 1821-1910

MARK J. SMITH

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 1 THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

1997 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank the following people without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. First, I thank the members of my supervisory committee: Murdo MacLeod,

David Geggus, Robert McMahon, and Abe Goldman. Professor

MacLeod has guided my studies since my arrival at the Uni- versity of Florida, and I am especially grateful for his knowledge, insights, and patience. During my stay in

Michoacan, my hosts Ben and Pat Warren provided assistance and support that was immeasurable. My thanks also go to the

History Department at the University, especially Betty

Corwin. The Tinker Foundation and the University of Flor- ida's Institute for Latin American Studies supported this research with financial assistance during my visits to

Mexico in 1995 and 1996.

Finally, I thank my wife Ellen and daughters Jocelyn and Regina for giving meaning to my life, and a purpose for any personal accomplishments that may result from this work.

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii

ABSTRACT V

CHAPTERS

1 INTRODUCTION 1 The Property Question in Mexico 3 The Nature of Property 11 The Ecological Role of Property Rights 15 The Study Area 19 Plan of Study 24 Notes 27

2 EMPIRES AND ECOLOGY 31

Ecological Change and Tarascan State Formation. . . 33 Resources and Property Under the Tarascan State.. 37 Spain and the Ecology of the Patzcuaro Basin 49 The Colonial Property Regime 58 Notes 64

3 PROPERTY AND ECOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY... 71 The Cultural Geography of the Patzcuaro Basin. ... 72 Resource Use and the Objects of Property 82 The Village Property Regime 92 Conclusion 102 Notes 103

4 THE STATE AND VILLAGE LANDHOLDING Ill Disentailment Efforts before 1856 112 The Liberals and Community Land 121 Extinguishing the Community 136 Notes 142

5 THE REPARTOS AND THE VILLAGES 149 The Process of Distributing Property 150 Redefining the Property Regime 161 Community Sovereignty and the State 171 Changes in the Lake 180 Conclusion 183 Notes 184

iii 6 THE REPARTOS AND BASIN ECOLOGY 192

Individual Tenure and the Erosion of Community. . . 193 The Degradation of Property 202 The Process of Land Alienation 210 Conclusion 221 Notes 2 24

7 CONCLUSION 230 Notes 239

APPENDIX: NINETEENTH CENTURY AGRICULTURAL MEASUREMENTS. 240

BIBLIOGRAPHY 241

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 255

iv Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor or Philosophy

PROPERTY RIGHTS AND ECOLOGY IN MICHOACAN, MEXICO, 1821-1910

Mark J. Smith

August 1997

Chairman: Murdo J. MacLeod Major Department: History

This study examines the property regimes that have

operated in the Lake Patzcuaro basin of Michoacan, Mexico.

In particular, the study considers the change in the nine-

teenth century from communal ownership by indigenous vil-

lages to private ownership by individuals. The distribution

of land under the liberal Mexican government brought new

forms of resource use to some villages and reduced access to

resources in others. Thus, the change in the property

regime meant a new relationship between the region's environment and its human inhabitants —a new ecology for the

Lake Patzcuaro basin. The investigation attempts to clarify matters pertaining to property rights in this region of

Mexico, especially the nature of communal tenure that was altered by the liberal government. In addition, it describes the ecological evolution of a circumscribed area of

v Latin America. Finally, the study offers an empirical case

study of the role of property rights as an element in a

region's ecology.

The study determined that for the basin the shift from

collective forms of tenure to individual ownership was a

complex, long-term process that was influenced by national-

level ideological currents, but driven in large measure by

state-level action. In Michoacan, the effort to change the property regime began as early as the 1820s and continued to

the Revolution. From the 1870s, villagers were willing or

eager to take advantage of the land laws to formalize their private ownership of the tracts of land they used. The result of this change, however, appears to be increasing land alienation and other ecological changes as the capabil-

ity of the land to provide for the subsistence of basin residents declined over the period. Further, the process of distributing property generated tensions in the basin, between communities, among community members, and between the communities and the state.

vi CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: PROPERTY AND ECOLOGY

This is an account of a people's relationship with the natural world. Its binding theme is the role of property in that relationship. The study focuses on the Lake Patzcuaro basin in southwestern Mexico where the people known as the

Tarascans or Purepecha have lived for centuries. Although once a great empire dominating a vast area, the Tarascans now are greatly reduced in number and extent from their heyday in the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, Tarascan villages remain part of the region's cultural landscape. It is still possible to hear the Purepecha language spoken, and in the people's lifeways can be seen precolumbian roots.

As with all rural peoples, the residents of basin villages maintained an intimate relationship with the physical environment for much of their history. The resources of the lake zone have long provided its residents with their subsistence needs, and so have shaped regional culture in deep and complex ways. In many ways, too, the human population has been a vital part of the Lake Patzcuaro basin's ecological evolution. The people have not only used the basin's resources, but have sometimes used them up, cut them down, or caused them to be washed away. 2

When people live close to nature, when they use natural resources directly for their daily subsistence, it is axiom- atic that they have some means for characterizing their ties to the particular piece of nature they rely on for survival.

In Western cultures we know this as property. Whatever it is called, societies have some understanding of what their rights are to a resource and under what conditions they may exercise those rights.

This study examines the property regimes that have operated in the Lake Patzcuaro basin. In particular, the study considers the change in the nineteenth century from communal ownership by indigenous villages to private ownership by individuals. The distribution of land under the liberal Mexican government brought new forms of resource use to some villages and reduced access to resources in others.

Thus, the change in the property regime meant a new relationship between the region's environment and its human inhabitants— a new ecology for the Lake Patzcuaro basin.

The investigation attempts to clarify matters pertaining to property rights in a region of Mexico, especially the nature of communal tenure that was attacked by the liberal government. In addition, it describes the ecological evolution of a circumscribed area of Latin America for a period in which similar changes were taking place elsewhere. Finally, the study offers an empirical case study of the role of property rights as an element in a region's ecology. 3

The Property Question in Mexico

Between 1856 and 1910 the Mexican government decided that the country's Indian communities would cease to have sovereignty and control of land. In Michoacan, a Native

American village, which may have existed since long before

Europeans arrived in the western hemisphere, officially

became an extinguida comunidad , an extinguished community.

What did this mean? Clearly, people continued to live in their traditional villages, often farming the same land their families had farmed for generations. But the state had decreed that they would own the land privately, rather than retaining rights of usufruct under a system that has been called "communal" tenure.

In 1948 Robert West, writing specifically on the

Tarascan area, noted that the "historical process of the shift from communal to private ownership is not clear." 1

Similarly, Francois Chevalier mentioned the lack of knowledge about "the effects of the 1856 laws" on village landholding. 2 And in their text on Mexican history, Meyer and

Sherman note that "the extent to which Indian communities lost their traditional lands has not been adequately studied." 3 Much remains to be examined regarding landholding and the transformation of property regimes in nineteenth- century Mexico.

Scholars have routinely noted the "communal" nature of village land tenure prior to the mid-nineteenth century, but 4

they have not explored fully the nature of property rights

before or during this critical period of change. Property

regimes reflect a broad spectrum of relationships between

individuals and villages, and with natural resources. It is

necessary, therefore, to determine how these relationships

operated in order to understand the role property rights play in a region's history.

Most studies of Mexican rural history have at least mentioned the ways human groups characterized their means of

landholding, and many have made considerable effort to describe the tenure patterns and effects of their change.

For the most part, research has focused on "land tenure" rather than a more-broadly defined property rights. As defined by Barraclough, land tenure "is used to express the legal and traditional relations between persons, groups, and classes that regulate the rights to the use of land, transfer thereof, and enjoyment of its products, and the duties that go with those rights." 4 Such studies rarely consider the use of other natural resources such as forest products, fish, reeds, or minerals that may not imply ownership of the land itself. Reflecting a common belief, Barraclough notes that "territorial property is the principal source of wealth for the rural population," but wealth may, in fact, be reflected in rights to resources without regard to formal ties to a particular tract of land, as will be discussed below. 5 Further, it seems that land tenure is explained by 5

relying on a basic terminology including "communal owner-

ship," "common land," "private property," or a number of

variants. Seldom are the relationships that underlie these

terms explained or their implications considered. The

following pages consider the ways various historians have

characterized property rights in Mexico, and include a

discussion of issues raised in this literature. The purpose

is not to present a comprehensive review of the historiogra-

phy, but to offer examples of the general themes and concep-

tual problems associated with property rights in Mexico's

past.

According to the literature, indigenous societies in

Central Mexico on the eve of the Conguest were believed to

have had a "stable land system with rights, privileges, and

obligations that were well defined and well enforced." 6 In

this land system, pueblo boundaries and apportionment of

agricultural plots were the responsibility of community

leaders. Lands were alloted to community members for use by

individuals and families with rights often carried across

generations. As Francois Chevalier writes, "title" to lands "was vested in the community; the various crop-raising

families possessed only the usufruct." 7

Gibson provided a detailed review of landholding in the

Aztec regions in which various forms of community land are described, some "worked in common," some designated for

individuals. 8 Similarly, Pedro Carrasco found communities 6 tied by kinship and "by owning land in common. 119 For Roger

Bartra, the "communal property" of the villages reflected

"very strong forms of collective cohesiveness and coopera- tive labor." 10 In her 1995 study, Marjorie Becker describes the common-land ej ido as "the centerpiece of pre-Conquest

Indians' economic arrangements." She notes that "[b]efore the Conquest such ej idal lands had belonged to Indian communities. Although the community owned the land, individual

Indians worked it both privately and as members of work teams." 11 The village lands also are referred to variously as "communism," 12 "collective holdings," 13 or "a village

14 community of peasant joint owners." .

Charles Gibson suggests that Indians had a characteristic "communal" understanding of land use in which the village or town controlled access to lands within is limits, including assigned agricultural plots and "common" forested areas. 15 In his work on the Indians of the Valley of Mexico,

Gibson points out that villages had a clear picture of lands over which they had sovereignty. "So precise was the Indian concept of terminos that viceregal grants of land to Span- iards in the sixteenth century customarily identified the tracts as falling within the areas of one or another Indian town." 16 West writes that "[e]ach community owned surrounding lands, the limits of which were determined by metes and bounds." 11 The Spanish authorities formalized Indian community tenure such that villages were able to obtain official .

title to their lands that was recognized by the colonial government

Gibson notes that the Indians ' conception of communal

land "conflicted with the Spaniards' sense of absolute

property. 1118 Enrigue Florescano adds that Spanish authori-

ties reguired village land to be divided into "private

property, but with so many limitations that, as in the pre-

Hispanic age, it constituted only a right to the use of the

land and in no way implied ownership in fee simple as con-

ceived in Roman law." 19 Scholars have also referred to

"private" Indian lands within the community, generally held

by members of the nobility or tied to official positions.

Chevalier notes that among the Tarascans of Michoacan "sim-

ple peasants as well as notables held 'lands in their own

" 20 right,' . . .

Much literature suggests that the communal notion of

ownership remained part of the villages' "essential charac-

ter" through the colonial period and beyond. • In 192 3

George McBride noted the persistence of a collective "conception of property which seems curiously out of place in the world today." 22 For McBride, Indian landholding villages are "representative of ancient Mexican culture" that "have strongly influenced the entire land system as it now ex-

ists." Tannenbaum argues that twentieth-century landholding

"more or less perpetuated types of land tenure that existed before the conguest," and, in fact, "the survival of the 8 villages up to the Diaz regime was due to their communal character." 24 According to Eyler Simpson, the village's communal lands became "the prototype of the modern ejido." 2 -

Bartra, however, argues that "the ejido is not a form of communal ownership. 1,26 Robert West writes that "[a]s in many modern Indian areas of Mexico, the aboriginal concept of village lands and their established boundaries is indurated in the present political and economic structure of the

Tarascan pueblos." 21

But while some writers believe a communal "sense" remained strong among indigenous villagers into the early twentieth century, it is clear that the nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic change in the nature of property rights in Mexico. After achieving independence and passing through the chaotic early years of the Republic, the Mexican government distributed the communally-owned land to individual village members. According to the literature, the land formerly held only in usufruct became private property, and in many cases was alienated from the villages that had used it for centuries.

Scholars have characterized this change in various ways. George McBride wrote in 1923 that the "death knell" for communal landholding by the pueblos "was sounded by the

Reforma." 29 Simpson cites the 1857 Constitution as leading

"to the breakup of hundreds of communal groups. ... by substituting personal for collective ownership." For Simpson, "the effect of the Reform on the vast majority of

the landholding villages was little short of disastrous"

since most villagers had "no conception of the meaning of private property." 29 Donald Brand believes the liberal measures of the 1850s were "the real beginning of the almost

complete loss of lands by Indian communities." 30 Paul

Friedrich notes that the Reform laws under Juarez "cut into the heart of indigenous villages all over Mexico." 31

By the time of the Porfirio Diaz regime (known as the

"Porf iriato") the general attitude called for the "destruction of the Indian communal organization," according to

Frank Tannenbaum." Friedrich Katz writes that what had been

"serious inroads" into the lands of the communal villages, became "a veritable onslaught" during the Diaz era. 33 For

David Bushnell and Neill Macaulay, this was a period when

"ejido Indians who wanted to sell their birthright" were accomodated by a state that "speeded up" the division of communal lands. 34 In a recent study of property rights by

Janis B. Alcorn and Victor M. Toledo, the Porfirian period

is seen as a time when the Federal government "eliminated communal property rights." 35

This general picture has been clarified by Charles

Berry in one of the few local-level studies of the Reforma land laws. Berry shows how the process of disentailment took place in Oaxaca and presents a more nuanced view of the land tenure changes. 10

Here was truly Indian Mexico, and the Indians, unedu- cated, traditionalists if not Conservatives, desirous of perpetuating their ancient ways and patterns of life, and largely ignorant of the political guestions raging throughout the Republic, having contact with the Liberal programs only occasionally through infreguent visits by the district political chiefs constantly subverted the letter of the law, in two contrary ways: either by being overzealous in seeking to divide their lands in severalty, hoping thereby to avoid alienation; or by obstructing the division. 36 [177-178]

Berry makes it clear that application of the land laws between 1856 and 1876 "was largely a hesitant and delayed operation. 1,31 [186]

From the foregoing references we can see that one of the difficulties in exploring property rights may lie in the language available for describing tenurial system elements.

For example, what is the difference between communal land and common land? Is common land (the adjective form) the same thing as a commons (the noun form?) How do We define lands "owned" in common versus lands "worked" in common? Is there a difference between usufruct rights granted in perpe- tuity and private property with limitations? Is an e j ido a common grazing area, as conceived in Spain, or village-owned land more generally, as Becker and others seem to imply? 38

We may conclude from these studies that indigenous villages had some collective claims on a particular piece of land, but how was their sovereignty established? In the absence of formal title, how did a village make good its claim vis-a-vis other entities? What exactly does a village's "communal land" identify? Did an indigenous communal 11

sense of landholding persist as formal structures and elite

attitudes fostered the elimination of communal lands?

Another issue of importance suggested by the literature

concerns the meaning of "private" property. What does it

mean for a piece of land to be "private?" Gibson mentions

the Spaniards' sense of "absolute" property, but Florescano

argues that "private" property in some cases implied only

rights of use and, therefore, was considerably less than

absolute. Scholars routinely set communal land and private

property in a rigid opposition, but may we not infer that

each form had elements of the other? This point may be

crystal ized in studies of the nineteenth century when,

according to most scholars, communal land gave way to pri-

vate ownership.

Finally, most of the scholarship has focused on the

Valley of Mexico; can we assume that the property rights

situation was similar in other parts of the country, as

Berry found in Oaxaca? How did these forms of landholding

and the changes they experienced operate in Michoacan?

The Nature of Property

The concept of property of central concern to this study is fundamentally a social institution, quite distinct

from a resource itself. It performs an essential function in a social group by governing the rights, responsibilities, and powers among the members of the group, between various groups that may have competing claims to the resource, and 12

between the group and the resource itself. A. Irving

Hallowell offered a definition in which he saw property

rights as "institutionalized means of defining who may

control various classes of valuable objects for a variety of present and future purposes and the conditions under which

this power may be exercised." 39 Hanna and Munasinghe suggest

that "property rights regimes consist of property rights , bundles of entitlements defining rights and duties in the

use of natural resources, and property rules , the rules under which those rights and duties are exercised.*" 0 For the purposes of studying the history of the role of property rights, then, it is insufficient to say that a village owns a particular piece of land since this tells us only one of the relationships involved. The possibilities for a property rights regime in a particular region are infinite, given the possible combinations of social structures and environmental conditions that may exist. Property regimes, therefore, do not comprise categories such as "communal ownership" versus "private property" in rigid opposition, but reflect a unique synthesis of circumstances for the region in question. Further, verbal designations for property relations cannot elaborate fully such institutions when different cultures are involved.

The means of characterizing property rights are inevi- tably local, but for the purposes of this study it is necessary to specify characteristics of property to be able to .

13 explain the nature of the historical changes experienced.

The literature makes frequent reference to "communal" property or "commons," sometimes as distinct tenure forms, but often interchangeably. Both uses suggest "property rights which assure individuals access to resources over which they have collective claims." 41 In these forms, effective property regimes should provide a number of essential functions.

First, they guarantee access rights to vital resources for all members of the community. Second, they provide the means for equity in resource access and conflict resolution when conditions change. Finally, they help to ensure conservation by establishing rules for maintaining resources across generations. 42

Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield suggest that "a common" implies property that can be identified by three characteristics

First, it is subject to individual use but not to individual possession. Secondly, it has a number of users who have independent rights of use. This implies that a common ceases to be one if one user or some group of users, or an outside person or institution can control the use made by others without their consent. Thirdly, users constitute a collectivity and together have a right to exclude others who are not members of that collectivity. 43

The authors point out that these factors "imply that a degree of co-ordination between users is necessary to create rules of use and exclusion and to enforce them," 44 which constitutes the property regime. The term "communal property" is best used when individuals have use rights to 14 specified tracts of land over which a community has, or claims to have, sovereignty vis-a-vis those who are not members. Communal property may or may not imply formal title to the property, but "ownership" in this case is vested in the collective rather than in the individual —the factor that distinguishes it from private property.

At times the collectivity may constitute such a large group that the property is essentially open access. Common grazing land, a medieval institution that was carried to the

New World, is a good example of land that allowed access to anyone, but that had rights limited to the pasturing of livestock. These lands generally were not tied to a particular community and, therefore, can be seen as distinct from the communally-owned ej ido of the colonial period.

In order to answer basic guestions about a particular property regime we must examine not only the terminology used to describe rights to resources, but the specific ecological conditions that obtain for the region in guestion. How were resources used? What objects (resources) enter into a system of property rights? How are rights to use particular resources specified for members of a community? What are the duties to use the resource for particular ends, or to maintain it for future generations? How does a society ensure compliance with the conventions of the property rights regime? To what extent is the village's sovereignty over a resource recognized by other entities? —

The Ecological Role o f Property Rights

Ecology here refers to the totality of organisms in a

given space, interacting with each other and with the non-

living environment. This definition, of course, includes

humans and their activities; it encompasses more than the

visible landscape. As conceptualized by Murray Bookchin,

ecology "must include humanity's role in the natural world

specifically, the character, form, and structure of human-

ity's relationship with other species and with the inorganic

" ,5 substrate of the biotic environment . Ecological change,

therefore, means a shift in the interactions among the human

residents and nonhuman elements of a particular environment.

An environment has many natural components such as

soil, water, forests, fish, and wildlife that exist exclu-

sive of human society. These components become natural

resources only when they are culturally defined as such by virtue of providing, or potentially providing, a means of

subsistence for resident human populations. Humans develop various ways to exploit the natural resources of their region based on the characteristics of the resource, the structure of the society, and the overall environmental context in which they live. Often, long-term informal observation of environmental conditions and gradual evolution of human responses form the basis for linkages with the natural world. In some cases, however, linkages are built in response to rapid changes brought about by external 16

forces or internal pressures. The particular form that a

linking mechanism takes is determined in large measure by

the environmental conditions, the prevailing economy, and

the social formation in which it operates. 46

In short, mechanisms for linking human and environmen-

tal systems provide the means for using natural resources

and, consequently , for ensuring the survival of the human population. Within the past few millenia, human-nature

interactions have most often been carried out in a context

where humans are organized in social groups based on seden-

tary agriculture. Natural resource use and land tenure is

tied closely to the social and economic functions of the

agricultural village. 47 The village provides for collective

mechanisms, in "technical" and "social" forms, that have as

their primary function access to resources.

It is a basic assumption of this study that the prop-

erty rights regime is an essential element in a region's ecology. The property regime provides a structure for exploiting, managing, and controlling natural resources. 46

It links a functioning environmental system with the resident social system and, thus, has important implications for the use of natural resources. An effective property rights regime performs functions pertaining to resource access and allocation, to mode of resource use, to coordination of users, and to conservation of resources. It can balance social equity with economic exploitation, and provide a means for conflict resolution when social or environmental

conditions change. At the same time, a property regime that

is not congruent with its environmental and social context

may allow profligacy over prudence in the use of resources

or inhibit access to those who rely on nature for their

subsistence needs. Either way, the systems by which prop-

erty rights are governed determine in large measure the

nature of the relationship between a people and the environ-

ment they inhabit.

Thus, a property rights regime and a region's ecology

coevolve; changes in one necessarily effect changes in the

other. For example, increasing rainfall may raise water

levels such that lakeshore residents lose agricultural lands

near their villages, as occurred at Lake Patzcuaro in the

fifteenth century. At the same time, they may gain marsh areas that can be exploited for reeds or other lacustrine products. In such a scenario it is possible that state structures will develop to provide access to agricultural lands outside the zone while specifying rights to the new resources in reeds. Similarly, demographic collapse, as in the sixteenth century, may reduce human-induced environmental change while fostering formal mechanisms for the acquisition of the vacated lands. To use a more contemporary example, state governments may seek to eliminate communal subsistence plots in order to develop market-oriented small farmers. The new landowners may choose or be forced to sell 18

their lands to entrepreneurs who cut large amounts of timber

for export markets. Each of these examples, drawn from the Patzcuaro basin experience, suggest the interconnections

between property regimes and ecology. Alterations may be

gradual, as in climatic change, or abrupt, as when colonial

rulers congregated dispersed settlers in villages.

Among the elements that is affected when a region's

ecology changes is the knowledge system that forms the basis

for the use of natural resources. All groups have a tradi-

tional, acguired ecological knowledge that reflects their

understanding of the natural processes of which they are a

part. It can be defined as "a cumulative body of knowledge

and beliefs, handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings . . .

with their environment." 49 The customs and practices of a

group toward the environment are expressions of this knowl-

edge and, therefore, can reveal much of what people know

about the world they inhabit. The rights and rules people have toward natural resources is a central element of a group's traditional ecological knowledge. The basis for all such knowledge is place-specific, tied to the particular ecological and cultural context in which it operates. 50

One of the major dynamics of change in a given region is the arrival of foreign knowledge systems, themselves informed by a different ecological and social context. In such a case, a degree of acculturation can be expected as .

well as a degree of conflict as the knowledge systems and

their accompanying ecological practices converge. Tradi-

tional knowledge may not be impinged directly by the new

forms, but generally is altered by new modes of production

brought from outside. When this happens it is often the

case that the new system is less well adapted to its social

and physical environment such that disruptions occur, per-

haps not revealed unless viewed over a long time span. The

disruptions may result in an economically less efficient use

of natural resources, in a decline in the socially eguitable

use of resources, or in ecologically nonsustainable use of

resources. This occurrence has been most notable in the

Americas with the arrival of European knowledge systems in

the sixteenth century and in the nineteenth century when

ideas and principles formed since the Enlightenment came to

be applied in the Western Hemisphere. The literature typi-

cally has portrayed the replacement or alteration of tradi-

tional knowledge by European, liberal, or "scientific"

tenets as fundamentally disruptive in the ways mentioned

above 51

The Study Area

Lake Patzcuaro is located about 250 kilometers west of

Mexico City in the volcanic highlands of the state of

Michoacan. Facing west from a vantage point atop Cerro

Tariacuri, the visitor would see a picturesgue lake of about

126 sguare kilometers forming a rough letter C, with the top .

and botton curving to his right and left. The lake fills a

depression within a range of volcanic cones that sometimes

rise up rapidly from the water's edge or ascend more gradu-

ally to their peaks some distance away. From the surface of

the lake at about two thousand meters above sea level can be

seen dozens of peaks in all directions, many old and rounded

in shape, but others with the characteristically flat sum- mits of more recent volcanic origin. The cones often extend more than a thousand meters above the lake's surface, with the Cerro El Z irate to the northeast climbing to 3,240 meters

A boat trip from the docks at Patzcuaro city in the southeastern arm of the lake to the northeastern end near

Santa Fe de La Laguna would be a trip of a little more than twenty kilometers. Along the way the visitor would travel past reedy shallows near the shoreline that often give way to gently sloping or flat lands currently occupied by the lakeshore communities and their fields. The shoreline is more abrupt in the central section where the lake is sgueezed to less than three kilometers in width between the cerros Tariacuri and El Bosgue. The traveller would encoun- ter the four central islands in the lake, old volcanic hilltops that rise steeply from the lake surface and are home to small, mostly-indigenous communities. The dramatic

Janitzio, topped by its monumental statue of Morelos, has a resident population of nearly fifteen hundred. 21 22

Lake Patzcuaro is shallow, reaching a maximum depth of

fifty feet in the northern end. There are no large surface

inlets or outlets, rainfall and, perhaps, underwater crev-

ices providing for the fluctuations in the lake level. The

Patzcuaro drainage zone encompasses about one thousand square kilometers.

In the vicinity of the lake there are few large tracts

of level land. The traveller setting out overland would

find the going difficult, the terrain being very rugged as

one moves away from the flats along the lake shore. Old

lava flows, steep hillsides, and deep ravines make human occupation, or even passage, all but impossible in some areas. Permanent water courses in the basin are few and the only water transportation would be on the lake itself.

Vegetation around the lake is generally lush and ver- dant. Within a kilometer or so of the shoreline, the general appearance is of dense, thorny scrub. Agave, tree yucca, acacia, and brambles fill much of the area between the planted fields, homesites, and villages. Tall trees of any kind are few in number and there is little that could be described as forest or woodland. As one moves away from the lake, oaks and pines are more common, with considerable forested land still apparent in the higher Sierra.

The lake zone has a fairly cool climate, although with somewhat warmer winters than in the higher Sierra regions.

Temperatures average 16°C, reaching a maximum of 37°C and a ,

minimum 5°C; the warmest months are April and May, and frost

occurs only occasionally in December and January. Most of

the rainfall comes in the form of summer thundershowers

with total annual precipation for the lake area at just over one thousand millimeters.

Most of the soils in the basin are reddish-brown clay

types that developed from the weathering of volcanic rock.

Found for the most part on the lower slopes, these

" charanda " soils erode quickly when moisture evaporates

during the dry months and plant cover is removed. Better

soils exist at higher elevations and at the lakeshore, but

they are limited in extent for agricultural use. Cornfields

are the most commonly-seen agricultural application. The

crop is planted nearly to the water's edge in many areas and

often occupies the fertile soils exposed by the declining lake surface.

Driving around the lake the visitor can identify as

many as thirty communities ranging in size from the cities

of Patzcuaro and Quiroga to the small villages Ojo de Agua

and Cucuchucho. The latter are typical of other villages in

Mexico, laid out on a grid pattern with the town square and church at the center. The lakeshore communities differ from those of the higher Sierra in that they are built of adobe bricks with tile roofs rather than wood and shakes. Wood, being scarce around the lake, is not commonly used for building while the clayey soils and abundance of water make 24 adobe construction the better choice. Where the walls are unpainted, the adobe gives villages the reddish-brown appearance of the soils from which the bricks are made."

The larger cities and towns have a mixed cultural character, but the small villages retain strong indigenous elements and carryovers from the colonial period. On the narrow, cobbled or packed-earth streets women carry their bundles of reeds to be woven into mats for domestic use or

Christmas ornaments for the tourist trade. Teams of oxen are driven to the adjacent fields of maize, and mules bring loads of firewood from the now-distant woodlots. Fishermen pole their canoes along the lakeshore, hoping to net the

pescado bianco , the delicate whitefish whose numbers are dwindling.

Plan of the Study

The foregoing sketch provides an overview of the setting in which the following account takes place. Of course, the description provided is of the present-day conditions at

Lake Patzcuaro and its environs. Over the centuries covered by this account the physical and human landscapes have changed in many ways, although the changes have often been subtle, visible only through the lens of history.

Since a region's ecology is a product of natural processes, social systems, human values, and an economic order, an account of its ecological history must include an understanding of the ways in which humans express and manage 25

their relationship to the natural environment of which they

are a part. Therefore, this study examines how the human

residents of the basin lived in the lake zone and used its

resources, with the role of property regimes in that rela-

tionship being the fundamental historical issue that is

explored. Since the literature has noted freguently the

change in the nineteenth century from "communal" tenure to

private property, documentary sources from that period are

examined to determine how this change took place.

In Chapter Two, the study explains the early evolution

of the region's ecology and its accompanying property rights regimes. It shows how formal systems of property rights emerged from their origins under the Tarascan state through their combination with European forms during the Spanish colonial period. This was a period of "ecological revolutions" when the relationship between the basin's human residents and their environment was transformed. How property rights played a part in that transformation is a central concern of the chapter.

Chapter Three outlines the forms and characteristics of resource use, as well as the physical environment in the basin during the nineteenth century. The chapter reviews the nature of the property rights regime that would be altered in the second half of the century, especially the collective elements that the government would attempt to eliminate. .

The postcolonial political and ideological currents are

discussed in Chapter Four in an attempt to show how liberal

tenets informed the efforts to remake the country's land

tenure system. The chapter outlines the evolution of these

efforts up to 1910 and explains the role of village ecology

in shaping that evolution.

The process by which the repartos were conducted after

1867 is the primary focus of Chapter Five. The efforts to

eliminate legally the indigenous communities and to distrib-

ute land to individuals are described with a particular

emphasis on the villages in the Patzcuaro basin. The chap-

ter examines the repartos de tierras for individual villages

to explore how land distribution was carried out at the

local level.

Chapter Six considers the changes in the basin that

resulted from the new property regime. It examines the new

relationship between the human residents of the basin and

the environment in which they lived. In other words, what happened when land became privately owned?

The study is summarized in Chapter Seven, and concludes with a discussion of its results. With the study's findings

in mind, it assesses the historiography on the late nineteenth century changes, suggests the validity of the property rights literature for the Patzcuaro case, and discusses the implications of the research for today's ecological concerns . . ,

Notes

'Robert C. West, Cultural Geography of the Modern Tarascan Area (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1948), 32.

2 Francois Chevalier, Land and Society in Colonial Mexico; The Grea t Hacienda (Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 1963), 219.

! Michael C. Meyer and William L. Sherman, The Course of Mexican History (Oxford: Oxford University, 1991), 378.

'Solon Barraclough, Agrarian Structure in Latin America (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co., 1973), xvii.

-Ibid.

6 Frank Tannenbaum, The Mexi can Agrarian Revolution (New York: Archon Books, 1968), 3.

Chevalier, 17.

8 Charles Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico (Sanford: Stanford University Press, 1964), 257.

'Pedro Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion: An Analysis of Economic. Social, and Religiou s Interact! nns (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, Tulane, 1952), 2.

:o Roger Bartra, Agrarian Structure and Political Pnwpr in Mexico (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) 79

i: Marjorie Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire: T.azam Carde nas, Michoacan Peasants, and the Redemption of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) , 73

12 Eyler Simpson, The Eiido: Mexico' s Way Out (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937), 193.

15 George M. McBride, The Land Systems of Mexico (New York: American Geographical Society, 1923), 103.

'Sorokin, guoted in Carrasco, Tarascan Folk r 12.

"Gibson, Aztecs .

:6 Ibid, 270.

West, 32. 28

18 Charles Gibson in Colonial Spanish America , Leslie Bethell, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 361.

19 Enrique Florescano in Colonial Spanish America , Leslie Bethell, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 258.

"Chevalier, 18.

21 Tannenbaum, 4.

"McBride, 103.

"Ibid, 111.

2, Tannenbaum, 4, 14.

"Eyler Simpson, 14.

26 Bartra, 94.

"West, 32.

"McBride, 129.

29 Eyler Simpson, 24-25.

"Donald D. Brand, Ouiroaa: A Mexican Municipio Smithso- nian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, Publica- tion No. 11. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951), 54.

n Paul Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt in a Mexican Village (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1970), 2.

32 Tannenbaum, 14.

"Friedrich Katz, "The Porfiriato," in Mexico Since

Independence , Leslie Bethell, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 94.

3, David Bushnell and Neill Macaulay, The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 208.

"Janis B. Alcorn and Victor M. Toledo, "The Role of

Tenurial Shells in Ecological Sustainability : Property Rights and Natural Resource Management in Mexico," in Property Rights in a Social and Ec ological Context f Susan Hanna and Mohan Munasinghe, eds. (Washington: The World Bank, 1995), 127. 29

"Charles R Berry, The Reform in Oaxaca. 1856-1876: A Microhistorv of the Libe ral Revolution (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 177-178.

"Ibid, 186.

38 In their text, Meyer and Sherman refer to the ejido as "the communal landholding of the Indian village." 378.

39A. Irving Hallowell, "The Nature and Function of Property as a Social Institution," Journal of Legal and Political Sociology T:3-4 (1943), 133.

"Susan Hanna and Mohan Munasinghe, Property Rights in a Social and Ecological Context (Washington: The World Bank, 1995), 4.

41 Fikret Berkes, ed. , Common Property Resources: Ecology and Communitv-Based Sustainable Development (London:

Belhaven, 1989) , 25.

< 2 Ibid, 13.

,3 Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield, Land Degradation and Society (London: Methuen, 1987), 186.

"Ibid, 186-187.

"Murray Bookchin, "The Concept of Social Ecology," in Ecology, Carolyn Merchant, ed. (New Jersey: Humanities Press International, 1994), 154.

46Hanna and Munasinghe, 7.

'David W. Bromley, Environment and E conomy: Property Rights and Public Policy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), ill.

~~49 Ibid, 124.~~

"This is not to suggest that such traditional knowledge is always perfectly adapted and efficiently applied. Indigenous farmers can have major misperceptions about the way the natural world works that can sometimes lead to resource use problems. See Jeffery W. Bentley, "What Farmers Don't Know Can't Help Them: The Strengths and Weaknesses of Indigenous Technical Knowledge in Honduras," Agriculture and Human Values 6:3 (Summer 1989), 25-31.

~~51 For a general theoretical discussion of colonialism and land use issues see Blaikie and Brookfield, Ch. 6. 30~~

"Ralph L. Beals and Pedro Carrasco, Houses and House Use of the Sierra Tarasnans Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, Publication No. 1. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951), 6. CHAPTER 2

~~EMPIRES AND ECOLOGY~~

~~Permanent agricultural villages began to form in the~~

Patzcuaro basin about five thousand years ago; no doubt nomadic hunter-gatherers settled in the region to take advantage of the lake resources. By the fourteenth century, there were numerous villages and a growing population living on the lakeshore or lower slopes. The vast majority, 90 percent or more, lived along the shore, on islands, or on adjacent, thickly-forested slopes, a pattern that changed little in subsequent centuries. 1

In the Protohistoric period, the lake was somewhat higher than today, with a surface area covering about ten square kilometers more than at present. Fish and waterfowl abounded, and the extensive marshes along the shoreline provided the reeds that continue to be gathered and woven in

the lakeshore villages. The tule f Cvperus thrysi f 1 nms ) grow in the shallows and, thus, were subject to major changes in extent as the lake's depth fluctuated over the centuries. Gorenstein and Pollard found that in the Proto- historic period marshland covered just under two thousand hectares, but harvesting and the declining lake surface area has reduced the reedy zones in the present day. Mixed pine

31 32 and oak forest covered a much larger area than today and could be found growing much closer to the lake, especially on the lower slopes. The highest concentration of forest was found between three and eight hundred meters above the lake surface with oaks predominating. Still-higher elevations included small expanses of fir forest. 2

Before the consolidation of the Tarascan state in the fifteenth century, resource use was based on apparently autonomous villages with diverse cultures and histories. As one would expect, the lives of the people of the Patzcuaro basin were shaped in large measure by the lake and its lacustrine ecosystems. Fishing was a mainstay of the region's subsistence economy, and the lake's abundant supply of fish led to the name that would be given to the entire contemporary state. The earliest Spanish arrivals adopted the Nahuatl word, Mechuacan, "place of fish," for the region. 3 Lake resources also included great guantities of ducks and other waterfowl which were hunted by spear. In addition to the collection of reeds on the lake, edible and medicinal herbs and plants were gathered as was honey and other wild resources of the lake region. Wood was harvested from the lower slopes and the tree line began to move rapidly upward, away from the lakeshore.

~~Within the basin agricultural usage accounted for about~~

~~45 percent of the land in the Protohistoric period. Maize had been cultivated at Patzcuaro since about 1500 B.C. and .~~

~~was the dominant crop along with the other Mesoamerican~~

~~standards, beans and squash. Other crops included amaranth,~~

~~chile, gourds, maguey, nopal cactus, tobacco, tomato, and~~

~~yucca 4~~

~~Ecological Change and Tarascan State Formation~~

~~While it appears that the lake region supported a human~~

~~population for many centuries, there is considerable evi-~~

~~dence of serious environmental degradation dating from the~~

~~introduction of maize culture some 3,500 years ago. Various~~

~~scholars have identified substantial erosion of prehispanic~~

~~origin that resulted from deforestation and burning on the~~

~~sensitive slopes adjacent to the lake. 5 Moreover, a rising~~

~~population and migration from outside the Patzcuaro basin~~

~~appear to have wrought ecological changes that transformed~~

~~the region's social and political basis beginning in about~~

~~A. D. 400. In a process that continued for the next millen-~~

~~nium, nucleated settlements emerged that relied increasingly~~

~~on markets for subsistence needs and that were characterized~~

~~by social differentiation with a growing elite class. It~~

~~was from the combination of these ecological and social~~

~~forces that the Tarascan state emerged. 6~~

~~Studies have suggested that ecological stresses in the~~

~~Early Postclassic were responsible, in part, for social~~

changes that took place in the two or three centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards. Erosion and climatic change not only impinged directly on the agricultural regime, but altered the very shape of Lake Patzcuaro. Sarah L. O'Hara argues that "the period 1380 to 1520 was characterized by rising lake levels associated with wetter climatic conditions." Currently 2,03 6 meters above sea level, the lake may have reached a level of 2,050 meters between A.D. 1000 and 13 00, rising from lower levels over previous centuries.

There is evidence also that erosion from the lower slopes brought colluvial material into the lake which formed or altered the wide, reedy flats that constitute an important lacustrine resource for resident populations. 3 Such alterations in the lake meant revolutionary change in the distribution and use of the basin's resources. These changes and the rising population density led to conflicts over the shifting resources as some groups gained access to resources while others lost ground. Further, as Helen

Perlstein Pollard notes, the period is marked by "increased economic specialization in lacustrine resources (especially fishing), and raiding/seizing irrigable lands." As the population strained the basin's resources, it became necessary to look beyond the Patzcuaro area for additional resources, especially food crops which were insufficient within the lake zone. Elites who were able to organize raiding parties and/or exploit local and regional market opportunities were able to rise to the top of the social hierarchy and formed the basis for the ruling dynasty at the center of the emergent Tarascan state.' .

As the above discussion suggests, until the Postclassic period property rights were only loosely defined. The widely-dispersed and distinct villages cultivated lands within and surrounding their communities. Whether such village lands constituted communal tenure is uncertain, but other resources, both forest and lacustrine, were probably open access. The Patzcuaro environment was able to support the region's population; Pollard notes that settlement patterns before the Tarascan state lack a defensive orientation indicating little conflict over resources. 10 As resource shifts occurred and the population rose, a more complex system of dealing with resource conflicts became necessary, and the Tarascan state provided the context for the new property rights regime.

In the first half of the fourteenth century a unified state was formed by a Tarascan elite that brought together various independent groups in the Patzcuaro basin. This new political and economic strength allowed this Tarascan elite to extend their power outside the basin, primarily to gain access to resources not available or insufficient within the lake region, which up until this time had been its primary resource zone. References in the Relacion de Michoacan show how such resources were drawn from other areas with distinct natural resource characteristics !i Markets emerged in which the Patzcuaro settlements exchanged their fish and feathers for maize, amaranth, beans, and chile. The basin residents also expanded their production of goods made from lake

~~resources such as tule reeds that were exchanged for the~~

~~needed imports. 12~~

~~While these markets and their own producive activities~~

~~seem to have been sufficient to support the commoners, the~~

~~growing non-food-producing elites found it necessary to~~

~~obtain goods by other means. Indications are that increas-~~

~~ing the productivity of agriculture within the basin was of~~

~~limited utility given the environmental conditions in the~~

~~basin at this time. Some additional labor may have been~~

~~available, but working classes seem to have been growing~~

~~more slowly relative to the nonproducing elites. Further,~~

~~there is nothing to indicate agricultural intensification in~~

~~the basin. Indeed, the fields of Tarascan farmers were~~

~~already cultivated in a fairly intensive regime; it is~~

~~unlikely that increased labor inputs would have made the~~

~~land produce more. Thus, state-controlled institutions,~~

~~including an intensified property rights regime, became the~~

~~primary means for meeting the needs of the Tarascan elites.~~

~~As resource scarcity and conflicts increased, greater effort was expended toward establishing rules and mechanisms gov-~~

erning resource use. State control of natural resources was applied through a system of tribute, direct state ownership of lands, and the granting of usufruct rights. The emergence of the Tarascan state and these institutions operated within the faltering ecosystem of the Lake Patzcuaro basin. ^

~~Unable to support its resident population, the basin's~~

~~ecology was maintained by the political structures estab-~~

~~lished in the imperial context. 13~~

~~Helen Perlstein Pollard has done the most to show the~~

~~ecological changes experienced in the Patzcuaro basin in the~~

~~years leading up to the arrival of Europeans. Her resource~~

~~analyses have shown that "the basin was clearly unable to~~

~~produce sufficient maize/ amaranth for its population."~~

~~Pollard states that the central core of the Tarascan state~~

~~"was not a viable economic unit. It existed, even thrived,~~

~~only by the exchange of goods and services in regional and~~

~~supraregional patterns.""1~~

~~Resources and Property Under the Tarascan State~~

~~The Tarascan empire began to consolidate its power~~

~~about A. D. 1440 and reached its maximum extent on the eve of~~

~~the Spanish conguest, encompassing some 75,000 sg. km., much~~

~~of the modern state of Michoacan. 15 The total population for~~

~~the entire region in the early sixteenth century was placed~~

~~at about 1.3 million by Borah and Cook. Pollard suggests a~~

~~population for the Patzcuaro basin at between 60,750 and~~

~~105,000 with some 36 percent living in or near the imperial~~

~~capital, the lakeshore city of Tzintzuntzan. 16 The capital~~

~~and its market not only served the largest proportion of the~~

~~lake basin's population, but included the largest number of elite; Pollard estimates the total population of the city in the Protohistoric at between 25,000 and 35,000 people. 38~~

~~Various administrative centers, organized in as many as five~~

~~levels, reported to the imperial capital and its administra-~~

~~tive and judicial officialdom. 18 The government directed~~

~~exploitive activities and tribute collection in the villages~~

~~through state officials placed there by the ruling dynasty.~~

~~Tribute flowed into the capital from the dependent Tarascan~~

~~villages within the central core as well as from the subject~~

~~communities in a much larger region.~~

~~Most of the residents of the central core continued to~~

~~live along the lakeshore or on the surrounding lower slopes.~~

~~Studies have shown that the lake zone was highly urbanized~~

~~with residents clustered in villages differentiated along~~

~~economic and ecological lines; isolated homesites apparently~~

~~did not exist in the lake region. 19 Gorenstein and Pollard~~

~~have identified ninety-one settlements varying in size from~~

~~"hamlets" of less than ten hectares and eighty residents to~~

~~the capital at 674 hectares and as many as thirty-five~~

~~thousand residents. 20 A typical settlement might consist of~~

~~about thirty-eight houses and 190 inhabitants close to a permanent source of potable water or, for larger centers,~~

~~21 clustered around a temple mound known as a yacata .~~

~~Villages of the basin typically were tied to environmental features such as water, forest, marshes, and arable land. The capital served as a major market along with~~

~~Pareo, another lakeshore community, and Asajo, located in a mountain valley northwest of the lake. Markets were no 39~~

~~doubt sited in relation to transportation routes, the lake~~

~~itself being the primary one. While there is evidence of a~~

~~cobblestone road linking Tzintzuntzan with Ihuatzio and~~

~~Patzcuaro, Pollard notes a lack of transportation networks~~

~~within the basin other than the lake. 22~~

~~Of the ninety-one settlements identified by Gorenstein~~

~~and Pollard, some 78 percent were associated with charanda~~

~~soils of the lakeshore and lower slopes whose fertility make~~

~~them adequate for agriculture, but whose deficiency in~~

~~nitrogen rate them as somewhat poor. Its characteristics~~

~~require planting only after the rainy season has begun, and~~

~~fields must be fallowed, from two to four years between~~

~~plantings. Its erosion potential is very high, as noted in~~

~~Chapter One. Better soils are available in the zone but of~~

~~limited extent, being confined largely to small lakeshore~~

~~areas totalling only a few hundred hectares. Other villages~~

~~were located on islands and on upper sierra slopes, the~~

~~former benefiting from fertile lacustrine soils while the~~

~~latter suffered some of the poorest soils in the region. 23~~

~~Generally speaking, villages close to the lake had access to~~

~~lacustrine resources and better soils that the higher alti-~~

~~tude communities lacked. On the other hand, by this period~~

forest resources on the lower slopes had already experienced a degree a degradation while upper sierra villages continued to enjoy relatively rich wooded lands. The particular environmental characteristics of a village's location set 40

~~the parameters for the forms of resource use applied there.~~

~~While the exigencies of the state determined in large mea-~~

~~sure the patterns and rules for village economy, the natural~~

~~world itself provided the limits. While the political~~

~~economy of the region changed over the centuries, environ-~~

~~mental factors at the village level would always provide the~~

~~context for resource use.~~

~~In prehispanic times (and up to the present) the~~

~~Patzcuaro basin's ecology was shaped primarily by agricul-~~

~~ture. Farmers worked small fields ( ecuaro ) on hillslopes~~

~~near their homes, and gave considerable individual attention~~

~~to plants. In the fields Tarascans intercropped maize,~~

~~beans, and squash, with perhaps a small patch of amaranth~~

~~along the edges. Most other crops were grown in still-~~

~~smaller kitchen gardens adjacent to homes. Digging sticks~~

~~and hoes were effective on the cleared slopes, but could not~~

~~break the some of the sod-covered flat areas. Shifting~~

~~agriculture was practiced on the steeper slopes, but perma-~~

~~nent fields characterized the lower areas near Lake~~

~~Patzcuaro. Some of these fields were terraced with retain-~~

ing walls built of sod along their lower edges. It is clear that under the Tarascan state more extensive field agriculture was practiced in order to produce food for the royal household and nobility, although without plows the size of these fields was limited. Unlike the small, hillslope ecuaro, the state fields were sometimes irrigated. 24 41

~~Although agricultural villages emerged long before~~

~~Tarascan state times, some were established by the imperial~~

~~government for administrative, religious, and exploitive~~

~~purposes. The Relacion de Michoacan suggests that the city~~

~~of Patzcuaro itself was established for the siting of a~~

~~temple to the Tarascan god, Curicaueri . " Other villages~~

~~were administrative centers with few residents, but having~~

~~jurisdiction over a large number of dependent settlements.~~

~~Ulises Beltran has determined that during the Protohistoric~~

~~period most of the dependencies were located between two and~~

~~five leagues from the local administrative center, a finding~~

~~that will be discussed in the section on the colonial period~~

~~below. 26 Beltran and Donald D. Brand also suggest that~~

~~villages were settled to exploit certain resources more~~

~~efficiently. 27 Markets, for example, were sited to take~~

~~advantage of water transportation routes while other vil-~~

~~lages occupied upper slopes near forest resources despite~~

~~having relatively poor agricultural soils.~~

~~In the course of its history the Tarascan elite was~~

able to consolidate its power in the Patzcuaro basin as well as extend its dominance throughout the much larger area through a system of centralized authority and a hegemonic culture. To avoid ethnic conflicts with the nontarascan communities outside the Patzcuaro area (which might threaten resource exploitation) the state exported Tarascan culture and promoted ethnic assimilation in a territory well beyond the basin. An "elite culture," state religion, and defense

~~formed the basis of the state's cultural strategy. 28 Over~~

~~time the diverse ethnic groups outside the basin assimilated~~

~~the culture of the central core and adopted Tarascan lan-~~

~~guage, religion, and folkways. At the heart of this impe-~~

~~rial system were the direct and indirect methods by which~~

~~natural resource use was controlled by the state.~~

~~Tribute collection was the main political function of~~

~~the state, a highly-organized network that moved vast quan-~~

~~tities of goods throughout the empire. The products of the~~

~~state's forests, fields, and lakes ultimately ended up in~~

the capital ' s storehouses to be consumed by the royal dynasty, government officials, religious functionaries, the military, and to be kept as emergency stores for the local population. According to Pollard the most common tribute

items being sent to Tzintzuntzan were maize, cotton cloth, and clothing. Tribute also included tropical fruit, cacao, raw cotton, gourds, animal skins, bird feathers, gold, silver, copper, and other natural and manufactured items.- 9

The Relacion shows how items of tribute and gifts were brought to temples for offerings to the gods, then consumed at least in part by the nobility and royalty. The state religion thus provided for the subsistence needs of the elites. The tribute system not only ensured the survival and continued dominance of the elite class, but linked ecological zones in a network that served as the primary 43 mechanism for the exploitation of resources outside the central core of the state.

~~The state also controlled resource use through direct~~

~~ownership of lands. The Relacion rie Michoacan discusses the~~

~~Tarascan king, and how they were fields of the cazonci f the~~

~~used to support the royal household and state officials. 30~~

~~Pollard writes that these lands were among the most produc-~~

~~tive in the basin; they included large areas of irrigable~~

~~fields while much of the basin's land is sloping. 31 The~~

~~Relacion makes clear that the state fields were an important~~

~~element of government activity. These lands were worked "in~~

~~common" by peasants drafted for labor services, but were not~~

~~communal lands designated for the use of a specified group.~~

~~Agricultural managers oversaw the individual fields in which~~

~~grew maize, beans, maguey, sguash, chile, amaranth, and~~

~~fruits while other officials were in overall charge of the~~

~~agricultural operations. 32~~

~~Lake and forest resources in the basin were also sub-~~

~~ject to state control. The Relacion refers to forest manag-~~

~~ers, hunters, and fishers who were responsible for bringing~~

~~in natural resources for use, primarily, in the capital.~~

~~The collection of firewood is mentioned repeatedly in the~~

~~document; it was not only for domestic use but consumed in~~

~~great guantities in Tarascan religious structures. Woodcut-~~

~~ters were used to cut lumber for construction and implement-~~

making. That heavily wooded areas apparently existed close 44 to the lake into the Protohistoric period, but have all but disappeared in modern times may be related to the large- scale consumption of wood under the Tarascan empire or later. The Relacion describes net and hook fishers who worked the lake as well as duck hunters who provided meat and feathers to the royal household. In similar fashion, individuals were designated to hunt deer and rabbits, to

~~collect honey and feathers, and to quarry stone. 33 Copper mines may have been owned by the state as well. Individuals~~

~~engaged in these activities may have been village residents~~

~~providing tribute service to the state through mechanisms of~~

~~public works. Beltran notes that individuals providing such~~

~~tribute labor only did so on property assigned directly to~~

~~the king, including forests, lake, and royal fields. The Relacion describes officials who directed such operations,~~

~~and the numbers and complexity of the managerial hierarchy suggests considerable state intervention in Tarascan re-~~

~~source use. 34~~

~~Scholars studying Tarascan land tenure have been unable~~

~~to describe, with any degree of certainty, the rights and~~

~~rules associated with property in the prehispanic period.~~

~~It has been suggested that all of the region's resources~~

~~were seen as the property of the cazonci . the Tarascan king,~~

~~as the earthly representative of the gods. Pollard writes~~

~~that the "royal lineage, and to a lesser extent the nobility~~

~~as a whole, were believed to have obtained 'power' or 45~~

~~'force' from their personal relationship to the universal~~

~~" 35 power of the god Curicaueri .~~

~~On the surface then it would seem that the property~~

~~rights regime was imposed by the royal dynasty with the~~

~~rules and rights pertaining to resource use governed by the~~

~~state. There are a number of references in the Relacion and~~

~~other sources that suggest land could be owned and trans-~~

~~ferred in certain situations. At one point in the Relacion ,~~

~~the story is told of a reguest to buy or borrow a piece of~~

~~land, which suggests some form of private property that~~

~~could be transferred. 36 In its discussion of marriage prac-~~

~~tices, the Relacion states that the father of the bride-to-~~

~~be asks her if her suitor has " hacienda " and will work~~

~~fields to support her. 37 But Beltran could find "no evidence~~

~~of any kind of circulation of land, neither among the nobil-~~

~~ity nor outside that realm, and any information about inher-~~

itance rights is also lacking for Michoacan." 38 Lands may have been rented from the nobility through sharecropping contracts, since labor obtained by tribute was only available to the royalty. 39 Further, in Alonzo de Zorita's Brief and Summary Relation of th e Lords of New Spain , the author states that in Michoacan both elites and commoners owned land themselves in addition to working common land. 10

~~Carrasco, however, guest ions whether actual ownership was implied by Zorita or whether only usufruct was noted." 1 The suggestions of private ownership may have had more to do 46~~

~~with European chroniclers attempting to fit native American~~

~~forms of property rights into foreign conceptions and termi-~~

~~nology. The evidence suggests that usufruct rights were far~~

~~more typical in the Tarascan world than outright ownership~~

~~in a European sense.~~

~~Beltran argues that lands seem to have had a "corporate~~

~~character", that is, property of a lineage rather an indi-~~

~~vidual, and subject to certain limitations and political~~

~~factors. 42 Beltran suggests further that in the Tarascan~~

~~region peasants were not grouped in clan-type structures, as~~

~~in the Valley of Mexico where calpullali were divided into~~

~~individual plots for the exclusive use of the group's membership. In his study of the Codice Plancarte , Beltran~~

~~argues that lands were assigned to "families" by the state,~~

~~and judges appointed to ensure that these families worked~~

~~only those lands to which they were assigned. Gibson notes that in the Aztec region assignment of land was made by~~

~~calpulli officers who retained control of the lands under their authority and on behalf of the communities. 0 The~~

Relacion suggests, however, that in the Tarascan zone state officials were appointed for such assignments and to mediate disputes. It is probably safe to assume that these officials worked on behalf of the government rather than for the villages. Forest and lacustrine resources were subject to usufruct rights granted by the state. As noted above, hunting, fishing, lumbering, and mining are mentioned in the 47

~~Relacion and the exploitation of these resources was managed~~

~~by state officials. We are told that unlawful use of re-~~

~~sources would subject the guilty party to the death penalty.~~

~~Nevertheless, despite the Tarascan state's well-organized~~

~~central administration, it seems likely that much unoccupied~~

~~land was used freely by peasants with little regard to state~~

~~rules and authority. 44~~

~~It should be acknowledged that in the foregoing discus-~~

~~sion the property rights concepts sound much like those of~~

~~Europe at the time. Our understanding of prehispanic tenure~~

~~systems is based on the accounts of sixteenth-century Span- ish chroniclers who almost certainly did not understood~~

indigenous lifeways or the local ecological processes of which they were a part. Surely, the relationship between the Tarascans and the natural environment was culturally unique, born of local responses and conditions quite unlike those known to the arriving Europeans. For example, the

Relacion de Michoacan , the Breve sumaria relacion y , the Relaciones Geoaraf icas r and other accounts, as well as those of twentieth-century scholars, often attempt to place land under a concept of ownership—a notion that may have been alien to indigenous societies. As William Cronon suggested in his 1983 work on New England, the real issue is not the

~~European notion of ownership, but "the way the inhabitants of a particular village conceived of property vis-a-vis each other" and the way "everyone in a village conceived of their 48~~

~~territory (and political community) vis-a-vis other vil-~~

~~lages." 45~~

~~For the Tarascan case, the chroniclers tell us that~~

~~lands were "granted" by the king to the Tarascan elites, and~~

~~that peasants labored on lands of the state or nobility.~~

~~All classes also seemed to have possessed usufruct rights of~~

~~other lands and resources. At the same time, we know that a~~

~~significant portion of the lands were used to produce the~~

~~required tribute. So the Tarascan state recognized certain~~

~~rights of exclusive use , but whether such rights went beyond~~

~~activities associated with the designated land, such as~~

~~agriculture or extraction, is not indicated in the sources.~~

~~Further, rights in property almost always were associated~~

~~with production for state purposes, and do not appear linked~~

~~with the acquisition of wealth or profit.~~

~~Scholars continue to take for granted that lands in~~

~~prehispanic times were "communally-owned," that people of a~~

~~particular community "owned" a particular piece of property~~

~~to the exclusion of all other communities. But it is the~~

~~sum of the rights, duties, and sanctions, which binds a group to the object and excludes others, that determines the~~

nature of property claims. We cannot say for sure that villages recognized the exclusivity of their rights to nearby land vis-a-vis other villages, and that sanctions were in place to prevent encroachment of one village's land on that of another. Given the dispersed nature of Tarascan 49 settlement in the Protohistoric such a regime probably would not have been generally necessary.

Clearly the state intervened in resource use, directly through ownership or management of resources or indirectly through the tribute system. Decisions about access to and use of natural resources were in large measure determined by imperial structures, rather than by those with the most intimate contact with the environment. Thus, for many decades before the arrival of the Spanish and their colonial rule, the relationship between the Tarascan people and their natural world was mediated by rules and conventions somewhat removed the local village context of a particular ecosystem.

Under the Tarascan state the customs and practices regarding the environment, including property systems that link peoples with the natural world, expressed to a lesser degree than before the local ecological knowledge about the structure and function of the environment. This realm would shift dramatically yet again beginning in the 1520s when the

~~European arrival wrought further dramatic change in the ecology of the Lake Patzcuaro basin.~~

~~Spain and the Ecology of the Patzcuaro Basin~~

At the beginning of the sixteenth century when Europe- ans began to arrive in Michoacan, Lake Patzcuaro was at its maximum height, but drier conditions would begin a long process of alteration in the lake area's make-up of arable land, tule-reed marsh, and open water. Maps drawn in the 50

~~sixteenth century show a larger area of open water than is~~

~~evident today. Several islands indicated on the maps are~~

~~now surrounded by dry land and areas that were once fishing~~

~~zones are now farms. Formerly-lakeshore communities are~~

~~presently some distance from open water, and tule-reed marsh~~

~~became a resource for villages that previously had access to~~

~~none. Geographical research by Sarah L. O'Hara details the~~

~~course of these changes and shows that they continued~~

~~through the colonial period and up to the present. 46~~

~~Soil erosion on the fragile lower slopes around the~~

~~lake continued, and has been described as catastrophic. The~~

~~literature on land degradation in the Americas during this~~

~~period has tended to attribute the erosion to the introduc-~~

~~tion by Europeans of plows and livestock. 47 It seems clear~~

~~that these introductions had some negative impact on the~~

~~Michoacan environment, but research by Sarah L. O'Hara, et~~

~~al. was unable "to distinguish any specific impact of the~~

~~introduction of plough agriculture and draught animals by~~

~~the Spanish after A.D. 1521. ... if anything there was a~~

~~decrease in the erosion rate after the Conquest." 48 While~~

~~these scholars and others acknowledge that land degradation~~

~~is attributable to new Spanish forms, they argue that it~~

"was apparently no more severe than that associated with traditional agricultural methods." 49 It should be pointed out, however, that the declining population and reduced resource exploitation on the sensitive lower slopes may have 51

~~allowed a degree of forest regeneration that mediated, at~~

~~least for a time, the rate of erosion. Sherburne F. Cook~~

~~states that in the valley east of Quiroga, where population~~

~~declines in the sixteenth century were especially acute, the~~

~~"erosion had been interrupted," while in areas close to~~

~~Tzintzuntzan, where population remained relatively dense,~~

~~erosion persisted. Regardless, it seems safe to conclude,~~

~~as Cook did in 1949, that significant examples of erosion~~

~~can be found in the basin that date from the first settle-~~

~~ment of the region up to the twentieth century. 50~~

~~As happened elsewhere in the Americas, the vanguard of~~

~~the Spanish forces that arrived in the early sixteenth~~

~~century was disease. There is evidence that Tarascan mes-~~

~~sengers returning from an embassy with the Aztecs brought~~

~~smallpox into Michoacan a year or two before Cortes' men~~

themselves arrived in 1521. 51 Perhaps more than anything else, the European microbes prepared the way for new forms of natural resource use in the Patzcuaro basin. As noted above, the population of the basin just before the arrival of the Spanish was probably more than 80,000. Within fifty years it had dropped by as much as half, and by the mid- seventeenth century there were fewer than 10,000 people living in the basin. 52

~~Upon subjugating the Tarascan leadership, the Spanish rulers set about putting in place systems for the exploitation of the region's resources, as the native elites had 52~~

~~done previously. The Tarascan tribute system came to an end~~

~~and Spain's encomienda had a brief tenure during the first~~

~~years of colonial rule. Various pueblos were assigned to~~

~~Spaniards with Cortes himself taking the rich and populous~~

~~Tzintzuntzan and its tributary communities that constituted~~

~~the central core of the Tarascan empire. The products~~

~~obtained by the encomenderos was, for the most part, the~~

~~same as that given in the prehispanic tribute. For~~

~~Tzintzuntzan and its subject towns around the lake an as-~~

~~sessment of its tribute for 1528 included six hundred cargas~~

~~of maize, forty-five cargas of beans, twenty-five cargas of~~

~~chili, and twenty cargas of fish to be delivered to the mines every thirty days." As under the Tarascan state,~~

fields were designated to produce crops specifically to pay the tribute. The Spaniards typically had the goods delivered to the mining areas where it was sold to the miners for precious metals. But, as Donald D. Brand notes, "the encomienda system was never very well established in the

Patzcuaro region." 54 Cortes retained his encomienda only until about 1529, and most pueblos subsequently directed tribute to the Spanish crown. No pueblos in the basin legally were held in encomienda after 1554. Still, Span- iards did use lands within their encomiendas for planting of crops and raising livestock. J. Benedict Warren points out that Spanish law eventually forbade the use of tribute labor on these fields, but before it faded away the encomienda 53

~~system provided a way for Spaniards to begin establishing~~

~~themselves, and European forms of resource use, on the land~~

~~in the basin, often at the expense of the declining Tarascan~~

~~villages. 55 As noted above, during Tarascan state times~~

~~villages were small and widely dispersed, often located some~~

~~distance from their regional administrative centers. But in~~

~~the early colonial period, many pueblos became deserted, or~~

~~nearly so, and the Spanish administrators ordered their~~

~~formal dissolution. Many subject villages of Patzcuaro,~~

~~Tzintzuntzan, Erongaricuaro, and others centers were aban-~~

~~doned and their remnant populations forced to move to~~

~~congregaciones . Not surprisingly, such changes followed~~

~~closely the major epidemics of the colonial period.~~

~~Patzcuaro, for example, had fifty or sixty barrios before~~

~~the epidemic of 1545-1548, but in 1581 only fifteen re-~~

~~mained. 56 Robert West suggests that "probably few present~~

~~Tarascan pueblos possess their pre-Spanish sites." He notes~~

~~that many villages likely moved from higher elevations to~~

~~lower areas near land appropriate for plow cultivation. 57~~

~~Conoreaacion was justified by the administrative needs of~~

~~the colonial rulers and to aid in religious conversion of~~

~~the natives. During the 1530s a unigue form of congregacion was established by Vasco de Quiroga in the lakeshore vicin-~~

~~ity of the old Tarascan community of Guayameo. With a~~

~~Utopian, communal vision, Quiroga brought together groups of~~

~~Indians to farm collectively-held village land, produce 54~~

~~handicrafts, practice Catholicism, and care for the poor and~~

~~infirm. The "pueblo-hospital" of Santa Fe de la Laguna~~

~~reflected European ideas about land ownership, agriculture,~~

~~and religion that were making their mark on the Americas.~~

~~As the numbers of villages declined, the population~~

~~densities in the main cities grew; some 14,000 Indians moved~~

~~from outlying settlements to Patzcuaro in the early years of~~

~~Spanish rule. Similarly, the former governmental centers of~~

~~the Tarascans became cabaceras under Spanish administration.~~

~~Larger settlements and those relatively isolated also sur-~~

~~vived the onslaughts of disease, congregacion , and land~~

~~usurpation by encomenderos.~~

~~Along with encomienda and congregacion, plows, European~~

~~crops, and livestock made their marks, quite literally, on~~

~~Patzcuaro' s already-eroded soils. On the steeper slopes,~~

~~the Tarascans continued to practice shifting agriculture~~

~~using the traditional digging stick. But at lower levels~~

~~where fields were flat or more-gently sloping, the plow made~~

~~significant inroads. Plows were especially effective in~~

~~flat areas of thick sod on which the aboriginal digging~~

~~stick was ineffective. Donald Brand suggests that the~~

~~introduction of these oxen-drawn plows made possible "the~~

~~first widescale breaking" of these grass-covered areas. 58~~

~~According to West, the plow introduced in the Tarascan zones had a straight iron share that "stirs, rather than turns,~~

~~soil to a depth of less than six inches." Plow agriculture 55~~

~~began in the first years after the arrival of the Spanish,~~

~~proceeding from the flat, valley floors to the more fragile~~

~~and dif f icult-to-cultivate hills. West writes that by the~~

~~early seventeenth century, the arado was being used to~~

~~cultivate lower slopes. 59 Plows also allowed an increase in~~

~~the scale of farming as cultivated areas became much larger~~

~~than the small, more-intensive fields and gardens of tradi-~~

~~tional Tarascan agriculture. Although there is some debate~~

~~about progress of hill-slope erosion in the basin, as dis-~~

~~cussed above, the introduction of the plow clearly played a~~

~~significant role in erosive processes. As plow cultivation~~

expanded to progressively steeper areas it is likely that barranca formation accelerated. The furrows dug on the hillside fields ran both with and across the slope, "at the whim of the cultivator," according to Donald Brand. 60 Such practices no doubt damaged the already-thin soils of the lower slopes.

In the colonial period maize remained the primary crop planted in the Patzcuaro basin, and moved down from the swidden fields to the flat areas along with the expansion of plow agriculture. During the course of the colonial rule, native and Spanish farmers increasingly sowed European crops in the area's fields during the course of the colonial period. According to Brand, some of the introductions were made by the early Spanish arrivals and encomenderos , but most were made by the members of the religious orders. 61 In Patzcuaro, the Relaciones Geograficas note, many fruits were

~~brought from Spain as well as wheat, onions, and other~~

~~crops. 62 Brand also notes various vegetables, flavoring~~

~~herbs, and ornamentals." In the 1580s, Fray Alonso Ponce~~

~~traveled throughout the Lake Patzcuaro basin, visiting many~~

~~of the lakeshore pueblos. His report shows how widespread~~

~~the growing of European crops had become. 6 '~~

~~Wheat appeared in the basin as early as the 153 0s. By~~

~~1586 a wheat mill was located near the lake and was said to have ground all the wheat from lakeshore villages including~~

~~Tzintzuntzan, Erongaricuaro, San Jeronimo, and present-day~~

Quiroga." The basin was seen as an excellent location for the grain, and during the colonial period Michoacan was considered to be one of the most productive wheat-growing regions in the country. 66 It is likely that Indians grew wheat only to meet tribute demands; West writes that wheat bread was eaten by the natives only in times of maize short- age. Wheat was, therefore, primarily a "cash" crop, grown not for subsistence but for meeting other obligations or for profit. Growing wheat in the basin represented a considerable departure from the other large-scale crop, maize.

Plows and broadcast sowing were essential to productive wheat fields, and irrigation was practiced from the very beginning of wheat cultivation. 67 Maize also was grown on irrigated fields, even in prehispanic times, but rain-fed maize fields were common in the colonial period and up to 57

~~the present. By most accounts, compared to maize, wheat is~~

~~more difficult to produce, less well adapted to basin condi-~~

~~tions, produces lower yields, and is not favored for con-~~

~~sumption by the natives, but in the lake area more acreage~~

~~was devoted to the European introduction than to native maize. Clearly, the colonial regime exerted considerable~~

~~pressure to bring about the shift to wheat cultivation. 63~~

~~Although the early Tarascans had semidomesticated~~

~~turkeys and dogs, livestock raising began only with the~~

introduction of European animals in the 1520s. By 1530 horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens were found in the basin. Pigs were the first introduction, being raised to supply the gold placer mining of the Balsas river area.

Chickens were quickly adopted for local use by the natives since turkeys and ducks were already found in many farm- yards, and Spanish laws required chickens be produced for tribute. Horses, of course, arrived with the first conquistadores and along with donkeys and mules became common beasts of burden; burros, Brand notes, "soon became the work companion of the Indian." 69 As has been well documented, sheep and cattle had an enormous impact on the ecology of New Spain. By the time the Franciscan inspector,

Alonso Ponce, visited Michoacan in the 1580s there appeared to be vast numbers of the grazing animals pastured in the region. 70 In an area of about 17,325 square kilometers that included the Patzcuaro basin, Lesley Byrd Simpson estimates 58

~~that the cattle population might have reached 64,500 and the~~

~~sheep population 333,000 by 1620. 71 Within the basin itself,~~

~~however, livestock raising in the colonial period seems to~~

~~have had a much lesser impact than in other parts of New~~

~~Spain. According to Donald Brand, haciendas devoted solely~~

~~to stockraising never appeared in the Patzcuaro region. 72~~

~~It is obvious that the region did not experience the wide-~~

~~spread degradation that has been documented for the Valley~~

of Mexico attributable to sheep and cattle. The introduction of these animals did, however, bring about changes in the forms of resource use practiced in the lake zone. As noted above, oxen made possible the cultivation of previously-untillable soils, and some Indians kept small

~~flocks of sheep or found work tending animals for the Span- iards.~~

~~The Col onial Property Regime~~

Central to the new relationship between the Patzcuaro basin's human population and the environment was the approach to property established by the Spaniards. The property system that came to characterize Mexico reflected the forms that had existed in Spain. 73 Communal holdings, "commons," and individual private ownership were well-developed elements of peninsular life and all became part of the colonial property regime. In principle, Spanish policy recognized Indian land claims and sought to protect native community "ownership." The crown was prepared to grant to 59

~~Indian villages the land they occupied and used for agricul-~~

~~tural purposes. At the same time, Spanish authorities~~

~~sought to endow the viceroyalty with a general system of~~

~~"common" lands, primarily for grazing. Perhaps most novel~~

~~in its American setting was the extension of private prop-~~

~~erty, which appears to have been far more vague under the~~

~~Tarascan state, if it existed at all.~~

~~For their part, the communities guickly came to under-~~

~~stand the Spanish system and sought legal title or other~~

~~formal authorization to use the lands that they had relied~~

~~on for centuries. Such official title to Indian towns was~~

~~granted by Spanish authorities from the first years of~~

~~colonial rule. According to George Foster, communal rights~~

~~had long been recognized in the Spanish peninsula where~~

~~"Spanish villages have held communal title to a part or all~~

of the surrounding land." There, the propios de los pueblos were community lands worked in common or rented out; others were adjudicated for personal use with a lifetime tenure, or distributed for one or several years based on a lottery. 14

In New Spain, a village's fundo legal a system r established in 1567, determined the core area to which the residents were legally entitled. In addition to the village proper, the Spanish crown recognized community rights to certain lands beyond the core of the settlement for agriculture. Although these lands were not legally titled to individuals, plots were alloted to heads of households and 60

~~often became closely tied to that lineage. The village also retained specified woodlands and pastures that were~~

~~communally-owned but not apportioned to individuals, which came to be known as the ei ido f based on a similar institu-~~

~~tion in Spain. Rights to the lake were often tied to spe-~~

~~cific communities, which is not surprising given the impor-~~

~~tance of lacustrine resources in the Patzcuaro basin. For~~

~~example, the Indian settlers of the lakeside communities of~~

~~Tzurumutaro and Pareo claimed community rights to the lake~~

~~and littoral zone based on their original royal grant, for~~

~~which the village had agreed to contribute to the salaries~~

~~of civic officials. 73 The formal authorization for each of~~

~~these tenurial forms constituted the basis for a village's~~

~~communal holdings, property that was reserved for the exclusive use of the corporate community.~~

~~As noted above, in prehispanic times Tarascan communi-~~

~~ties certainly had some notion of the ties between them-~~

~~selves and the land their village used. But it was the~~

~~Spanish who formalized this relationship as one of ownership~~

~~between a corporate entity and its land. Legal, socially-~~

~~recognized title was granted in which the village owned the~~

~~land against intrusion by other villages or usurpation by~~

~~individuals. To be sure, it was a highly imperfect system that often became bound up in long-term bureaucratic and~~

~~legal red tape. For example, the process of establishing the basin community Cocupao's legal boundaries began in the 61 early-sixteenth century and remained uncompleted into the twentieth. 76~~

~~There were other lands in the region not designated for specific communities, primarily pasture land, but woods and watercourses as well, that were available for usufruct.~~

Francois Chevalier suggests that this element of property rights was a medieval idea derived from "ancient Castilian custom," and provided access to resources in areas not being cultivated. 11 In Spain, these "public lands" allowed the collection of fruit, nuts, firewood, thatch, and lumber without acquiring title to the land. 78 In Mexico, there were

similar lands, known as baldios or realengos , intended primarily to ensure an ample supply of grazing land for the expanding numbers of sheep and cattle. At Patzcuaro, a long tradition of forest use made continued access to wooded land critical for the native villages. In the basin, montes were found within the limits of specific communities, and were therefore communal property. But there remained considerable undesignated land that was probably closer to the open access types of both the Tarascan and Spanish regimes.

~~Since occupying land without legal title was a frequent occurrence, the difference between communal land (the fundo~~

legal plus the ej ido ) and the baldios was important. The former could not legally be alienated from the community, while the latter belonged directly to the Crown and could be disposed of by royal grant. In the Tarascan system, land was held only for a par-

~~ticular use, such use often determined by higher authorities. For the Spanish, however, land itself could be owned,~~

regardless of the use to which it was put. Indeed, the owner might not use the land at all. As Charles Gibson points out, ownership in Spain had provided both profit potential and social status for those endowed with property.

But in New Spain, the dense Indian population already occupied most of the land. As the native decline proceeded in the sixteenth century, quantities of land became available for acquisition by the European arrivals. 79 Land grants were made from the beginning of the colonial period and accelerated in later years. Lands were also obtained by outright purchase and through the legal devices of denuncia and composicion.

Private ownership did not apply only to Spaniards, as some Indians came to be propertied as well. Indians received royal grants for stockraising and agriculture, some becoming large landowners. At the same time, perhaps as part of the same process, members of the Indian elite had their possession of lands recognized by the Spanish authorities. 80 As noted, under the Tarascan state, lands of the nobility did not constitute ownership in a European sense.

~~But with colonial rule, Indians were able to transfer lands outright, and many did so in the early Spanish years.~~

~~Donald Brand cites cases of members of the former Tarascan nobility "selling or making grants of lands" comprising~~

~~considerable territory north and west of Lake Patzcuaro. 31~~

~~In his study of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico,~~

~~Gibson suggests that the "greater part of the land passed~~

~~from Indian possession and control altogether." 82 But, in~~

~~Michoacan native communities seem to have retained rela-~~

~~tively greater amounts of land, compared to other parts of~~

~~New Spain. Paul Friedrich suggests that the Spanish "lead-~~

~~ers and administrators in the Tarascan area appear to have~~

~~respected the "Laws of the Indies," under which Mexico's~~

~~indigenous populations were ostensibly protected from whole-~~

~~sale exploitation."" Within the basin, the old political~~

~~core of the Tarascan empire, many villages kept their commu-~~

~~nity lands through the colonial period. Studies by Donald~~

~~Brand and George Foster suggest that in the municipio~~

~~Quiroga and in the former Tarascan capital Tzintzuntzan,~~

~~communal holdings remained substantially intact until the~~

~~nineteenth century, and Brand notes how Santa Fe de la~~

~~Laguna retained a "respectable acreage" as recently as~~

~~94 1922 . Further, many of the land disputes that are recorded~~

~~for the basin were between native villages rather than between Indians and Spaniards, suggesting that the lands in guestion merely moved from one Indian community to another.~~

~~Nevertheless, it is apparent that some villages lost at~~

~~least part of their lands during the course of the colonial period. Claude Morin found that by the beginning of the . ;~~

~~64 nineteenth century some fourteen pueblos in the Patzcuaro district lacked their full fundo legal. 85~~

~~By the end of the colonial period the property regime was a complex amalgam of Spanish and indigenous elements.~~

The terminology and most of the land tenure institutions were of European origin, but many of the rights to resources were rooted in the prehispanic past. As will be shown in the next chapter, the modes of resource use also reflected the combination of cultures.

It seems clear, then, that the "communal" tenure of the native villages was not solely of native American origin as some scholars have suggested. 86 In particular, the ejido had a closer connection to European tenure forms than American.

Although the basin natives continued to understand their ties to their environment as they had "from time immemorial," the rights and structures that governed resource use unfolded over the centuries. The changes in property rights that would come in the nineteenth century should be seen more accurately as part of a long process of evolution, rather than as an attack on a distant, indigenous past.

~~Notes~~

~~'The reconstuction of the Protohistoric basin environment is based largely on Handbook of Middle American Indians Vol. 1, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), 111;~~

Helen Perlstein Pollard, Tariacuri ' s Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993) Robert West, The Cultural Geography of the Modern Tarascan Area Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropol- ogy, Number 7 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951) 65

2 F.A. Street-Perrott, et al., "Anthropogenic Soil Erosion Around Lake Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico During the Preclassic and Late Postclassic-Hispanic Periods," American Ant i qu i ty , 54:4 (1989), 761; the Relacion de Hichoanan suggests the presence of heavy forests surrounding the lake, see EM (1956), 27; the Relacion is a sixteenth-century manuscript compiled by a Spanish chronicler based on Tarascan stories. The version published in Madrid is used in this study. For a dicussion of the various editions and translations of the Relacion and issues surrounding its use as a source, see J. Benedict Warren, The Conquest of

~~Michoacan . 328.~~

~~3 Relaciones Geoaraficas de la Diocesis de Michoacan . Vol. II, (Guadalajara: Coleccibn "Siglo XVI", 1958), 109. 'Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 141, 54.~~

5 Sherburne F. Cook, Soil Erosion and Population in Central Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), 36-44; Street-Perrott, "Anthropogenic Soil Erosion"; Sarah L. O'Hara, et al., "Accelerated soil erosion around a Mexican highland lake caused by prehispanic agriculture," Nature 362, (4 March 1993), 48-51.

~~6 Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 182.~~

7 Sarah L. O'Hara, "Historical evidence of fluctuations in the level of Lake Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico over the last 600 years," The Geographical Journal 159:1 (March 1993), 51; Pollard sets the lakeshore for this period at between 2,050 meters above sea level, see Tariacuri's Leg- acy, 66.

~~a F.A. Street-Perrott, "Anthropogenic Soil Erosion," 759; Sarah L. O'Hara, "Accelerated soil erosion," 48. 'Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 182.~~

~~10 Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 7.~~

~~ll See EM, 32-33.~~

~~12 Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 120.~~

~~13 The Michoacan scenario is consistent with the literature property rights theory cited in Chapter One; see Carlson in Anderson Property Rights , 68.~~

~~H Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 112. 66~~

~~15 For a brief summary of the Tarascan empire and Tzintzuntzan's role see George M. Foster, Tzintzuntzan: Mexican Peasants in a Ch anging World (New York: Elsevier, 1979), 21-26.~~

16Woodrow Borah and Sherburne F.Cook. The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest Ibero-Americana: 45 (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1963), 87; Pollard, Tariacuri's Legacy , 79.

~~17 Pollard, Tarlacuri's Legacy , 32.~~

~~18 Pollard, Tariacuri's Legacy, 82.~~

19 Little is known about settlement patterns before the Tarascan state period. Some scholars have suggested clan- based villages similar to the Valley of Mexico's calpulli , but such suggestions are highly conjectural and based on ecological similarities between the Tarascan zone and that of the Aztecs. See for example, Pedro Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion: An Analysis of Ec onomic. Social, and Reli- gious Interactions (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, 1952), 12. These suggestions seem reasonable, but for the purposes of this study the findings of Pollard, Tariacuri's Legacy , Gorenstein and Pollard (1983), West (1973), and Brand (1951) for the Proto- historic period are of primary importance.

~~20 Shirley Gorenstein and Helen Perlstein Pollard, The Tarascan Civilization: A Late Prehi spanic Cultural System Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology 28 (Nash- ville, 1983).~~

21 Donald D. Brand. Ouirooa: A Mexican Municipio Smithso- nian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, Number 11 (Washington, 1951) 11; A permanent source of potable water was located close to nearly all of the identified settlements in the Protohistoric period. Water was transported from the springs to the village in jars and some villages might also have constructed wooden aqueducts, a practice still being used in the twentieth century; See also Maurice Boyd, Eight Ta rascan Legends Contributions of the Florida State Museum, Number 3, (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida), 17; West (1951), 26.

~~"Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy 54-55. ,~~

~~23 For full discussion of soils see Pollard, Tariacuri 's~~

~~Legacy , 67-77; Brand, Ouiroga , 122-131; West, 9-11. 67~~

~~24 These comments on prehispanic agriculture are based primarily on West, Brand Ouiroga Pollard Tariacuri's r Leg-~~

~~SCY, and Florescano, Historia General de Michoacan .~~

~~"EM, 34-35.~~

~~26Ulises Beltran, "Tarascan State and Society in Pre- hispanic Times: An Ethnohistorical Inguiry" (Ph.D. diss.,~~

~~University of Chicago, 1982) , 131.~~

~~"Beltran (1982) , 136.~~

28 Pollard, Tariacuri's Legacy , 129-131; see also Ulises Beltran, "Estado y Sociedad Tarascos," in Pedro Carrasco, et al. La Sociedad Indiaena en el Centro y Occidente de Mexico (Zamora: Colegio de Michoacan, 1986), 53; Carrasco notes how tribute served the same function for the Aztecs.

~~"Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 116-118.~~

~~30 BM, 12.~~

~~"Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 118.~~

~~32 EM, 184.~~

33EM, 175-180; the Spanish chronicler who recorded the Relacion used the verb guardar to describe those who were in charge of the forest. It is unclear if they were protecting the forest against unlawful access or were responsible for managing forest use. The document " refers to pucuriguari , diputado sobre todos los que quardaban los montes, que tenian cargo de cortar vigas y hacer tablas y otra madera de los montes", EM, 176.

~~34 Pollard, Tariacuri's Legacy, 118; EM, 173-180.~~

~~"Pollard, Tariacur i's Legacy , 133.~~

~~36BM, 83; "gue me preste o venda un pedazo de tierra~~

~~para poner a mi dios Curicaueri, . . .".~~

~~37 BM, 215.~~

~~"Beltran, "Tarascan State and Society," 143.~~

~~"Beltran, "Estado y Sociedad Tarrascos," 50-52.~~

~~"Alonso de Zorita, Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain (New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, 1963), 195. .~~

~~4I Carrasco, La Sociedad Indioena , 71.~~

~~42Ulises Beltran, "Estado y Sociedad Tarascos," 52.~~

"Beltran, "Estado y Sociedad Tarascos," 52; for such tenure regimes in the Valley of Mexico see Charles Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964), 267.

~~"Beltran, "Tarascan State and Society," 204.~~

"William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians. Colo- nists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), 59. Regarding the Indians of New England, Cronon notes that ideas of ownership and sovereignty "could shade into each other in a way Europeans had trouble understanding. "

~~"For full discussion of these changes see O'Hara~~

~~(1993); and Street-Perrott , et al. (1989), 764.~~

~~47 See for example, Elinor G.K. Melville, A Plague of Sheep (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)~~

~~"O'Hara, et al. (1993), 49.~~

~~"O'Hara, et al. (1993), 48.~~

~~50 Sherburne F. Cook, (1949), 42-44.~~

51 For details of the Spanish arrival and the first years of colonial rule see J. Benedict Warren, The Conquest of Michoacan; The Spanish Domination of the Tarascan Kingdom in Western Mexico 1521-1530 r (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985) ; see also Peter Gerhard, A Guide to the Histor- ical Geography of New Spain (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 343-354.

"Pollard, Tariacuri's Legacy, 79, gives a possible range for the population of the basin as between 60,750 and 105,000; Sherburne Cook, Soil Erosion and Population , 37, estimates the population of the district of Tzintzuntzan in 1520 as 95,400, a figure which includes some communities outside the basin itself.

~~"Warren, 281; a carga was about three bushels.~~

~~54 Brand, Ouiroga , 10.~~

~~Warren, The Concruest of M ichoacan , 246. .~~

~~69 "Gerhard, A Guide , 350.~~

~~"West, 25.~~

~~"Brand (1951), 123.~~

~~"West, 35-3 6.~~

~~60 Brand (1951), 123.~~

~~"Brand (1951) , 122.~~

~~"Relaciones Geocrraf icas r 115.~~

~~"Brand (1951), 122.~~

~~"Alonso Ponce, Relacion breve y verdadera in Viaies de Fray Mqusq Ponce al Occidente de Mevirn . (Guadalajara: Corresponsalia del Seminario de Cultura Mexicana, 1968) "West, 43.~~

~~"Brand (1951) , 140.~~

~~67 Ponce, 6; West, 43.~~

~~"Lesley Byrd Simpson, Exploitat ion of T.and in Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952), 24.~~

~~"Brand (1951) , 152.~~

~~70 Simpson, Exploitat ion of T,and f 4-5.~~

~~71 Simpson, Exploita tion of T.and r 39.~~

~~12 Brand (1951), 21.~~

73 See Simpson, Exploitation of T,and r 24; and Claude Monn, M i choacan en la Nueva Espa na del sigio xvtt: creci- m i ento Y Des i gualdad en una ECQnonJLa Colonial (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1979), 291.

~~'George Foster, Culture and Conge st: America's Spanish Heritage (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1960), 66.~~

~~75 Carrasco, (1986), 89.~~

~~76 Brand (1951), 13-17; Cocupao later became the present- day city of Quiroga.~~

~~"Chevalier, Land and Society , 88. . ,~~

~~78 Foster, Culture and Conquest , 67.~~

~~"Gibson in Bethell (1987), 388~~

"Simpson, Exploitation of T,and r 24; Delfina Esmeralda Lopez Serralangue, La Noble za Indlgena de Patzcuaro en la Epoca Virreinal (Mexico, D.F.: UNAM Instituto de Investi- gaciones Historicas, 1965), 136.

~~"Brand (1951), 10.~~

~~82 Gibson, The Aztecs, 257.~~

~~83 Friedrich (1970), 2.~~

~~84 Brand (1951) , 23~~

85Morin, 284-285; see also Charles A. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 1821-1853 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 225-226, for a discussion of Bour- bon era land tenure in Mexico generally.

~~86 See the references in Chapter One, pages 3-9; In a 1990 essay, Frans J. Schryer points out that "Most writers, especially popular writers and journalists, portray the~~

Nahua community as the survival of a pre-Hispanic commune. . . . This simplified and idyllic image of the Indian community is widely shared by the Mexican public, including most politicians." See Frans Schryer, "Ethnic Identity and Land Tenure Disputes in Modern Mexico," in John E. Kicza, ed. The Indian in Latin American Hi story: Resistance. Resil- ience, and Acculturation (Wilmington, DE: Jaguar Books, 1993), 203. CHAPTER 3

~~PROPERTY AND ECOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY~~

~~By the time of Mexican independence, the property~~

~~regime in the Patzcuaro basin encompassed a range of re-~~

~~sources from land to trees to fish. Although there is some~~

~~evidence that the prehispanic Tarascans did not include land~~

itself as property, in the nineteenth century it is clear that the indigenous residents understood European concepts of land ownership and use. As to the other objects of property, indigenous modes of use and the rights and duties pertaining to resources, remained in many ways similar to ancient forms. The property regime that had evolved, and would continue to do so, provided the structure for the exploitation, management, and control of basin resources in the context of the larger political economy.

As will be seen, the villages of the Patzcuaro basin were settlements whose social and economic functions depended in large measure on the collective nature of landholding. They were, therefore, communities whose subsistence and survival depended directly on relationships not only with the natural world, but with their fellow human residents. In such a community, collective interest typically took primacy over individual gain.

~~71 72~~

~~The Cultural Geography of the Patzcuaro Basin 1~~

~~Generally, the Tarascan communities of the lake zone~~

~~that had survived the epidemics of the early colonial period~~

~~continued to exist into the nineteenth century. In addi-~~

~~tion, some villages had been formed from the remnants of~~

~~Tarascan settlements, and Creoles had settled in a few~~

~~towns, haciendas, and ranchos. A statistical survey con-~~

~~ducted in the 1820s by Juan Jose Martinez de Lejarza sug-~~

~~gests a population for the lake region, in the old partido~~

~~de Patzcuaro, of about eighteen thousand, which includes the~~

~~larger towns and their non-Indian residents. If we remove~~

~~Patzcuaro city we are left with a mostly-indigenous popula-~~

~~tion of about thirteen thousand in 1822. 2 A government~~

~~report from 1887 suggests limited growth in the indigenous~~

~~villages, while the towns of Patzcuaro and Quiroga had~~

~~increased dramatically in population, although the figures~~

~~seem unreliable. 3~~

~~The Patzcuaro basin appears to have been largely an~~

~~economic backwater through the colonial and Independence~~

~~period. There was some copper mining south of the lake~~

~~zone, sugar production flouished in the tierra caliente to~~

~~the west, and the fertile bajio to the north furnished~~

foodstuffs, but transportation in and out of the basin was difficult and expensive. In an 1849 study, it was noted that in Michoacan transporting agricultural goods out of the state was hindered by lack of means for exportation. 4 In 73

~~the early decades trails and rough roads connected the~~

~~villages and the larger towns; most freight being carried on~~

~~the backs of mules, burros, and horses, introduced by the~~

~~Spaniards, and humans, in the ancient Tarascan manner. 5~~

~~According to Brand, wheeled travel was largely absent other~~

~~than on the route between Patzcuaro and Morelia; road im-~~

~~provement elsewhere only began in the middle to late nine-~~

~~teenth century. In the 1840s, notes Ignacio Piguero, "im-~~

~~proved" roads within the basin connected larger towns of~~

~~Patzcuaro, Tzintzuntzan, Erongaricuaro and Cocupao. 6 The~~

~~main routes to the state capital and the national capital~~

~~went through Patzcuaro and on to Uruapan to the west, giving~~

~~the southern sections of the zone a more-direct connection~~

~~to the major centers. The northern section, from~~

~~Tzintzuntzan around the top of the lake to Erongaricuaro,~~

~~had little nonlocal traffic and was seldom visited by outsiders.~~

~~The lake itself was the most important transportation~~

~~channel, although one that did not connect with the outside~~

~~world. Up to the twentieth century, canoes plied the waters~~

~~of the lake, connecting the lakeshore and island villages~~

~~with the larger towns. The canoes appear to have changed~~

~~little since prehispanic times, being "dugouts" made from the trunk of a single tree. In 1897 Frederick Starr found~~

~~"scores of canoes" plying the lake, some carrying a single paddler and others holding as many as eight. According to 74~~

~~Starr's account, a journey in such a canoe from the wharf at~~

Patzcuaro in the south to Santa Fe de la Laguna at the north end required about five hours. 7 The canoes were the only means for transporting freight and passengers on the lake until the steam ship arrived toward the end of the century and motor launches arrived in the next.

The lake zone communicated with the outside area through the larger towns, the villages having little contact with the larger world other than occasional visits to these centers. It appears that Erongaricuaro was at one time a connection with the mountain villages to the west, but declined during the course of the century as trade between the Sierra and the lake decreased in importance. Patzcuaro was a primary center for mule trains in and out of the zone, especially toward Valladolid (Morelia) to the east. Accord- ing to Brand, Quiroga "was an emporium for the exchange of goods between the plateau and the lowlands." Its commercial importance peaked between 1840 and 1880, connecting the northern Patzcuaro basin with the states of San Luis Potosi and Guanajuato. 8 Before the arrival of the railroad, it is likely that the pack trains hauled mostly manufactured goods out of the region, given the cost of such transportation for bulky grains. Reports indicated that aguardiente, textiles, soap, vegetable oils, and wooden products were transported.

~~In addition to the pack trains, traveling merchants~~

~~(comerciantes ambulantesl are noted throughout the century, 75~~

~~although they also declined after the 1880s. The small~~

~~traders carried pottery from Santa Fe de la Laguna and~~

~~Tzintzuntzan, and other local products to be sold outside~~

~~the state or in the tierra caliente. They returned later~~

~~with bananas, rice, hides, salt, pineapples, coconuts, dried~~

~~meat, and cheese. 5~~

~~Rail transportation to the basin began on June 1, 1886,~~

~~when the first train arrived at Patzcuaro from Mexico City,~~

~~loaded with sightseers and manufactured goods. 10 The line~~

~~would extend to Uruapan by 1899, with other branches in the~~

~~state not opening until after the Revolution. The northern~~

~~end of the lake was bypassed by the railroad, but shortly~~

~~after its completion, the steamship Mariano Jimenez began~~

~~service on Lake Patzcuaro, providing a wider transportation~~

~~network for the entire lakeshore region. The ship was~~

~~delivered in early 1887, arriving at the lake in eight~~

~~hundred pieces. Built in England, it was eighty five feet~~

~~long, fifteen feet wide and had a capacity of two hundred~~

~~tons. From its first test run on May 5, 1887, the ship~~

~~carried passengers and cargo for some thirty years with~~

~~stops at the lakeshore villages of Erongaricuaro and~~

~~Tzirondaro, at Patzcuaro and Quiroga, and the haciendas of~~

~~Ibarra and Charahuen. 11~~

~~At the time of Lejarza's survey, the first statistical analysis of Michoacan under Mexico's republican government, the state was divided into four deoartamentos twenty , one 76~~

~~partidPS, and ninety ayuntamientos . The lake zone was~~

~~entirely within the partido of Patzcuaro until 1868 when the~~

~~"Ley Organica de division territorial del Estado" divided the state into seventeen distritos , seventy five muni-~~

~~cipalidades, and 216 tenencias . Most of the basin was~~

~~within the Patzcuaro district, while the municipalidad of~~

~~Cocupao was placed under the jurisdiction of Morelia.~~

~~Cocupao (Quiroga) encompassed the northern quarter or so of~~

~~the lake and the lakeshore pueblos of Santa Fe de la Laguna,~~

~~Purenchecuaro, Tzirondaro, and the cabecera itself. To a~~

~~certain extent these entities were geographical expressions~~

~~of political, economic, and social relations that impinged~~

~~directly or indirectly on the basin's property regime. 12~~

~~The city of Patzcuaro had grown to be the political and~~

~~economic center of the region since Vasco de Quiroga made~~

his capital there in the sixteenth century. By the 182 0s a visitor could find grand houses, ten churches, two flour mills, a college, shops, and various workshops producing wool and cotton goods. The city was home to the local aristocracy of landowners from nearby haciendas and sugar estates in the tierra caliente to the west. Although not sited at lakeside, Patzcuaro served as a transportation center for the routes that converged from the lake and mountain villages. The city apparently grew rapidly at the end of the colonial period, with the official population in

~~1788 at 3,339, growing to 5,129 by the time of Lejarza's 77~~

~~survey in 1822, and reaching 11,389 in 1868. 13 Patzcuaro had~~

~~been predominately Spanish since the years after the Con-~~

~~quest, with most Indians residing in the dozen or so subject~~

~~barrios and pueblitos outside the city proper.~~

~~Although eclipsed by Patzcuaro, there were several~~

~~other towns in the lake district that had some political~~

~~and/or economic importance, all eventually becoming head~~

~~towns of a municipalidad . Cocupao, today's Quiroga, occu-~~

~~pied tableland at the foot of higher slopes near the north-~~

~~east tip of the lake. From maps it appears that the lake~~

~~shore was once at the edge of the town, but has since re-~~

~~ceded westward a kilometer or so, probably before the end of~~

~~the nineteenth century. 14 In 1822, Cocupao was still a~~

~~"pueblo de indios" that produced maize and wheat, and wooden~~

~~articles. 15 Tzintzuntzan, the old Tarascan capital, is~~

~~located on a plain at the northeast corner of the lake and~~

~~sandwiched between two hills, one of which bears the name of~~

~~the ancient Tarascan king, Tariacuri. Other than the crops~~

~~grown in the nearby fields, Tzintzuntzan was noteworthy for~~

~~its fine pottery, a cottage industry that was practiced here~~

since prehispanic times. According to Lejarza, the town had been reduced to a "miserable indian pueblo" after the capital was moved to Patzcuaro, but was beginning to recover under the new government, which made the town a political seat. The population in 1822 was 2,254, and 4,852 in 1868, far fewer than the 10,000 or so that lived there in 1520. 16 78

~~The last of the political centers of the basin was~~

~~Erongaricuaro, " still considered an Indian pueblo in the~~

~~early nineteenth century, altough Stanislawski suggests a~~

~~declining Indian presence in more-recent times. 18 From its~~

~~site on a flat bluff on the southwestern edge of the lake,~~

~~the community was an important transportation and market~~

~~center between the lake and the mountain villages since~~

~~prehispanic times. Lejarza found it to be a productive~~

~~community with its fields of maize, wheat, and beans. He~~

~~also noted the importance of nuts, wood, reeds, and fish in~~

~~the Erongaricuaro area's economy. 19 In 1822 it was only~~

~~about half the size of Tzintzuntzan, with a population of~~

~~1,2 61, but it had not declined as had the former capital;~~

~~Cook and Simpson give its 1554 population at 624. 20~~

Two other important elements of the basin ecology were the haciendas and ranchos, both larger, privately-owned properties that were established over the course of the colonial period. Haciendas, however, were not the dominant

form of agricultural enterprise within the basin as they were in other parts of Michoacan and Mexico. These large estates producing crops and livestock for the market appeared during the seventeenth century, but were limited in size by the region's isolation and terrain. As Brand notes, the Patzcuaro area "was a region of comparatively dense agricultural Indian population, of poor pasture lands, and of minimal water supply in the dry season from February to 79

~~May, which factors kept the large estates of haciendas from attaining the size of the latifundios in northern Mexico." 21~~

Ranchos were smaller properties, often sections of haciendas that had been sold by the hacendado or inherited by a family member. The term rancho or rancheria also designated small settlements formed by outsiders migrating to the basin area or groups that split off from other communities, but these were more-commonly formed in the twentieth century." In Michoacan, ranchos were sometimes owned by members of the former Tarascan nobility or their heirs, but according to Brand, were generally owned by non-Indians, as were the haciendas. 23

The exact number of haciendas and ranchos near the lake in the early nineteenth century is uncertain, but for the entire Patzcuaro political district Lejarza found eighteen haciendas and twenty-nine ranchos. Haciendas were concentrated south of the lake near Patzcuaro city, no doubt because of its population size and transportation links.

~~Ranchos were more common to the west of the lake in the~~

~~Erongaricuaro municipio. 24~~

Surrounding the lake and subject to the larger towns were the pueblos, most of predominately-Tarascan character in the early nineteenth century. The villages ranged in size from the tiny Tocuaro with just over one hundred residents to Santa Fe de la Laguna with nearly twelve hundred. 25

~~Most of the communities were on the lake shore or within a 80~~

~~kilometer or so of open water; five were, in fact, islands~~

~~within the lake. Only Ajuno, a prehispanic market site, was~~

~~more than two kilometers from the lake, and topographical~~

~~maps suggest that the village may have been much closer to~~

~~lakeside when the lake surface was higher. 26 Lejarza men-~~

~~tions no communities on what had been the southeastern arm~~

~~of the lake in the early sixteenth century, which suggests~~

~~that when the lake receded naturally or was drained in~~

~~subsequent centuries the communities disappeared. Neverthe-~~

~~less, by the nineteenth century there were about thirty~~

~~communities within the lake zone that were identified as~~

~~Indian pueblos. 27~~

~~TABLE 1 Population of Basin Communities in is??~~

Patzcuaro 5, 129 San Diego Cocupao (Quiroga 2,752 Tzintzuntzan 2,254 Santa Maria Erongaricuaro 1,261 Santa Fe de la Laguna 1, 151 San Geronimo Janitzio 915 San Francisco Ihuatzio 562 San Andres Zirondaro 519 San Geronimo Purenchecuaro 489 San Jose Huecorio 278 San Pedro Pareo 169 Santa Ana Ichapitiro 159 San Barolome Pareo 130 Santa Maria Tzentzenguaro 128 San Miguel Nocutzepeo 126 San Pedro Zurumutaro 111 San Andres Tocuaro 109

~~Source: Lejarza, 115-133.~~

~~The larger cities tended to appear more European in character, with Patzcuaro and Quiroga being predominately 81~~

Spanish. Tzintzuntzan and Erongaricuaro developed a dual character over the course of the century. Each of these towns, with the exception of Patzcuaro, had a resident indigenous community that could be identified as late as the first decade of the twentieth century. Of course, the mestizo population had grown over the three hundred years of colonial rule; the government reported that in the lake area the pueblos as a group were two-thirds Indian with the remainder of mixed ancestry. 28 Well into the twentieth century the lake zone has been described as retaining strongly Tarascan cultural elements. Robert West's 1940 study notes that the Lake Patzcuaro area was then at the center of a region resisting foreign influences.

~~In the maps of 1750, 1800, and 1850 these regions stand out as the only large purely indigenous part of~~

~~Tarasca. . . . Although the Tarascan area first to harbor Spaniards was the Lake region (Patzcuaro,~~

~~Tzintzuntzan) , some of its pueblos have succeeded in preserving the native tongue. Such towns are located on the islands and in isolated positions on the shore. 29~~

Of the twenty-seven lake area communities listed by West, seventeen still had a Tarascan population of 90 percent or more in 1940. 30 In the nineteenth century/ evidence suggests most of the villages along the lakeshore were considered culturally Tarascan. The degree of mestization and endogamy varied among the villages, and was related to both population size and proximity to larger towns and haciendas.

~~Carolyn C. McGovern-Bowen notes "the strong sense of cultural identity retained by the Tarascan Indians" and their 82~~

~~"generally slow pace of hispanization, " which she attributes~~

~~in large measure to the relatively high level of racial~~

~~endogamy and lack of migration from outside the state. 31 The~~

~~pueblos at the south end of the lake, near Patzcuaro city~~

~~and its adjacent haciendas, appear to have retained less of~~

~~their Tarascan culture than the more-isolated villages. 32~~

~~Resource Use and the Objects of Property~~

~~The Tarascan village of the nineteenth century was an economic unit, to a certain extent self-sufficient, with~~

~~most production consumed within the village. Community~~

~~members had little contact with the outside world on a day-~~

~~to-day basis since external transportation was not well~~

~~developed until the second half of the century. Trade was~~

~~very limited, consisting mostly of the handicrafts produced~~

~~for sale to neighboring villages and towns. Some of the agricultural goods were sold outside or were used to pay the tithe, or dJ^zmQ. 33~~

In 1822 Lejarza recognized that in all of the villages production was linked intimately to various elements of the basin environment. 34 These elements had become resources when they were defined as such by Tarascan culture, often in the distant past. As suggested in the previous chapter, environmental conditions often brought an emphasis on certain resources, while changes in the environment sometimes reguired a shift in resource use. Further, various political, social, and economic changes might also alter the 83 relationships between humans and environmental elements, even though the resources themselves, the objects of the property regime, remained unchanged. We will see below how the natural resources of the basin were exploited in the nineteenth century and how such exploitation was related to the property regime, which would itself change over the course of the century.

Handicrafts, primarily pottery and tule weaving, that relied on local raw materials have been mentioned freguently for several of the villages. Most other cottage industries, including many identified by twentieth-century investiga- tors, were absent from Lejarza's report but were in evidence at other times. 35 As noted in Lejarza's report and more- recent studies, the villages tended to specialize in their handicrafts, in some cases a majority of the working residents engaged in the same craft. For example, the manufac- ture of fishing nets on the island of Janitzio is recorded in 1789 and up to the 1940s. Hats, manufactured from im- ported palm leaves, were the main occuption of Jaracuaro residents in the late nineteenth century, which West attributes to the island's lack of tillable land. 36 Santa Fe de la

Laguna manufactured wooden products in the eighteenth century and up through the time of Lejarza's survey, but as of the late nineteeth century, the community had shifted almost entirely to pottery-making. Woolen products were woven in the eighteenth century at Patzcuaro, but it is reported that 84 only the native backstrap loom, used for weaving agave fiber before Europeans introduced sheep, was common. 37 As noted,

Tzintzuntzan has been famous for the production of ceramics since prehispanic times and up to the present day, and pottery-making has been a casual or full-time occupation in many other basin villages. With few exceptions all of the pottery manufacturing in the greater Tarascan area was concentrated in the areas of charanda clay soils, suitable for ceramics, which includes much of the lake zone. 38

~~Perhaps the craft most characteristic of the Lake~~

Patzcuaro region is the weaving of the frequently-mentioned tule reeds. Although their extent has diminished in recent times, they apprently covered large areas well into the nineteenth century. 39 The rise and fall of the lake, and the consequent shift in reed resources, has been a fundamental element in the lake 1 s ecology given the ubiquity of the reeds in Tarascan life. The reeds were used primarily for making the indigenous sleeping mat or petate and the fire

40 fan or soplador . Tule weaving is clearly of prehispanic origin and continues to the present, although currently much of the production is aimed at the tourist trade in addition to the still-important petate-making. The reeds are cut from the shallows along most of the lake's shoreline, then twilled into their finished pieces, a process that takes about half a day for one petate." 1 As noted above, with the region's craft specialization many villages are linked .

~~closely with the tule-weaving occupation, although the~~

~~process is common throughout the area. The profession of~~

~~petatero was common, especially in the north shore communi-~~

~~ties of Purenchecuaro and Tzirondaro. 42~~

~~Fishing continued to be a primary productive activity~~

~~in the nineteenth century, but it was declining by the time~~

~~of West's 1940 study, and is only minimally important on the~~

~~lake today. 43 Fishermen were found in many of the lakeshore~~

~~communities, and especially on the islands; Janitzio has~~

~~long been associated with the fishing industry as suggested~~

~~by Lejarza's 1822 report. 44 The native dugout canoe and nets~~

~~were the primary tools of the trade, with the profession of~~

~~redero or netmaker still apparent in the 1940s. 45 The but-~~

~~terfly net has declined along with the fish population,~~

~~today displayed only for tourists and National Geographic~~

~~Magazine photographers. George Foster suggests that such~~

~~dip nets are not indigenous to the Americas and believes it~~

~~to be an introduction. Drawings accompanying the Relacion~~

~~de Michoacan , however, seem to show these characteristic nets. West and Foster report the use of a long seine,~~

~~introduced from Spain, for catching larger fish, and a smaller gill net that may be indigenous. 46~~

~~The two most important species taken from the lake have been the delicious pescado bianco and the minnow-sized charal 47 Carl Lumholtz, in a chronicle published in 1902,~~

~~mentions a salamander, the axoltl . which is taken for food 86 and from whose skin is extracted a cure for asthma, while~~

~~Jose Maria Perez Hernandez, in his 1873 geographic study, describes a "fish" known as the achoque from which is extracted a "syrup" for curing " tuberculosis de pulmones .'" 8~~

~~It is possible that both writers are referring to the same species.~~

Hunting through the nineteenth century and into the next was largely confined to waterfowl on the lake. Ducks were apparently taken in great quantity, with the Tarascans continuing to use the indigenous throwing spear into the twentieth century. Lumholtz describes a mass duck hunt involving eighty to one hundred canoes that surrounded the large flocks that congregate on the lake in winter. The spear and its accompanying throwing stick are indigenous, but the former were tipped with a three-pointed iron gaff by

49 1902 . None of the nineteenth-century reports mention hunting other animals in the lake region, suggesting that the activity had no economic importance, as it had in prehispanic times. Foster, Brand, and West found no land- animal hunting by the 1940s, other than as a pastime. Brand suggests that peccaries, wolves, jaguars, pumas, wild turkeys, and other birds became extinct within the fifty or one hundred years before his 1951 report, but whether these species existed in the nineteenth century is not known.

~~As noted in Chapter Two, the Tarascans have been ex- ploiters of forest products since prehispanic times, such 87~~

~~that within the lake basin, deforestation has been an ongo-~~

~~ing ecological process for hundreds of years. By the nine-~~

~~teenth century the cutting of good quality wood for con-~~

~~struction or craft work had receded some distance from the~~

~~lake, and timber extraction by the mid-twentieth century has~~

~~become associated only with the villages of the Sierra. The~~

~~shift in Santa Fe de la Laguna from woodcrafts to ceramics~~

~~in the last quarter of the century may have been due to the~~

~~difficulty in obtaining appropriate wood near the village.~~

~~Nevertheless, the Tarascan villages continued to consume~~

~~firewood and lumber harvested from areas adjacent to the~~

~~lake. Unlike in the Sierra, adobe was the preferred form of construction with lumber used largely for planks and raf- ters. 50~~

Commerical lumbering operations began in the area during the last two decades of the century, the effects of which increased as one moved away from the lake. The steamship that began operating on Lake Patzcuaro in 1887 had lumber and firewood among its most important cargoes. An official report mentions the forests near the lake sufficient to supply the ship with thirty tons of firewood daily.

~~Lumber was also cut and transported to the train depot at~~

~~Patzcuaro for shipment outside the state of Michoacan. 51~~

~~Given the extent of deforestation reported in the 1940s, it may be that the arrival of the railroad and steamship greatly accelerated forest loss. 88~~

~~Since there is considerable evidence of deforestation~~

~~and erosion before the Conquest and in the early colonial~~

~~period, it is probably safe to assume that some forest~~

~~regeneration occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth~~

~~centuries. From Independence through the Reform period,~~

~~forests may have been relatively abundant in the basin,~~

~~perhaps even near the shore. In the last quarter of the~~

~~nineteenth century a new round of forest exploitation began~~

~~that took advantage of the trees that had grown over the~~

~~preceding 250 years, which accounts for the extent of defor-~~

~~estation encountered by visitors in the 1940s and subse-~~

~~quently. There is an 1880 report from Quiroga that 130~~

~~eucalyptus trees had been planted in the town, perhaps as a~~

~~beautif ication measure, but reforestation in the countryside~~

~~was apparently not practiced. 52~~

~~Although there are no nineteenth century references to~~

~~gathering activity, other than tule, its presence in the~~

~~distant past and in the twentieth century suggests that it~~

~~continued. Wild food and medicinal plants were commonly~~

~~used by the Tarascans, collected from the nearby monte and~~

~~from fields during fallow periods. Certain annual greens,~~

~~sakua in purepecha, are harvested from the disturbed ground~~

~~along the edges of planted fields. 53 According to Brand, oil~~

~~from the chicalote or "prickly poppy" was produced in~~

~~Quiroga in 1883 — "almost entirely from wild plants which spring up in abandoned or fallowed fields."" 89~~

~~The most extensive and apparent resource use activity~~

~~for the basin was agriculture, whether for subsistence or~~

~~commercial sale. Hunting and fishing would all but disap-~~

~~pear over the next century and a half, craft work would~~

~~become economically important only after the mid-twentieth~~

~~century, but farming would continue to consume most of the village residents' work day. During the course of the~~

~~nineteenth century, however, farm ecology in the Patzcuaro basin would change, particularly in the relations of agri-~~

~~cultural production characteristic in the zone.~~

~~The crop types and basic agricultural system in the~~

lake zone has been outlined above in the section on the colonial period. During the early nineteenth century there would be little change in the way Tarascan farmers went about producing their crops. As suggested, the ubiguitous crops in the basin were maize and wheat, the former for millenia and the latter since the 1520s. In addition, many other plants were grown by the prehispanic Tarascans or were introduced by the Spanish that continued to be cultivated through the nineteenth century. It would appear that there had been no new introductions between the early sixteenth century and recent times. The study of the Quiroga area by

Donald Brand suggests that "more than 99 percent" of the crops grown in the 1940s were pre-Conguest or European. The chroniclers Lejarza and Perez Hernandez specifically mention wheat, maize, nuts, chili, barley, beans of various kinds, 90 and fruits generally. These crops were probably the most widespread in the basin, and may have been of the most importance economically.

~~The largest crop in volume was maize, with the annual harvest for the Patzcuaro district in the 1840s given as~~

~~139,260 fanegas (126,468 hectoliters.) Wheat produced was~~

~~13,625 cargas (24,747 hectoliters.) Forty years later production of these crops had reached 250,000 fanegas~~

(227,037 hectoliters) and forty thousand cargas (72,651 hectoliters) repectively. In the 1880s the district produced thirty thousand cargas of kidney beans (54,489 hectoliters) and twenty thousand cargas (36,326 hectoliters) each of broadbeans and barley." Although the reports do not specify, these figures probably reflect commercial crops

~~grown on the region's haciendas and ranchos .~~

The state of agriculture in the Patzcuaro area was found to be "little advanced" by the last guarter of the century. A report in the Gaceta Oficial in March of 1887 states that agriculture in the area was, "as it always has been, reduced to the cultivation of maize, wheat, kidney beans, broadbeans, lentils, barley, and small-scale vegetable gardening." 56 Presumably the government officials were impressed with neither the choice of crops nor the methods employed in their production.

~~The basic unit of agriculture for village residents was the small milp_a. or ecuaro , generally farmed by an individual 91~~

~~family. A peasant household might have a small field, or~~

~~several small fields, of a few hectares as well as a garden~~

~~within the family compound. Small clearings on communal~~

~~lands, desmontes , were sometimes used by individual families~~

~~for their own subsistence needs as well. The size of an~~

~~agricultural holding was expressed in terms of the amount of~~

~~maize that could be sown on the plot. Thus, a plot might be~~

~~listed as "faneaa v media de sembradura de mai7 " r or one and~~

~~a half fanegas of maize sown (about four and a half hect-~~

~~ares.) The farmer might discover, however, than the actual~~

~~amount of grain that could be sown on the property was less~~

~~than expected. 57 Farm plots were often guite irregular in~~

~~shape, and their dimensions were difficult to determine.~~

~~Although villages remained linked to agriculture, there~~

~~were some variations within the basin based on ecological or~~

~~economic factors. As noted, areas with little arable land,~~

~~such as the islands, were more often tied to fishing or~~

other resource exploitation. The steep-sided Janitzio is the best example of a village with a primarily fishing economy, but even there, horticulture, if not small-field agriculture, was practiced. 58 More importantly, communities closer to the haciendas, especially on the south side of the lake, would be more likely to have residents who spent at least part of their time as labradores , day laborers on the commercial farms. 92

~~The Vi llage Property Regime~~

~~Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, claims to most basin resources—property rights—were played out in a local context, with control and influence diminish-~~

~~ing as the political scale increased. As will be discussed~~

~~in the next chapter, state and national governments were~~

~~weak and disorganized, and their ability to address issues~~

~~of land tenure was very limited.~~

~~The family or household was the primary mechanism for~~

~~resource exploitation, providing most of the labor and~~

~~determining in large measure the way time and space were~~

~~used. Since markets, credit, and outside information were~~

~~largely unavailable for indigenous farmers in the lake zone,~~

~~or were unnecessary, a family's needs, goals, and values~~

~~remained most important in resource use decisions. In order~~

~~to survive, families needed land on which to grow their~~

~~crops, but they also required other resources, either to~~

~~consume directly, to trade, or to use for social or politi-~~

~~cal obligations. The village property regime provided for~~

~~these needs. With most land used by the Indians tied col-~~

~~lectively to the village, the entitlements and duties of~~

~~resource use were, to a considerable extent, expressions of~~

~~the social and economic functions of the corporate community. 59~~

~~Documents pertaining to land in nineteenth-century~~

~~Mexico show clearly that people expressed their rights to 93~~

~~resources by membership in a community. Although people did~~

~~migrate from one community to another, the effects of such~~

~~migration on land tenure were limited. The combination of~~

~~racial endogamy, spacial endogamy, and patrilocality would~~

~~seem to have kept most Tarascans tied to a particular commu-~~

~~nity for life, especially the male, heads of household to~~

~~whom land was later distributed. Thus, a community is~~

~~defined primarily by those who make up its membership, in~~

~~addition to having some form of external recognition by~~

~~other communities, or larger-scale governments. 60~~

~~As noted above, some of the basin pueblos emerged from~~

~~settlement patterns established by the Spanish after the~~

~~Conguest, but others were survivals from long before. Vasco~~

~~de Quiroga 1 s pueblo-hospital of Santa Fe de la Laguna was~~

~~founded within an ancient indigenous settlement, and is an~~

~~example of the synthesis of Tarascan and Spanish elements.~~

~~All of the communities, nevertheless, reflected the belief~~

~~that the village had a collective claim on a piece of land~~

~~or other resources. Thus, in the nineteenth century the~~

landholding pueblo was a principal feature of the property regime in the basin, and consequently helped define the structure of the region's ecology. Indian communities were considered civil corporations by the Michoacan and Mexican governments throughout the period, with power generally vested in a town council. Community title to land, of some extent, generally had the legal recognition of authorities, 94

~~but claims to other resources were seldom officially ac-~~

~~knowledged. Even without formal title, however, communities~~

~~claimed sovereignty over all types of resources by right of~~

~~tradition, proximity, or outright occupation. Whether or~~

~~not the state recognized village rights, the long-term~~

~~settlement of a particular space seemed to convey a strong~~

~~claim. 61~~

~~The community exercised its sovereignty by apportioning~~

~~land and other resources to its members and by excluding~~

~~outsiders. Of course, a village's claim had to be accepted~~

~~by any outsiders who might have an interest in the same~~

~~property or the community must be prepared to defend its~~

~~right in some fashion. Before the emergence of the Tarascan~~

~~state, according to Pollard, dispersed settlement made such~~

~~conflicts over property rare." Under the Tarascan empire, village property claims were subordinated to those of the king. With the reorganization of settlement during the~~

~~Spanish colonial period, village rights often came to be expressed in European terms as communities sought legal, written title to lands they occupied and used.~~

By the nineteenth century and Independence, defense of community claims to property relied on Mexican legal and bureaucratic processes. Villages based their claims on their ancient rights as aboriginal owners of resources, relying on the standard argument that they have owned the land "from time immemorial." In addition, villages 95 supported their rights by claiming title granted by the

~~Spanish crown." The Indian communities of Santa Fe and~~

Quiroga have had a long-simmering dispute over lands northeast of the lake, continuing from at least 1837 up to the present time. In making their claim, the Quiroga litigants used a royal title granted in 1534, apparently signed by the son of the last Tarascan king. 64

~~There were freguent cases in the nineteenth century of~~

~~Tarascan villages pressing community claims to both cultivated land and non-agricultural property. Indigenous commu-~~

nities referred to specific monte potrero , and , terrenos montanosos that pertained to their pueblos. 65 In 1878, the indigenas of Tacambaro complained about the extraction of wood without permission from their community lands. 66 Pedro

Carrasco mentions the cases of Ihuatzio and Jaracuaro in which shoreline areas and their reeds were owned by the villages and distributed to members. 67 Similarly, fishing rights were claimed by specific communities and such rights persisted into the twentieth century, as suggested by George

Foster. Fishing rights are difficult to determine since there are no written records pertaining to them, and disputes never went through official channels. Foster's research in the 1940s suggests that such rights were understood by fishermen from lakeshore communities, with fishing zones clearly identified with certain villages. 68 96

~~Thus, the community claimed sovereignty over property~~

~~that was recognized, at least, by its members. Throughout~~

~~Mexico, the lands associated with rural communities re-~~

~~flected several forms of tenure that scholars have described~~

~~in various ways. Property delimited in these various forms~~

~~served important economic and social functions within the~~

~~village structure; first, it was linked to members' economic~~

~~subsistence, and second, it defined a village as a social~~

~~entity. 69~~

~~Certain village lands alloted directly to families were~~

~~called tierras de repartimiento or r ecuaro in purepecha, and~~

~~their tenure might be described as individual. Ostensibly,~~

~~the land could not be sold, and would be reapportioned~~

~~should the family abandon the land or its lineage end. The~~

~~family's right to the land only extended to its use, and it was linked to the property only in the sense that it might~~

return to the same general area year after year. 70 It was this relationship that Europeans often interpreted as private ownership. It was clear that an individual family might cultivate a particular area for a long period, and it therefore had certain unique claims to the property that were recognized by the entire community. It is likely, as

~~William Taylor found for Oaxaca, that families came to believe certain lands were "theirs," notwithstanding the fact that ownership was vested officially in the community. 71~~

~~Certainly, as will be discussed later, individuals in the .~~

~~97 basin pueblos sought formal title to the lands they farmed during the period of privatization at the end of the century.~~

But any claims they had were subordinate to the village as a whole, and land that was not in use, such as during fallow periods, was generally opened to the rest of the village for grazing or gathering. There is no evidence that individually-alloted lands were routinely transferred outside the community; transfers and conflicts within the village must have been handled internally as they do not appear in state records. 72

Village property that was not alloted to individual families generally was of two types: areas that were open to all members for subsistence needs and communal resources that were used to provide for community expenses. The first type was often called the ej ido in the colonial period, but in the nineteenth century a variety of terminology was used; they were generally called simply "lands of the Indians" in legal documents. Such property generally was not cultivated, but used for hunting, fishing, or collection, and encompassed nearby lake resources and forest land. It was owned by the community and all members had egual rights of use, but outsiders generally were excluded. Communities in the Tarascan area controlled the exploitation of nearby forest land with permission necessary only from village officials 98

~~The second type of community property was worked by villagers in groups or rented out with its proceeds accruing~~

~~to the can as de comunidad or directly cofradias to f the~~

~~societies organized to attend to religious activities. 73~~

~~According to Pedro Carrasco, in Michoacan the village~~

~~cofradia "was not a restricted group of people within the~~

~~community. . .but the whole Indian village formed the broth-~~

~~erhood." 74 By the nineteenth century lands to support the~~

~~religous cult had been eroded, but many villages continued to finance these activities with communal property. Vil-~~

~~lages used communal land and the revenue from them to provide care for the sick, the upkeep of the church and priest,~~

~~for religious fiestas, and other works to benefit the community as a whole. In 1840, for example, the village of~~

Chilchota used its lands called " el Potrero y Magueyera " to provide for a school. 75 The income from communal reed lands of Jaracuaro had long been used to purchase candles for the church. 76 Throughout the Tarascan area, income from community lands were designated specifically for the expenses of

~~77 the hospital . Sepulveda mentions how the pueblo of San~~

~~Francisco Ihuatzio sold some of its communal land to the cofradia of the Hospital de Tzintzuntzan "to defray the expenses of the fiesta" for the village's patron saint. 78~~

Lejarza identified such lands in Michoacan, but found them to be "deteriorated and abandoned" after independence. 9 Community religious and charitable expenses could be 99 considerable, and the quality and quantity of land dedicated to such uses had an important impact on the economic well- being of the village. 80 The management of these cofradia lands, and perhaps village property generally, was tied to the civil-religious hierarchy embodied in hospital officers and council of elders of each village. 81 These elders, principales in Spanish and t 1 arepiti in Purepecha, made up

~~the town council or cabildo , which exercised civil authority since colonial times.~~

Generally, most production in the villages was for the subsistence of families, either by exploiting the property that was specifically alloted to them or open to all village members in the manner described above. The collective nature of property assured access to essential resources by maintaining control of resources within the group. Collec- tive tenure required a degree of cooperation among members of a community, and the system of allot ing property may have helped in the sharing of limited resources. Differentiation as to landed wealth was inhibited in this system, which meant that most members of the collective had access to sufficient resources effectively guaranteed by the whole village. Differences in wealth within the villages before the twentieth century did occur, especially when there was insufficient communal land to finance religious obligations.

~~Cargueros , individuals responsible for cult expenses, sometimes had to sell or pawn lands to meet responsibilities, 100~~

~~but Carrasco suggests this was uncommon in the basin outside~~

~~of the southern villages near the haciendas. Throughout the~~

~~Tarascan area, writes Carrasco, "differences in wealth. . .~~

~~were never more than a tendency." 82 Generally, most Tarascan~~

~~peasants had one or more small plots for maize, a kitchen~~

~~garden in their village sfilar (lot) , and a range of non-~~

~~cultivated areas for wood, fish, or reeds at their disposal.~~

~~The communal monte and shore lands made it possible for~~

~~villagers to obtain the raw materials for their handicrafts,~~

~~always a central aspect of Tarascan economy.~~

~~Since the issue was not ownership (in the Western~~

~~sense) but usufruct, precise definitions of an individual's~~

~~property were not strictly necessary. Collective tenure~~

~~based on use rights served the Tarascan farmers well, given an ecosystem where farm plots were small —often squeezed~~

~~into narrow spaces between old lava flows. Sizes of plots were relatively unimportant, and generally difficult to determine. Further, soil quality varied considerably and a~~

large plot with much malpals might produce less than a small plot of rich land, such as is found along the lakeshore and alluvial vallies. What mattered was the use to which the property was put and collective ownership ensured that the land alloted to a family was sufficient to provide for its subsistence. Through the nineteenth century, descriptions of land tended to focus on its features and its quality, rather than a specific acreage. It would seem to have .

~~101~~

~~mattered little that the land was bounded by reference to~~

~~nonenduring landscape features such as trees and arroyos~~

~~since the actual cropping cycle itself would reguire the~~

~~shifting use of the property. A plot might be planted for~~

~~only a few years before a longer period of fallow, during~~

~~which time it would not alloted to an individual.~~

~~Communal tenure was especially important in the non-~~

~~cultivated monte or lacustrine areas since resources in them~~

~~were dispersed or shifted over time, seasonally or over a~~

~~longer term. Wild food plants were routinely collected on a~~

~~community's land, but might only be available in restricted~~

~~areas, for example, near a water source or in heavy shade.~~

~~Open access to village members meant relative eguality in~~

~~taking advantage of limited resources. At the same time,~~

~~the villages shared the economic prosperity for expanding~~

~~resources or the declining fortunes associated with de-~~

~~creases in resource abundance. The shifting of tule reeds~~

~~is a good example in which the changing lake surface left~~

~~Santa Fe with abundant reed lands while Quiroga had almost~~

~~none. 93 Similarly, as timber resources declined near Santa~~

~~Fe they remained relatively more available near Quiroga,~~

~~leading to a shift to ceramic crafts in the former while the~~

~~latter kept a strong tradition of wood work. Thus, collective tenure was linked not only to the economic well-being~~

~~of the village as a whole, but to its individual families as well .~~

~~102~~

~~Conclusion~~

~~It was the collective holding of local land and resources that helped bind the aggregate of residents into a community." As noted above, communal land was basic to~~

~~Tarascan folk culture, which by the nineteenth century was a blend of Spanish and native elements. Village landholding~~

fostered solidarity among members who, like the property regime, were bounded against those outside the group. As will be discussed in more detail later, throughout the colonial period and up to the present, village groups de- fended vigorously community land boundaries against individuals, other villages, and the state. Collective land utilization reflected shared interest in the two main economic functions of the village, agriculture and handicrafts, as well as the closely related spiritual elements of Tarascan culture. Village members expressed a clear community interest that was distinct from individual gain, or, at times, even individual well-being. 85 At the same time, individual families were the primary structures governing the use of resources on a day-to-day basis. Thus, Tarascan households understood their rights to resources on both an individual and community level

So, to speak of a village's "communal" land, by the nineteenth century implied a range of relationships between individuals, groups, political entities, and between humans and the environment. Land, reeds, fish, and trees were all 103 defined as resources in the nineteenth century. They were objects of property in the extent to which rights, duties, and rules of use were applied to them. In some cases property rights were tied very closely to individuals, as in land that had long been cultivated by a particular family.

~~Other resources, such as trees and fish, were more closely associated with the whole community and property rights had a more open character.~~

For most of the nineteenth century, community claims to specific resources remained strong, or at least strongly- felt, by village residents. Without denying individual interests, the collective utilization of resources and the tenure in land were basic to Tarascan society and culture.

~~As will be seen in the next chapter, the politically-dominant society often did not understand this fact, or chose to ignore it.~~

~~Notes~~

'Information on the rural situation in Michoacan during the first three decades after Independence is almost impossible to find. There is more material pertaining to the last half of the century and excellent anthropological and geographical research from the twentieth from which can be reconstructed the ecology and property regime of the nineteenth. Further, some examples are drawn from outside the basin proper, but within the Tarascan cultural area.

2 Lejarza*s population figures are somewhat confused, but the estimate for the lake zone is derived by adding the populations of the tenencias of Tzintzuntzan, Cocupao, and Erongaricuaro to that of Patzcuaro and its barrios. Al- though the cabaceras had some non-Indians, and there were residents of European descent on haciendas and ranchos, the towns and pueblos were mostly or entirely Tarascan in 1822. Juan Jose Martinez de Lejarza, Analisis Estadistico de la Provincia de Michuacan en 1822 (Morelia: Fimax, 1974). 104

~~3 Gaceta Oficial 111:218 (Nov. 3, 1887), 2.~~

~~'Ignacio Piquero, "Apuntes para la corografia y la estadistica del Estado de Michoacan, Boletin del Instituto de Geoarafia y Estadistica de la Republics Mexicana Tercera Edicion (1861), 145.~~

'Carl Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico: A record of five years' exploration among the tribes of the western Sierra Madre; in the tierra caliente of Tepic and Jalisco: and among the Tarascos of Michoacan (Glorieta, NM: Rio Grande Press, 1973), 369.

~~6 Piquero, 157.~~

~~Frederick Starr, In India n Mexico: A Narrative of Travel and Labor (Chicago: Forbes and Co., 1908), 69.~~

~~'Donald D. Brand. Ouiroga: A Mexican Municipio Smithso- nian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, Number 11 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1951), 187.~~

~~9 Ibid, 197.~~

~~10 Enrique Florescano, Historia General de Michoacan (Morelia: Instituto Michoacano de Cultura, 1989), 197.~~

~~1 Gaceta Oficial r 11:171, 22 May 1887, 1.~~

12,, Ley Organica de Division Territorial del Estado," in Jose Maria Perez Hernandez, Geoarafia del Estado de Michoacan 1872. r 13 Dan Stanislawski, The Anatomy of Eleven Towns in Michoacan (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1950), 48-55; Lejarza, 116; Perez Hernandez, 10A.

"In his survey, Lejarza describes Cocupao as "sobre la extremidad del lago de Patzcuaro. . ." whereas lakeside communities are often described as being on the "orilla" or "el borde" of the lake; Lejarza, 115-125.

~~15 Lejarza, 122.~~

~~16 Ibid, 121.~~

I7 Most of the community names in the district have the dual character of a traditional name preceded by their patron saint's name. Thus, Erongaricuaro is also known as Santa Maria Erongaricuaro or simply Santa Maria. In most cases, this study uses only the traditional name unless necessary for clarification. 105

~~18 Stanislawski, Anatomy r 58.~~

~~19 Lejarza, 123.~~

20 Ibid; Stanislawski, Anatomy , 56; Lesley Byrd Simpson, "The population of 22 towns of Michoacan in 1554: A supplement to Cook and Simpson, The Population of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century," Hispanic American Historical Review 30 (1980), 249.

~~"Brand, Ouiroga r 20.~~

~~22 West, 24.~~

~~23 Brand, Ouiroga r 20.~~

~~2, Lejarza, 133.~~

"Lejarza' s population figures do not differentiate between Indians and non-indians residents of the seventeen communities for which he provides estimates. Other than the four largest, however, they were almost entirely indigenous until the twentieth century. Although Lejarza mentions some twenty-five villages in the basin, he only provides population figures for seventeen; see Table 1.

"Topographical maps produced by the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica e Informatica were consulted for this study. Used primarily was a 1:50,000 scale series, sections Cheran E14A21 and Patzcuaro E14A22.

"The communities so designated are those that the government legally "extinguished" after 1856, as will be discussed below. Lejarza specifically mentioned twenty nine communities near the lake, including the cabaceras. All of those mentioned in his survey continued to exist up to the present. There were other small communities in the lake zone, but either were ignored by Lejarza due to their size in 1822 or were otherwise not included. All of the communities mentioned in this section became subject to the repartos after 1856.

~~;8 Gaceta Oficial 111:218, Nov. 3, 1887, 2.~~

~~;9West, 17.~~

30 One study has shown that in 1900 there were still 41,035 monolingual Tarascans in the entire state. See Elizabeth Holt Buttner, "Evolucion de algunos aspectos geodemograf icos del Estado de Michoacan, 1900-1970," in Memoria del VI Conareso Nacional d e Geoarafia (Morel ia: Gobierno del Estado de Michoacan, 1973), 198. 106

~~"Carolyn G. McGovern-Bowen, "Colonial Patzcuaro, Michoacan: a Population Study" (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse Uni- versity, 1986), 358, 373.~~

~~32 West, 17.~~

~~"Carrasco, La Sociedad Indiaena f 13.~~

~~34 Lejarza, 120.~~

~~35West provides an extensive discussion of handicrafts in the Tarascan cultural area including a review of those practiced in many of the basin villages. See West, 56-71.~~

~~36 West, 65.~~

~~31 Ibid, 64.~~

~~38 Ibid, 62.~~

~~39West (66) points out that in the 1940s the "petateros of Puacuaro, Napizaro, and Uricho import reeds from Jaracuaro island, the local supply having been exhausted years ago."~~

~~"West (66) gives the Purepecha word for the sleeping mat as k'uirakua and the fire fan as p'unitatarakua . See Appendix ? for a discussion of the Purepecha language.~~

~~41 Ralph L. Beals, Cheran: A Sierra Tarascan Village Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology #2~~

~~(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946) , 71.~~

"Lejarza (122) mentions petate-making specifically for Purenchecuaro, and the notarial records for the late nineteenth century consulted for this study frequently list petatero as the occupation for the residents of Tzirondaro.

~~43 Fishing is mentioned in most accounts pertaining to the nineteenth century including Lejarza and Perez H.~~

~~44 Lejarza, 119.~~

~~45West, 66.~~

46West, 54; George Foster, Empire's Children; The People Of Tzintzuntzan Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology #? (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946), 45. 47 The pescado ) bianco (Chirostoma estor , a species that grows up to twelve inches, is known as kuruca urapiti in purepecha. The tiny charal is called c'arari . .

~~107~~

~~"Lumholtz, 448; Perez Hernandez, 82.~~

~~"Lumholtz, 449.~~

~~50 See Ralph L. Beals, Houses and House Use of the Sierra Tarascans Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology #1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946)~~

~~" Gaceta Oficial 11:171 (May 22, 1887), 1.~~

~~52 E1 Municipal 1:2 (Oct. l, 1880) , 3.~~

"West and Brand provide lists of commonly-gathered wild products that have been consumed by basin residents for millenia. See West, 50-51; Brand Ouiroga A famous f 160-161] indigenous raiz de purgative, Michoacan , generated sufficient interest that a guantity of the root was taken to the

~~New Orleans exposition in 1884; Periodico Oficial , (Nov. 15, 1884), 3.~~

~~'"Brand, Ouiroga , 161.~~

"For 1840s figures see Piguero, 173; for 1880s see G_Q_ 11:152, 10 Mar. 1887, 3; The eguivalents used here come from the government standards published in the Periodico Oficial (IV: 37) of May 7, 1896. See Appendix ? for a complete listing of weights and measures with metric eguivalents.

~~i6 Gaceta Oficial 11:152 (March 10, 1887), 3.~~

~~" Archivo Historico de Notarias . Protocolos (1877), 77.~~

~~58 Lejarza [119]; Piguero [152] refers to the fertility of Pacandan, suggesting that there was more than kitchen gardens planted on the islands.~~

59There is considerable debate over the nature of the peasant community, and, for the most part, that debate is avoided here. Basin villages were clearly corporate communities that performed essential political, social, and economic functions, and therefore, influenced directly the households that composed them. For further discussion of this debate, see Thomas E. Sheridan, Where the Dove Calls: The Political Ecology of a Peasant Corporate Community in Northwestern Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,

1988) , xv-xxiv; and Benjamin S. Orlove and Glynn Custred, Land and Power in Latin America: Agrarian Economies and Social Processes in the Andes (New York: Holmes & Meyer Publishers, 1980) ; Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The

~~Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru , Ch. 3. 108~~

~~"Ben j amine S. Orlove and Glynn Custred, Land and Power in Latin America: Agrar ian Economies and Social Processes in the Andes (New York: Holmes & Meyer, 1980), 48; McGovern- Bowen, passim.~~

61 Pedro Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Re ligion: An Analysis of Economic Social, and Religious Interactions , (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, Tulane, 1952), 13-14; William B. Taylor, Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Oaxaca

~~(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972) , Chapter 3 passim .~~

~~"See the discussion in Chapter Two, and the various works by Pollard cited in the bibliography.~~

~~"See AHPEM, Hijuelas , Distrito de Zitacuaro, Libro 6, Fojas 243-251; and ibid, Distrito de Apatzingan, Libro 5, Fojas 105-156.~~

~~6, Brand, Ouiroga , 11-14.~~

~~"See, for example, AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 1:288-303; ibid, 2: 1-101; ibid, 2:115-150.~~

~~66AHPEM, Tacambaro, 5:219-258.~~

~~"Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion. 21.~~

68 People of Tzintzuntzan In Empire's Children: The r Foster notes that "fishermen from the ranches near Tzintzuntzan cannot fish across the lake in waters belonging to Santa Fe and Chupicuaro, and the reverse holds good. On the other hand, fishermen from Janitzio continually come to the waters of Ichupio to fish, since their steep, rocky island has no good shallow waters. They are always welcome, and sometimes join forces with local fishermen. There are recognized reciprocal rights between the fishermen of the Tzintzuntzan area and those of San Andres, San Jeronimo, and Ucasanastacua. " [105]

~~69Much of this section is based on various works and is somewhat conjectural since there are few descriptions of early nineteenth-century Tarascan life. See Carrasco,~~

~~Tarascan Folk Religion; Beals, Cheran ; Brand, Ouiroga: and West.~~

'"Research conducted on Tarascan culture in the 1940s suggests that plots of land were rotated among families to ensure that farmers always had at least some more-productive land. There is no specific evidence on such practices for the nineteenth century, but it seems likely that farm plots were either rotated in this manner, or were rotated within a "

~~109~~

larger space alloted to a family unit. Given that farm plots were only two to four hectares by the 1940s, rotation among members was necessary, while in earlier times the greater abundance of land may have made larger family allot- ments possible. This will be discussed further in a later section.

~~71 Taylor, 78.~~

~~72 Foster, Empire's Children , 170.~~

~~"Lejarza [119) referred to islanders in Lake Patzcuaro "que siembran comunmente , " but it is unclear if this is a reference to lands worked collectively for village expenses or for family use.~~

~~'Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion. 27.~~

~~75AHPEM, Zamora, 4:1-6.~~

~~76 Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion , 21.~~

77 Changes in these relationships will be discussed below. For details on the traditional operation of the cofradias in Michoacan see Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion , 26-35, and Maria Teresa Sepulveda, Los Caraos Politicos y Reliaiosos en la Region del Laao de Patzcuaro. Mexico: INAH, 1974.

~~78 Maria Teresa Sepulveda y H. , Los Cargos Politics y Religiosos en la Region de Patzcuaro (Mexico: Museo Nacional de Antropologia, 1974), 79.~~

79 Lejarza*s Table number 7 lists the properties below for the entire partido de Patzcuaro. They are listed as "Bienes llamados de comunidad " but Lejarza notes that such f designation is "inappropriate." Nevertheless, they are "propiedad particular de los naturales de los pueblos." and " are de los Cofradia y Repartimiento . Haciendas: 1 Ranchos: 19 Solares: 82 Potreros: 1 Tierras de Labor: 9 fanegas de sembradura de maiz. Tierras pastales: 56 leguas cuadradas.

~~80 Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Relgion 28. f~~

~~31 Ibid, 14.~~

~~2 Ibid, 17. .~~

~~110~~

~~"Brand, Ouiroga , 161.~~

"There is a large literature on the deliniation of rural communities. See Benjamin Harrison Luebke, "Delinea- tion of Rural Communities in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico," Ph.D. diss. University of Florida, 1959, especially page 45; for examples of similar relationships in a different setting see Nancy Farriss, Maya Society Under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984)

~~Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion , 29. CHAPTER 4~~

~~THE STATE AND VILLAGE LANDHOLDING~~

Village lands had been eroded in both an environmental and political sense for centuries. Haciendas, ranchos, and the Spanish and Creole population of the towns encroached on village resources legally and illegally, but during the colonial period there had been at least some attempts to

"protect" village lands. Collective tenure continued to provide economic and social support for basin communities, and to maintain their relationship with the Patzcuaro area environment for most of the nineteenth century.

Although the insurgency of the second decade caused much disruption in the state's economy, independence did not immediately bring any major changes in the lives of the rural residents of the Patzcuaro basin. However, the new political system, and its ideological underpinnings, provided the context for the evolution of the basin ecology for the next hundred years. Provincial and national efforts to transform the property system began from the inception of the Mexican republic, and would accelerate in the 1850s.

~~This chapter attempts to show how the conflict between liberal theory and ecological reality helped shape the course of this process.~~

~~Ill 112~~

~~Disentailment Efforts before 1856~~

The reasoning for all attempts to reorganize the property regime is related in large measure to the liberal doctrines embraced by many Mexican politicians in the period after Independence. As Brian R. Hamnett notes, the Liberal

Party was "the principal instrument of change during the broader period from 1833 to 1876." This "disparate movement" sought to bring the new Mexican Republic into consti- tutional and secular world from its former status based on monarchy and the Catholic Church. It was an uneven development as the republic's political life was "vigorously contested" throughout the period. 1

~~Nevertheless, drawing on eighteenth-century ideas from~~

~~Europe and from Spanish policies on land use, liberalism, as practiced in Mexico, saw the individual property owner as the cornerstone of state and society. 2 As suggested by~~

~~Charles Hale, private land "would form the material basis of the strengthened and reorganized towns." 3 Lands held by the~~

~~Indian pueblos were seen as contrary to natural law and inhibiting to the economic development of the country.~~

Outlined by Jose Maria Luis Mora, the liberal view gave the individual the inviolable right to property while a community's right to property "is purely civil, subseguent to society, created by it and conseguently subject to the limitations society wishes to put on it." 4 Communal ownership contributed to the "condition of stationary infancy" in 113 which the indigenous population was found, and, therefore, should be distributed to individuals under state auspices. 5

The Indians themselves were generally ignored before mid- century by both Liberals and Conservatives, although the former generally called for assimilation of native societies while the latter leaned toward separation and control. 6

The general conviction among the Liberals was that small properties owned by those who cultivated them would form the economic basis of the country. The Mexican Liber- als believed in individual property ownership as essential to the effective political and economic fuctioning of society. 7 Collective ownership, on the other hand, was an obstacle that restrained individuals from freely acting on their own behalf, what Michoacan governor Melchor Ocampo call "misplaced communism." 8 Mora and others singled out the lands of the cofradia, which were considered to be

~~"clerical encroachments," a concern that combined the liberals' views on both land and the church. 9~~

These attitudes toward land ownership were well established in Spain by the late-eighteenth century; Bourbon policy had called for the distribution of land to individuals in order to enhance agricultural production. Attempts to transfer these ideas to the Americas had been under way long before Mexico achieved its independence. The bishop of

~~Michoacan, Manuel Abad y Queipo, as early as 1779 expressed grave concern about the system of land ownership in New 114~~

Spain, and especially about its relationship to the condition of the Indians. 10 Although he had reservations about the natives' abilities, Abad y Queipo proposed laws that would, among other things, distribute community lands to the

~~Indians of each pueblo. 11~~

By the second decade of the nineteenth century, the revolutionary leaders Miguel Hidalgo and Jose Maria Morelos were raising the issue of land for the Indians in New Spain, and Spanish officials responded with measures to address the demands. 12 In 1812, the Cortes called for the distribution of land to married Indians or those of twenty-five years of age, but the decree specifically excluded from distribution lands " de communidades " unless the pueblo had a surplus. 13

~~According to Charles Hale, the "main law affecting post- independence thinking on land policy was issued by the~~

Cortes of Cadiz on January 4, 1813. " 14 The law called for the reduction of communal land to private property in Spain as well as in the colonies, but excluded the " ej idos needed by the pueblos." 15 The new landowners would enjoy full and exclusive ownership of their properties with the rights to enclose them if they so choose, for whatever use was most appropriate. 16 A decree later that year called for the naming of administrators in the pueblos to distribute the lands to community members. 17 Independence interrupted the application of the law in New Spain, but land policies would continue to be proposed by state and republican authorities. 115

On the national level, there was little attempt to address community-owned lands before the mid-1850s; instead, the Mexican national government concentrated on the redis- tribution of church lands and colonization by foreigners. 18

Both were intended to expand the number of small landowners at the expense of corporate holdings, but would leave lati- fundia intact since liberal tenets held all private property, regardless of size, as inviolable. 19 Independence and the formation of the republic had established the principle that the Indians were citizens egual in rights to all other inhabitants of the state and were therefore entitled to own property in their own right; indeed, the guiding principles of the republican government demanded that communal ownership be abolished. But, as Charles Hale notes, "by force of necessity, the congress departed from doctrinaire liberal views and reaffirmed, however tenuously, the right of the

Indian community to hold property." 20 The general disorgani- zation and weakness of the republican government had much to do with the lack of progress on land distribution. Before the Liberal political triumph of the 1850s, Mexico was wracked with conflict between Liberals and Conservatives, federalists and centralists, and a demoralizing war with the

United States. The national government was unable to establish a consistent approach to the problem of Indian lands, and property concerns were generally left to the states, which, according to Brian Hamnett, is where the Liberal Party was strongest. 21 State-level party leaders, reflecting anti-centralist sentiments and local interests, were generally opposed to the concentration of power in Mexico City.

~~Thus, land reform measures pertaining to local communities could be seen as something that should be addressed on the provincial level. 22~~

Michoacan state authorities would first approach the problem of Indian landownership from the perspective that the community could continue to exist as a corporate entity, but that its right to own property would be severely restricted. The comunidades indigenas would be preserved and only certain lands would be subject to individual distribution, perhaps on the supposition that some pueblos had lands in excess of their needs. 23 While Mora and other liberal thinkers of the period objected to the Indian's "privileged" status, it seems that in Michoacan the indigenas were accepted as a distinct group in Mexican society, and that the community had claims of some kind on at least some land. 24

~~In 1822, Juan Jose Martinez de Lejarza noted in his~~

~~Analisis Estadistico that the work was undertaken in part to help deal with the present state of community lands, which,~~

"in conformance to the liberal system adopted, should be returned to their legitimate owners." 25 Michoacan state officials wrote their first law aimed at distributing land to individuals in 1827. The law was intended to divide community lands in "equal" parts to the "descendents of the 117 primitive families" as individual property. Each family would receive one tract of at least " una cuartilla de maiz de sembradura ," less than one hectare, and the law provided for establishing values for the tracts distributed. Lands would be classified by a comision repartidora for agriculture, pasturage, "badlands," and hills. The only land exempted from the reparto were the village residential lots within the fundo legal. 26

This first reparto attempt had basic flaws that doomed it from the start. First, although it does not appear common in the Patzcuaro basin, Gerardo Sanchez notes how some villages rented their lands to outsiders to generate community revenue. The early reparto law threatened this revenue source giving rise to legal questions over rental contracts.' 7 Secondly, the law specified that the reparto for each village must be completed within sixty days.

During that time the commission had to identify divisible lands, conduct a census of the community, classify and value the property, and give formal possession to each family. It was nearly an impossible task, especially for larger villages. 28

Most important for this study was the resistence in the villages to changes in such fundamental relationships. The liberal doctrines were, after all, general theories that their advocates attempted to apply without regard to local conditions, at least in the early years. 29 Under the terms 118 of the law it seems that a single villager of twenty-five could receive the same amount, or value, of land as a large family, giving the former relative wealth while the latter might be left with insufficient land for basic subsistence.

~~Given the uneven and often unproductive terrain of the~~

Patzcuaro basin, a plot of one hectare would be entirely inadequate for supporting a Tarascan family. Further, the belief that the land should be divided among the descendents of its original occupants neglected to consider the role collective ownership played in the lives of the Indians, as outlined in Chapter Three. In proposing the 1827 reparto law, the Michoacan state officials ran into basic conflicts with the communities that believed they had the right to dispose of their lands as they saw fit —whether to allot them to village residents or use them to provide for communal obligations. 30

By mid-century, then, there was no change in the system of land tenure in Michoacan, but state officials continued to debate the issue and propose new measures. In 1846, the liberal governor Melchor Ocampo expressed concern about the control over community lands held by local authorities and suggested that the system kept the comuneros isolated from the rest of society, "perpetuating their ignorance and vices." 31 Ocampo was a major figure in the liberal movements of the period, and would go on to serve in the government of the Reforma. A wealthy hacendado, he studied the major 119 philosophers of the French Enlightenment and brought many of their ideas to Mexico. Seen as a friend of the Indians and an opponent of clerical privileges, Ocampo called for the distribution of land to the natives, but accepted the idea that corporate control of lands should be abolished. In addition, state officials believed that distributing lands would lessen the possiblity for rebellion by the Indian population. The result was the Ley y Reglamento sobre el Reparto de Bienes Comunales of 1851 that would lessen the liklihood of Indian rebellion and show the natives the value of private land ownership. 32 The new measure would divide village land in much the same fashion as the earlier measure, but included various provisions to address the fail- ures of the 1827 law. It also was more sophisticated in attempting to define precisely what constituted "community" property and lands that legally could be distributed. Under the law, no lands could be sold to the " grandes terra- tenientes . " the large landowners who owned un criadero de ganado mayor or about 439 hectares. The law included certain " principios de justicia ," in particular, the protection of the core of the community, the fundo legal and ejido, which were not subject to reparto, in the fashion of earlier

~~Spanish policy. As an incentive to the Indians, the law provided that land would be exempt from taxes for ten years if it remained in the hands of the recipient for that period. 33 120~~

~~The proposals for the reparto , however, met some~~

~~resistence once again from communities that wanted to pre-~~

~~serve commual tenure, despite the assurances that they would~~

~~retain the core of the village. Notably, the basin pueblo~~

~~of Santa Fe de la Laguna sought to avoid the reparto. Santa~~

~~Fe had a strong tradition of communal land, perhaps from~~

~~prehispanic times, but certainly intensified by Vasco de~~

~~Quiroga in his pueblo-hospital of the sixteenth century.~~

~~Melchor Ocampo noted these objections, and acknowledged that~~

~~some lands of the state did not lend themselves to an appro-~~

~~priate division, especially pasture and forest land. Fur-~~

~~ther, argued Ocampo, the application of the law and its~~

~~forced distribution of the land should not be imposed~~

~~against the will of the people. A reparto should only take~~

~~34 place when it was completely accepted by the comuneros .~~

~~For the guarter century after Independence, the ap-~~

~~proach to land reform in Michoacan was based on the assump-~~

~~tion that the indigenous villages had a basic right to~~

~~exist, and that their residents should retain their member-~~

~~ship in the corporate community. State leaders, although~~

~~expressing the belief in the advantages of private landown-~~

~~ership, seemed to recognize the role of the long-established~~

~~community. In acknowledging the importance of communal~~

~~land, the ejido, pastures, and woodlands, the official position showed at least tacit understanding of a community's ecological territory, as distinct from its legal 121~~

~~territory—something village residents no doubt saw as~~

~~threatened by the repartos.~~

~~But the reparto of 1851 would be halted finally by the~~

~~centralizing efforts of the president, Antonio Lopez de~~

~~Santa Anna, who would abrogate Michoacan's land distribution measure by official decree in August of 1854. Santa Anna would also take steps in 1854 to return to their communal~~

~~owners lands that had been usurped "without authorization or~~

~~right." 35 The central government's efforts themselves would be deflected when the Liberals forced into exile by Santa~~

~~Anna returned to put in place the government of the Reforma.~~

~~The Liberals and Community Land~~

~~On the national level, concern about the role of communal property had been crystalized in the 1840s by the threat of Indian rebellion, manifested in the "Caste" wars of the~~

~~Yucatan and the Sierra Gorda. The rebellions were seen as~~

"communist" threats aimed at the "annihilation" of property. 36 Liberal spokesmen, notes Hale, "asserted that the recent rebellions were abetted by those who live under the 'cruel yoke of the community,'" and the "communal vice" had to be supressed. 31 While the conservatives were in charge, the Indians' status as minors was maintained and their tutelage under the Church supported. With the Liberal triumph in 1855, the position of the Indian community and the Catholic Church came to be the target of national government action. 122

~~In June of 1856 the Minister of the Treasury, Miguel~~

~~Lerdo de Tejada, drafted a federal law that represented a~~

~~basic change in the approach to land tenure in Mexico.~~

~~Expressing the liberal position that "one of the main obsta-~~

~~cles for the prosperity and aggrandizement of the Nation, is~~

~~the lack of movement or free circulation of a large part of~~

~~the country's property," the law would distribute corporate~~

~~property to individual owners. 38 The measure was intended~~

~~primarily to eliminate the control of the vast Church prop-~~

~~erties, but was sufficiently broad as to encompass lands owned by the civil corporations —the Indian villages whose lands were owned communally and administered by the town~~

~~councils. The main goals of the law, as outlined in a~~

~~circular issued by Lerdo, was to put the country's land to~~

~~productive use and, as a fiscal measure, to generate tax~~

~~revenue for the state. 39 Under the provisions of the law at~~

~~its initial publication, the property of civil corporations~~

~~would be sold to its tenants for a price based on the amount~~

~~of rent charged annually, with the former owner taking back~~

~~a mortgage on the property. The law also required the~~

~~payment of a sales tax of five percent. Lands not sold to~~

~~renters within three months of the law's publication, or properties for which no sales tax was paid, would be put up~~

~~for denunciation and auction to the general public. Tenants who failed to exercise their claims to purchase land within the three-month term would forfeit their rights. But for 123~~

~~those who acquired land under the terms of the law, whether~~

~~purchased in large lots from the ecclesiastical holdings or~~

~~in a farm plot from a pueblo, they would have full rights to~~

~~use or dispose of the land as they saw fit. 40~~

~~The wording of the law and its subsequent regulations~~

~~made it clear that it was primarily focused on ecclesiasti-~~

~~cal property, including "religious communities of both~~

~~sexes," religious brotherhoods, and parishes. 41 The Indian~~

~~community came to be addressed by the measure in Article~~

~~Three that specified ayuntamientos "and in general any~~

~~establishment or foundation that has the character of per-~~

~~petual or indefinite duration." 42 The law not only called~~

~~for the disentailment of lands, but denied to civil and~~

~~ecclesiastical corporations the right to acquire or adminis-~~

~~ter certain types of property. 43 Since the Reforma legisla-~~

~~ture felt that the village land of the Indians languished because much of it remained communal, the law would help to bring about their long-held idea of a nation of small pro-~~

~~prietors .~~

~~Because the wording of the law was somewhat ambiguous, there was confusion about how it might be interpreted. Some~~

Indians apparently believed they would lose their lands outright under the terms of the law, and indeed, there were some illegal denunciations and sales made in the months after the law was enacted. 44 More importantly, the law required the payment of a 5 percent sales tax, a fee that 124

~~Ocampo argued would absorb the value of the land obtained under the law, and was nevertheless impossible to pay by most of the small proprietors that the law would create. 45~~

~~Lerdo attempted to clarify matters pertaining to the small properties of the Indian pueblos in a circular in~~

October. He pointed out that the law did, in fact, pertain to the small landholdings, but that properties valued at under two hundred pesos would be exempted from the onerous tax. Thus the Indian who received title to land would be protected from denunciation proceedings for failure to pay the sales tax. 46 The government also attempted to nullify sales and denunciations made against the spirit of the law, in other words, those that failed to provide legal title to property for small landholders. 47

The government was clearly concerned about the perception that the new law would work to the disadvantage of the peasantry. Lerdo repeated the position that the legal statutes embodied in the law were intended to make the land productive and to help the "most destitute classes," especially the Indians. 48 In effecting these measures, the government was "simultaneously interested [in] the public peace, the well-being of the needy classes, and the achieve- ment and development of rules dictated for mobilizing property." 49 Lerdo' s sentiments were shared by many of the

~~Liberal leaders of the country, including President~~

~~Comonfort and the party newspapers. 50 125~~

~~Most importantly, the law provided for a land base for~~

~~the Indian pueblos in the form of the fundo legal and the~~

~~ejido. Article Eight states that "of the properties per-~~

~~taining to the town councils, they are excepted [from alien-~~

~~ation] the buildings, ejidos, and lands destined exclusively~~

~~to public service of the populations to which they~~

~~pertain." 51 The clause would seem to have conferred both~~

~~legal status and communal resources for the pueblos, long~~

~~sanctioned in Spanish law. The fundo legal included only the extent of property that was occupied by public facili- ties, such as the municipal building, the plaza, and the~~

~~streets of the village. It was not a specified size, unlike~~

~~in Spanish law that had decreed five-hundred varas in each direction, but was to be determined by local authorities who~~

~~"better than anyone can know which lands are to be assigned~~

exclusively for public service." 52 Villages also routinely used communal monte for collection, especially of wood, and the Reforma government ruled that such lands, unless rented out, should be divided among the possessors. Standing water within the boundaries of a tract were to be adjudicated along with the land, but flowing water used by the public was exempted."

~~Beyond these communally-used lands were those apportioned to individuals in usufruct, the tierras de repartimiento of the colonial period, now most often simply~~

called terrenos de los indigenas . As noted previously, 126 these lands were already apportioned to individuals, although no rents were paid and ownership remained vested in the community. The law and its rules did not specify how such lands would be valued, only that the it would be based on the rent currently paid. 54 Presumably, indigenous usu- fructarios would receive a tract without cost, unless it was valued at more than two hundred pesos. It is clear that, at first, the Mexican government expected these lands to be distributed under the tenets of the new land laws." Then in a ruling issued in November, the government declared that the indigenas of San Francisco Tepeji del Rio in Puebla were entitled to retain the terrenos de repartimiento that they had possessed "since time immemorial." In other words, they acknowledged the de facto possession of the apportioned land by the Indians, declaring them the owners "in absolute property," and thus prevented the denunciation and sale of such lands. 56 More importantly for the Tarascans, the government responded to Michoacan state officials specifically that lands pertaining to the Indian communities there, but not rented out, should be divided among the Indians under the terms of the current legislation and decrees. 57

In February of 1857, the principles guiding the liberal measures of the Reforma were embodied in a new constitution for the Mexican republic. Although the document was less radical than some members of the government had hoped, it did encompass the Ley Lerdo's provisions eliminating the 127

~~rights of civil corporations to acquire or administer land. 58~~

~~More importantly, the Constitution of 1857 did not include~~

~~the provision of the law that had exempted village communal~~

~~land from private distribution. 59 Depending on its interpre-~~

~~tation, the constitution authorized all land administered by~~

~~civil corporations to be divided among residents as private~~

~~property, excepting only the public areas as defined in~~

~~Lerdo's resolution of November 13, 1856. Why the ejido~~

~~provision was left out of the Constitution is not clear. It~~

~~can be speculated that the doctrinaire Liberals saw the~~

~~ejido as communal ownership unacceptable in their nation of~~

~~small proprietors. Or it may be that the concept of "public~~

~~service" was sufficiently broad as to encompass lands used communally such as the ejido.~~

Generally, during the Reforma the government seemed to support the rights of the Indians to retain any lands that were not rented out. Although on the surface the laws and rulings offered some protection for lands from which the

~~Indians drew part of their subsistence, specifically the ejido, it conflicted with the measures calling for disentailment of lands used to provide for religious expenses.~~

~~As the citizens of San Pablo Anciano found out in September, the exemption in Article Eight did not apply to lands dedicated to religious expenses, " al culto del Senor de la~~

~~Eai," 60 regardless of whether they were cofradia land or not. Thus, on the one hand the government said that a 128~~

~~cofradia's forest land could be disentailed, with the group~~

~~retaining no rights to any resources of the property. 61 On~~

~~the other hand, the government ruled that the law did not~~

~~apply to waters and woodlands used by a community." In the~~

~~Tarascan villages all communal resources, and even appor-~~

~~tioned land, often were used for collection and pasturage by~~

~~the residents generally, so making a legal distinction~~

~~between "eiidos y terrenos destinados exclusivamente al~~

~~servicio publico " and other types of land was almost impos-~~

~~sible.~~

~~As with most legal approaches to social and economic~~

~~problems, the application of the Reforma land laws came down~~

~~to interpretation. National leaders, local officials, and~~

~~the peasants themselves all saw the laws in a different way~~

~~and sought to apply them for different goals. Florencia~~

~~Mallon has identified two distinct interpretations in her~~

~~study focused mainly on Puebla. The first is the "literal"~~

~~interpretation in which land is first made available "to~~

~~whoever possesses it at the time." The second "articulated~~

~~the claims of the villagers to the spirit of the 1856 law,~~

~~as represented in the clarif icatory circulars and decrees" issued by the government."~~

~~For both local officals and Indian villagers, however,~~

~~it was not simply a matter of two distinct interpretations, but a process of sorting out the contradictory and ambiguous decrees issued from Mexico City and attempting to adapt them 129~~

~~to particular conditions and needs. Officials in Michoacan~~

~~saw the problems in the strict application of the law, and~~

~~continued to seek clarification for years after the law's~~

~~promulgation. In January 1872, in response to the "multi-~~

~~tude" of denunciations, sales, and complaints pertaining to~~

~~lands and farms in his district, the prefect of Uruapan~~

~~asked for help. "Are the lands that the Indians possess~~

~~" 64 pro-indiviso " subject to denunciation and sale. . . ? The~~

~~Michoacan officials referred the matter to the federal~~

~~Ministry of Hacienda, which replied that the matter had~~

~~already been addressed in Lerdo's circular of October 9,~~

~~1856. The land laws, they insisted, were "highly favorable"~~

~~to the Indians, since no one had the right to acquire or~~

~~divide the lands of those who "presently possess" them. 65~~

~~Despite the government's assertions that the measures were intended to benefit the Indians, there were numerous~~

~~rural disturbances in Michoacan and other states during this~~

~~period. Indians reacted violently to the threats to their~~

~~community lands, no doubt incited by members of the clergy whose own position was being eroded by Reforma measures.~~

~~Uprisings were especially notable and violent in the~~

~~Tarascan region of Michoacan, including the Patzcuaro basin.~~

~~In most cases, it appeared that the Indians were reacting to~~

~~assaults on land and religion, given their " vivas a la~~

~~1166 religion y mueras a la Const itucion . Indians from the pueblos of the Tarascan region attempted to take back land 130 that they believed was their own. There is a report for~~

~~1857 in which some four hundred Indians "armed with pikes, machetes, and clubs" marched on Morelia and demanded the~~

~~return of all lands taken from the Indians "since the con-~~

~~quest. 1167~~

~~The government seemed to believe that these distur-~~

~~bances were related directly to the recent land legislation,~~

~~and to abuses such as the illegal usurpations and denuncia-~~

~~tions it helped make possible. Government ministries issued~~

~~statements regarding these "disorders over possession and~~

~~ownership of land" that, they argued, not only called into~~

~~question the title to property, but attempted to claim~~

~~rights for the peasants to which they were not entitled. 68~~

~~The passions of the pueblos were inflamed by the "bad~~

~~priests" who "with their words and their example provoke the~~

~~rebellion against the supreme government ." 69 The circulars~~

~~and clarifications issued by Lerdo and other ministers~~

~~failed to halt the rebellions which continued through most~~

~~of 1857. 70~~

~~The government position notwithstanding, the Ley Lerdo~~

~~and Article 27 of the Constitution of 1857 should not be~~

~~seen as the sole cause of the disturbances of this period.~~

~~As noted above, peasant rebellions had been occurring long~~

~~before this legislation was inacted and reflected problems~~

~~in the countryside that had been around since the conquest.~~

~~Jean Meyer and Robert Knowlton have shown how the Ley Lerdo "can not have been the direct cause of the uprisings" in~~

southern Jalisco or in Nayarit. 71 Leticia Reina provides considerable evidence of disturbances over rights to communal tenure in various regions dating from a decade or more before the Reforma laws. 72 Nevertheless, Indian resistance did impede application of the Reforma measures.

~~Further, attempts at achieving Liberal land tenure goals on the national level was troubled by the outright opposition of the Church, the political conflicts within~~

~~Liberal ranks and with the Conservatives, and the structural~~

flaws of the laws themselves. On the state level, the government of Michoacan, as noted above, had been attempting to deal with the question of Indian land for decades, and had generally affirmed the right of the pueblos to retain the land base of their existence. There were many similarities between the state Ley de desamortizacion of 1851 and the national law of June, 1856; similarities recognized by the federal government in a resolution of December 1856. 71

~~State measures seemed to recognize the minimal land base of the pueblos, as indicated by a decree by state Governor~~

~~Epitacio Huerta in 1858. The state ordered that "lands granted by the Spanish government for the foundation and~~

maintenance of hospitals. . . be distributed among the individuals who compose the respective communities." But the same decree allowed the pueblos that lacked their full fundo legal to apply to the district officials for the 132

~~"lands that they lack." 74 Given that most communities already occupied a certain space, the measure appears intended to recognize legally the de facto possession of the fundo~~

~~legal, suggesting the state's continued acceptance of the community's existence, while simultaneously attempting to bring about the distribution in private ownership of as much~~

~~land as possible.~~

~~The political dominance of the Liberals was cut off by the resurgence of the Conservatives and the establishment of~~

~~Maximilian's imperium in 1864. Maximilian, however, approved the retention of the Reforma land measures regarding community land, and attempted to put in place his own land~~

laws of a decidedly Liberal character, much to the annoyance of the Catholic Church and his Conservative allies. The emperor issued three measures that addressed community lands, sometimes using language identical to that of the

Reforma laws. The first, of November 1865, spelled out the means for resolving disputes between pueblos over land and water. The law specifically granted to the communities the right to sue over usurped or disputed lands, with government officials giving possession to the litigant having the better claim. 75

The law of June 1866 provided, as had the Ley Lerdo, for the division and adjudication of terrenos de comunidad y de repartimiento . The plots farmed by individual families were to be distributed "in absolute property to its actual 133

possessors" while community lands ( propios ) would be divided in fractions, favoring "the poor to the rich, the married to the single, and those who have families to those who do not." 76 If lands were sufficient, the community was allowed to allocate up to a half caballeria to each family, or about twenty one hectares. 77 Maximillian 1 s government reiterated that "the waters and woodlands" destined exclusively for public use, the ejido and fundo legal, were exempted from distribution or adjudication. On the other hand, lands designated for "the cult of any saint" were to be distributed under the terms of the law. The government ordered that the subprefects prepare a title including the recipient's name, and each tract's size, borders, quality, and price, and the community to which the property pertains.

~~While the Reforma laws had called for a 5 percent sales tax, with an exemption for the plots under two hundred pesos in value, Maximillian asked for a 1 percent tax on all transactions. 78~~

The third measure of the Imperium was the agrarian law of September 1866 that granted the right of the pueblos to have a fundo legal and ejido. But the law specified that in order to have a fundo legal the community must have four hundred inhabitants, and for an ejido they were expected to have at least two thousand residents. Pueblos with lower populations were required "to join with another or other pueblos until fulfilling the required conditions." 79 "

~~134~~

~~Certainly, few Indian communities could have met the condi-~~

~~tions for both a fundo legal and an ejido; in the basin none~~

~~would have qualified for an ejido under the terms of the law~~

~~and only two or three might have had sufficient membership~~

~~to have been granted a fundo legal. 90~~

~~The Maximilian regime, of course, collapsed in mid-~~

~~1867, so the measures were never fully put into operation.~~

~~But, as Heriberto Moreno Garcia points out, the French~~

~~Intervention "played a decisive role in the strengthening of~~

~~the liberal position" 81 Maximilian's land laws would join~~

~~with the Reforma measures to provide the juridical founda-~~

~~tion upon which land legislation of the "Restored Republic"~~

~~and the Porfiriato would be based. On the other hand,~~

~~Florencia Mallon shows how Maximilian instituted the mea-~~

~~sures "to win over the poor and indigenous classes of Mexi-~~

~~can society" in the face of dwindling French support. 82~~

~~Although the policies "actually backfired, 1183 she suggests~~

~~that the liberal measures of the Reforma and the Second~~

~~Empire were responsible for "raising the hopes of villag-~~

~~ers," and contributed to the creation of "alternative na-~~

~~tional visions" that years later would be played out in~~

~~local politics, culminating in the Zapata movement.~~

~~The distribution of land called for under the Reforma~~

~~laws and those of the Second Empire had a mixed "success"~~

~~and primarily affected ecclesiastical property. Although millions of pesos worth of land changed hands during months 135~~

~~following the enactment of the Ley Lerdo, relatively little~~

~~was the property of the civil corporations. 85 In Michoacan~~

~~there was certainly no assault on communal land as suggested~~

~~by earlier studies; several decades would pass before any~~

~~widespread distribution of village land would take place.~~

~~In reviewing the Ley Lerdo, its reglamento, and the subse-~~

~~quent "clarifications" and circulars, and the decrees of~~

~~Maximilian, it becomes apparent that the liberal approach~~

~~embodied in the measures had little chance for achieving~~

~~their goals. First, the law was deeply flawed in that it~~

~~left unanswered many questions about the changes in land~~

~~tenure it sought to accomplish. Second, it came during a~~

~~time when there was already considerable rural unrest over~~

~~land issues. Third, neither the Liberals nor Maximilian's~~

~~government were in power long enough to make the system~~

~~work. If the Reforma sounded the "death knell" of communal~~

~~landholding, it was as the beginning of a long-term process~~

~~of change in attitude toward the Indian communities rather~~

~~than as a direct attack on the village.~~

~~It is clear, then, that despite considerable interest~~

~~in land tenure little changed in the pueblos of Michoacan.~~

~~Indeed, other studies have shown that the liberal measures~~

~~before the late 1860s were not a "fundamental point of~~

~~departure" for land tenure in other regions as well. 36 By~~

~~the end of the 1860s there was considerable land in~~

~~Michoacan that remained under the control of the villages. 136~~

~~An 1869 report places the value of community land that had not yet been distributed at nearly two million pesos. 87~~

Within the Patzcuaro basin, the documentary record shows that the communities retained lands until the repartos began in earnest at the end of the decade. A state government report of 1908 shows that of the 138 pueblos that had verified the repartos of their lands, only twenty five (18 percent) had been conducted before 1869, and only one or two of those were within the Patzcuaro basin. 88

~~Extinguishing the community~~

The national government of the Restored Republic remained focussed on the disentailment of ecclesiastical property, leaving the issue of the civil corporations to the states. Under the subseguent administration of Porfirio

~~Diaz, the national government also moved away from the disentailment of community lands and the creation of a nation of small property owners to an approach based on the~~

appropriation of "unclaimed lands" ( baldios ) and the favoring of large property interests. 89 During the Porfirato, vast expanses of land were surveyed by private companies, which would receive one-third of the land they identified as unclaimed. Although the idea had been to sell this land to

~~European colonists, most ended up in the hands of large landholders. 90~~

The national-level land laws after 1867 had little direct effect in the basin, other than promoting the idea that baldios and "excess" lands f demaslas and excedenr.ias ^ were subject to denunciation or distribution. The various laws concerning terrenos baldios , from those of Juarez through the Porfiriato, continued the position that preserved as indivisible lands that were destined for public use; none suggested the outright disentailment of the ejido or fundo legal. As will be discussed in the next chapter, however, fear of denunciation no doubt was behind the will- ingness of many individuals to have land formally titled under the reparto laws. Under the federal "Law concerning the occupation and alienation of terrenos baldios" of 1894, lands could be denounced as baldios if they had not been destined for public use or titled to an individual or authorized corporation. The law also allowed denunciation of any lands found to be occupied in excess of that which is specified in the title granted, which, in many cases, were imprecise. 91

Porfirio Diaz also fomented a great expansion of the nation's railroads, including an important line that greatly strengthened the Lake Patzcuaro region's connections with the outside world." The primary result of the arrival of the railroad, and the lake steamship, was to increase interest in lake area forest resources. Since, as noted previously, the area was not appropriate for large, commerical haciendas, the new railroad had little effect on land tenure in the basin." The railroad line pushed on toward Uruapan "

~~138 and the tierra caliente with their commercial agricultural lands.~~

Nevertheless, the process of changing the land tenure system took a dramatic turn with the idea that the Indian communities could be legally extinguished. Although none of the national measures since Independence had called for such a step, and in fact had always acknowledged the pueblos' existence, the state government after 1867 found justifica- tion for this new approach in the Ley Lerdo and the Consti- tution of 1857. The key tenet was the element of the land law and the constitution that denied to civil corporations the right to own or administer lands. If they had no such rights under the law, then all community lands would have to be adjudicated as private property or denounced as baldios.

~~In other words, the government acknowledged that the main barrier to their goal of privatization was the community, with its long-held rights to lands in its vicinity.~~

In 1868 the governor complained that "those peculiar gatherings, that go by the name of communities, do not serve more than to maintain ignorance, misery, fanticism, and degradation." 94 From this point, government documents rou-

~~" tinely refer to the Indian pueblos as ex-comunidades ,~~

~~"extinauida comunidad " r or similar usage. The official policy stated that,~~

~~The communities of Indians organized in conformance with the ancient Spanish laws, do not exist today, in that form, and only should be considered as aggrega-~~

~~tions of individuals who possess interests in common . ,~~

~~139~~

~~According to the active legislation, no society or corporation has juridical entity, if it is not legally authorized. 95~~

The government seemed to believe, then, that having interests " en comun " was insufficient for considering a group of people as a community. Officials recognized a basic social criteria for the existence of a community, but reguired nevertheless a formal, juridical existance based on the legal ability to own and administer lands as a community. The pueblos were merely geographical expressions of population patterns with coincidental needs and concerns, but they did not have a legal share, right, or title in the ownership of property. This attitude formed the basis for a reintensif ied effort to bring about the distribution in private ownership the land held by the villages. From 1869 until after the turn of the century, the pueblos were under constant pressure to divide their lands among private own-

~~96 ers .~~

The approach of the Michoacan state government reflected the doctrinaire views of the earlier Liberals who had long assailed the primacy of the community. It should be recalled that in the wake of Independence, Mora and others rejected community and priviledged individuality. In this formulation, society must be purged of loyalties to traditional corporate structures such as the church and

~~Indian communities in favor of the secular nation. Charles~~

Hale notes how, in the Restored Republic and subseguently 140 liberalism in Mexico "became transformed from an ideology in combat with an inherited set of institutions, social arrangements, and values into a unifying myth." 97 In

~~Michoacan, officials attempted to win the battle finally with some of these traditional elements of society by legally eliminating their foundation.~~

In February 1868 the state announced a tax on all community lands that had not yet been distributed, giving the pueblos six months to complete their reparto. Pueblos would be exempt from land taxes for six years once the reparto was undertaken. By December, state officials appeared dissatisfied with the progress of the distribution; a circular noted that the repartos cannot be avoided and, in fact, should have already taken place. Nevertheless, within a year or two repartos were under way all over the state of

Michoacan. Over the next thirty years or so, the state government would continue their attempts to carry out the private distribution of community land, with varying levels of intensity and success. 98

In 1902 it issued the " Ley y reglamento sobre reparto de bienes de las extinguidas comunidades de indiaenas that brought together many of the ideas from previous legal measures, as well as adding some tenets of its own. This new law specified the manner in which all community lands, including the ejido and fundo legal, could be distributed as private property. Communities were allowed to keep the 141

~~"space necessary" for communal use, including waters~~

~~strictly for the residents and their domestic livestock, a~~

~~nine-hectare plot surrounding the water sources, and a tract~~

~~of an size, "that would be convenient" for the village's~~

~~communal forests. Tracts of not less than one hectare from~~

~~the ejido would be allocated to the landless poor of the~~

~~community, and the fundo legal would be divided into house~~

~~lots not to exceed 625 square meters. The 1902 law differed~~

~~from state measures before the Reform in that it did not~~

~~specifically preserve the basis of the Indian community. As~~

~~Moises Franco Mendoza suggests, the new approach seems to~~

~~reflect a strict reading of the Ley Lerdo and Article 27 of~~

~~the Contstitution of 1857 that stated that civil corpora-~~

~~tions did not have the right to own and administer lands.~~

~~It went further, however, in that it singled out the commu-~~

~~nity's land base for distribution, justified by the notion~~

~~that lands were held in excess of needs, as suggested by the~~

~~legislation concerning terrenos baldios."~~

Thus, by 1902 the legal measures were in place that provided for the elimination of the Indian communities, their legal standing as well as the traditional foundation of their subsistence. Many of these "extinguished communities" that had not yet divided their lands did so after this law was put in place, and those that had previously privat-

~~ized the tierras de repartimiento turned their attention to communal woods and pastures. Generally speaking, the ,~~

142 repartos became necessary after 1869 because the communities recognized that it was the only way to protect their access to essential resources. Failing to distribute land meant the imposition of an onerous tax and/or the denunciation and sale of the land. In the next chapter we will examine in greater detail how the process of distributing land to individuals was carried out and the conflicts that resulted.

~~Notes~~

~~'Brian R. Hamnett, "Liberalism Divided: Regional Poli- tics and the National Project During the Mexican Restored Republic, 1867-1876," Hispanic American Historical Review 76:4 (1996), 659.~~

2 Hale points out that Bourbon policy on land use, including its distribution to private owners, was brought to New Spain in the 1780s. The Ordinance of Intendants called for the allotment of communal lands "in pieces suitable of ground suitable for married Indians." [Hale, Mora , 225]

~~3 Charles A. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Aae of Mora, 1821-1853 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) 227.~~

~~5 Ibid, 221.~~

~~'Charles A. Hale, The Transformation of Liberalism in the Late Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 220.~~

~~7 Hale, Mexican Liberalism, 178.~~

~~"Gerardo Sanchez Diaz , El Suroeste de Michoacan: Economia y Sociedad, 1852-1910 (Morel ia: Universidad Michoacana, 1979), 24.~~

~~9 Hale, Mexican Liberalism , 229.~~

~~"Lillian Estelle Fisher, Champion of Reform: Manuel Abad y Oueipo (New York: Library Publishers, 1955), 71-73; 84-85. 143~~

~~u Ibid, 71; Moises Franco Mendoza, "La Desamortizacion de Bienes de Comunidades Indigenas en Michoacan," in La~~

~~Sociedad Indiaena en el Centro y Occidente de Mexico , ed. Pedro Carrasco (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacan, 1986), 169.~~

~~12 Francisco Gonzalez de Cossio, ed. , Legislacion Indigenista de Mexico (Mexico: Instituto Indigenista Inter- americano, 1958), 24; cited below as LI .~~

~~n Ibid, 27.~~

~~14 In Spain this policy was envisioned by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos in his "Informe de ley agraria" as a way to Liberalism 177. regenerate agriculture; Hale, Mexican r~~

~~15Wistano Luis Orozco, Legislacion y Jurisprudencia sobre Terrenos Baldios (Mexico: Imprenta de El Tiempo, 1895), 107.~~

~~16Mendoza, 172.~~

~~i7 LI, 25.~~

~~18 Lucio Mendieta y Nunez, El Problema Aarario de Mexico (Mexico: Secretaria de Economia, 1956) , 91-96.~~

~~19 Hale, Mexican Liberalism . 180; Orozco, 188-241.~~

~~:o Hale, Mexican Liberalism, 232.~~

~~:i Hamnett, 661.~~

"Donald J. Fraser points out a number of states that enacted anticommunal laws of various types in the late 1820s. He notes that most only ordered the division of the propios and terrenos de repartimiento leaving the ejido and fundo legal intact. In Puebla, Sonora, Sinoloa, and Zacatecas, however, state laws called for the total division of communal lands including the fundo legal ; Donald John Fraser, "La Politica de Desamortizacion en las Comunidades Indigenas," Historia Mexicana 84 (1972), 623.

~~23 Mendoza, 173.~~

2, Hale, Mexican Liberalism , 222; Moises Gonzalez Navarro, Anatomia del Poder en Mexico 1848-1853 f (Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, 1977), 143; Hale notes that Mora rejected ideas about the preservation of the core of the community and "said that all communal property should be lumped together." Others, however, argued that "it was indispensable that the ayuntamientos have some [property]." (231) . ,

~~144~~

~~"Lejarza, 7.~~

~~26Mendoza, 174-175.~~

27 Gerardo Sanchez Diaz, "Los Vaivenes del Proyecto , " Michoacan ed. Enrique Republ icano in Historia General de f Florescano (Morelia: Instituto Michoacano de Cultura, 1989) 5; Sanchez D. (1988), 22.

~~28 Mendoza, 175-176.~~

29 See Vincent C. Peloso and Barbara A. Tenenbaum, Liber- als, Politics, and Power: State Formation in Nineteenth- Century Latin America (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 1-7, for a brief discussion of the debate over the application of liberal ideas in Latin America; David Bushnell, "Assessing the Legacy of Liberalism," in ibid, 278-300, for a recent bibliographic essay on the topic.

~~30 Sanchez D. (1988), 52-56.~~

~~"Gonzalez N. , 143~~

~~32 Ibid.~~

~~"Ibid, 144.~~

~~34 Sanchez D. (1988) , 24.~~

~~35LI, 33.~~

~~36 Hale, Mexican Liberalism , 237.~~

~~"Ibid, 238.~~

"Decreto del gobierno. Sobre desamortizacion de fincas rusticas y urbanas que administren como propietarios las corporaciones civiles 6 eclesiasticas de la Republica, Junio 25 de 1856, in Manuel Dublan y Jose Maria Lozano, Legis- lacion Mexicana (Mexico: Dublan y Chavez, 1877) ; cited below as LM .

~~39Mendieta y Nunez, 111.~~

~~40 LM, 197-201.~~

~~<'Ibid, 197.~~

~~42 Ibid.~~

~~"Ibid, 200. "~~

~~145~~

"T.G. Powell, El Liberalising y el Campesinado en el Centro de Mexico: 1850-1876 (Mexico: Secretaria de Educacion Publica, 77-78; Charles Berry, The Reform in Qaxaca 1974), r 1856-76: A Microhistory of the Liberal Revolution (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 180; Jesus Silva Herzog, El Aararismo Mexicano y la Reforma Aararia: Exposicion y Critica (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1959), 91.

~~45Melchor Ocampo, Obras Completas (Mexico: Ediciones El Caballito, 1978), 179.~~

~~46LI, 51.~~

~~47 Ibid, 50.~~

~~48 LH, 264.~~

~~49 Ibid, 265, 270.~~

~~"Robert J. Knowlton, "La Individualizacion de la Propiedad Corporativa Civil en el Siglo XIX: Notas sobre Jalisco," Historia Mexicana 109:1 (1978), 25.~~

~~51 LM, 198.~~

"Luis Labastida, Coleccion de Leyes. Decretos. Reala- mentos Circula res. Ordenes Acuerods Relativos a la Desa- r y mortizacion de l os Bienes de Corporaciones Civiles y Religionas y a La Nacionalizacion de los que Administraron las Ultimas (Mexico: Tip. de la Oficina Impresora de Estampillas, 1893), 28.

~~"Ibid, 28, 50, 23.~~

~~MLH, 197.~~

~~"Ibid, 212.~~

~~"£L, 28.~~

~~"Ibid, 29.~~

~~58 Knowlton, "La Individualizacion," 47.~~

"In the law of June 25, 1856, Article Eight excepted "los edificios, ejidos y terrenos destinados exclusivamente al servicio publico de las poblaciones a que pertenezcan. When the Constitution was promulgated, however, the clause was carried in Article 27 over without the words "ejidos y terrenos"; LH, 387. 146

~~60£L, 18.~~

"The government ruled that a cofradia could not retain rights to wood on adjudicated property; LH, 23 0. In another case it was ruled that cofradia land, and the its cattle, must be divided among the indigenas living on the property; W, 324.

~~62 LM, 234.~~

"See Florencia E. Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) , 100. Mallon defines ejido as "collective communal property that was legally untouchable under the terms of the Land Law enacted 25 June 1856;" Mallon, 117. She does not mention, however, that Article 27 of the Constitution failed to include the ejido in the lands covered by the land laws. Further, suggesting that these laws (or perhaps any laws) could be interpreted "literally" is something of an oxymoron. The interested parties interpreted the laws as either threats or opportunities, and reacted to them on that basis.

~~64 AHPEM, Morelia, 21:53-127.~~

~~"Ibid.~~

~~-Powell, El Liberalismo . 87.~~

~~67 Leticia Reina, Las Rebe l iones Campesinas en Mexico. 1819-1906 (Mexico: Siglo Vientiuno, 1980), 181.~~

~~68 LH, 246.~~

~~69 Ibid, 263.~~

~~70 Jean Meyer, Problema s Campesinos y Revultas Aararias. 1821-1910 (Mexico: Secretaria de Educacion Publica, 1973), 16.~~

71 Jean Meyer, "La Ley Lerdo y la Desamortizacion de las Comunidades en Jalisco," in La Sociedad Indigena en el Centro y Occidente de Mexico ed. Pedro Carrasco (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacan, 1986), 210; Knowlton, "La Indivi- dualizacion, " 33.

~~72 Reina, passim .~~

~~73 £L, 29. "~~

~~147~~

~~^Decree of El. C. Gen. Epitacio Huerta, " encargado del mando supremo del Estado de Michoacan. 22 Dec. 1858 . from r LDS film "Decretos Civiles."~~

75LI, 70; For more on the relationship between Maximilian and the peasantry see Powell, El Liberal ismo r 101-127. For a case of a community using the measure pertaining to land and water disputes see Mallon, 170-171.

~~76LI, 72.~~

"This seems extremely generous by the standards of the Reforma measures. There were certainly no communities in the basin that had sufficient property, outside the ejido, to grant to its members a tract or tracts of such size.

~~78 LX, 72.~~

~~7, Ibid, 75.~~

80 Quiroga, Santa Fe de la Laguna, and Tzintzuntzan might have qualified for a fundo legal under the law depending upon the way the census was conducted. If only indigenas were counted it is unlikely that any of the colonial-era pueblos would have had sufficient numbers for their own fundo legal.

"Heriberto Moreno Garcia, "Un Documento sobre las Comunidades Indigenas del Distrito de Zamora durante el Segundo Emperio," in La Sociedad Indigena en el Centro y Occidente de Mexico ed. Pedro Carrasco (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacan, 1986), 213.

~~82 Mallon, 172.~~

~~"Ibid, 174.~~

~~8, Ibid, 175.~~

85 Even the alienation of church wealth in the early Reforma has been questioned. Margaret Chowning argues that the "Liberal threat was a more or less constant factor from the late 1820s," and sales of church property had been accelerating since the mid-1840s. She attributes much of the divestiture of ecclesiastical real estate to "buoyant real estate markets" and efforts to convern rental income into mortgages. Church property aliented in the twenty-five years after the Reforma was "considerably less" than property sold before 1856. See Margaret Chowning, "The Manage- ment of Church Wealth in Michoacan, Mexico, 1810-1856: Economic Motivations and Political Implications," Journal of Latin American Studies 22, 489-490. 148

~~, 33. 96 See Knowlton, "La Individual izacion "~~

~~"Sanchez D. (1988) , 27.~~

del EafcadO de MHflpfcigjj Hp. Iqs puehlQg dp indigent 32:28-33, i908. conforms a la lev ." ahpem, Moreiia, asaa Tzentzenguaro having been > report shows the lands of . small barrio of itributed "desde tiempo inmemorial " The Cerro Colorado in Izcuaro San Agustin divided lands of the 51; AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 7:31-34.

~~"Hale, Transformation. 253.~~

to any -The saapaniaa desl indadoras did not °Pe a^ RobertJ Holden in The. »at extent in Michoacan, according to for denouncing rvev, passim. The procedures established not to any IdiSs was used frequently in the state, but 31 Oct. eat extent in the basin. See ppriodir.o OflC i a l of a 770 nect- 95 p. 8, for an example of a denunciation The lands denounced e tract to the east of Patzcuaro. known by the names of 'Tprro de la Nieve," "ColrajUa, re " " coi ones :" they bordered the t Te rras de I qs d IflB " i " and with lop parc j onerps de ^ rfana c Tar.ambaro colomza- " For further discussion of the laws of anaio Nunez, orTand those concerning baldios see Mendieta y 111-121. apters Four and Five, and Silva Herzog,

~~91 Orozco, 345-346. Chapter Three. "See the discussion of the railroad in~~

and Macaulay note that elsewhere in the "Bushnell and along the railroads became more valuable, >untrv "land commu- pressures for the disentailment of the remaining ie Bushnell and Neill il holdings mounted." See David in thfl- Nineteenth lC auiay, Tn~ Bngrgfinsfl of T,atin ftnfirisa University Press, 1988), 208. >n£liry. (New York: Oxford

~~"Sanchez D. (1988) , 26.~~

~~95 #113, Sept. 1877. AHPEM , Moreiia, Circular~~

~~''Sanchez D. (1988) , 27.~~

~~91 Hale, Tmn* fnrmation. 3.~~

~~"Sanchez D. (1988) , 26. 149~~

"See AHPEM, Morel ia, 20:294, " Circular No. 23. sobre la manera de extinquir las comunidades de indlgenas, no repartidas y modo de efectuar la circunvalacion de la propieflafl rustics en Michoacan. Ano 19Q2." CHAPTER 5

~~THE REPARTOS AND THE VILLAGES~~

~~As noted in the last chapter, most of the repartos de~~

~~tierras in Michoacan took place between 1869 and 1910. The~~

~~distribution of village lands to private owners was a com-~~

~~plex, conflict-laden process that for many communities~~

~~proceeded slowly and unevenly, and often left unresolved the~~

~~property rights problems the government measures addressed.~~

~~In the Patzcuaro basin traditional forms of tenure persisted~~

~~along side "modern" forms, and boundaries between individual~~

~~and group landholdings were often imprecise in a legal~~

~~sense. Villages continued to allocate resources and claim~~

~~rights to property while the state imposed structures that~~

~~sought to reduce or eliminate community control.~~

~~Consequently , various tracts of a particular commu-~~

~~nity's land were divided at different times and among vari-~~

~~ous groups and individuals. Sometimes whole communities~~

~~sought to divide all their land as a village, while in other~~

cases, small groups within the village asked for a reparto of specific tracts. This chapter explores the process by which land distribution was carried out at the local level, and how property rights were contested during the period in which most of the repartos were carried out.

~~150 151~~

~~The Process of Distributing Property~~

The process of dividing community land among village members typically began with the naming of individuals to represent the pueblo in its dealings on the matter. The representante was to be trustworthy and "should know how to read and write" in Spanish. 1 Although the latter condition was always met, it appears that the trust placed in the hands of the representative was often misplaced. Given the extent of indigenous monolingual ism that remained in the basin pueblos in the late nineteenth century, it is not surprising that the representatives of the Indians were often mestizo or Creole elites who did not live in the community. How the representatives were selected is not entirely clear from the documents, but it seems likely that they were chosen by the village leadership. There are no recorded votes on the choosing of the representatives as there are for other issues. There is some indication that individuals sought to establish themselves as representatives for more than one village. A man named Bruno Patino served as the representative for various communities in the basin, as well as in other areas of the Tarascan zone of

~~Michoacan. The documents reveal no serious complaints about~~

~~Patino, unlike many other representatives, so it would seem that he did his job adequately.~~

~~The representatives were compensated for their time by the village undergoing the reparto. The 3 51 parcioneros of 152~~

~~Tzirondaro paid a total of 102 pesos, twelve centavos for~~

~~preparing the reparto and filing the necessary papers with~~

~~the government; another group later paid twenty-five centa-~~

~~vos each. 2 Santa Fe de la Laguna 1 s reparto cost a total of~~

~~$1,100, divided among the village's 562 parcioneros "in~~

~~proportion to the quantity of land that each one~~

~~possesses. 113 Rather than being interested community mem-~~

~~bers, it seems that at least some of the representatives,~~

~~such as Patiho, were professionals, probably lawyers.~~

~~Once a representative was agreed upon, he formally~~

~~petitioned the government for permission to undertake the~~

~~reparto of the village land. A census of village residents,~~

~~or padron , was prepared. For smaller pueblos it might be a~~

~~simple list of names or for larger groups lengthy descrip-~~

~~tions of properties already distributed to families in the~~

~~form of tierras de repart imiento . The padron general~~

~~spelled out who "has right to the lands distributed," and was made available for verification by the community. In~~

~~Tzintzuntzan a padron was drawn up that listed 244 villagers who were entitled to a plot of land from the community's~~

~~territory. The village claimed some 1,267 almuds of land,~~

~~or about 375 hectares in five distinct areas." Apparently~~

~~it took two or three years for the census to be accepted by~~

~~the villagers; once approved, the distribution proceeded~~

~~slowly over the next few years. 5~~

~~It was common for there to be a separate list of family 153~~

~~heads who had no land at the time of the reparto, or who~~

~~were not present when the original reparto was conducted.~~

~~There were several hundred parcioneros in San Geronimo~~

~~Purenchecuaro 1 s original reparto, but an additional twenty-~~

~~seven turned up a few years later seeking to be included in the village's land distribution. 6 The reparto for~~

Tzintzuntzan was complicated by the fact that the padron conducted several years earlier included village members who had since left the community. The community set about creating a new census based on the membership of those who remained in the village. 7

A comision repartidora was established for the community to measure tracts and establish the borders for the allocated plots. This commission was chosen in similar fashion to the representante, who was typically a member of the commission along with two others. As was the case for many villages, Tzentzenguaro selected two members from the community and a third from Patzcuaro, the latter no doubt bilingual and familial with the Mexican land laws. 3 As prescribed in state law, the reparto commissioners gathered the parcioneros in the village sguare to conduct the formalities of the land distribution. The 356 citizens of San

~~Andres Zirondaro thus gathered in the afternoon of July 4, 1902 "with the object of dividing the land" and proceeded~~

~~"by common agreement" to measure into lots the community's land. 9 At Santa Fe de la Laguna, the villagers were called ; "~~

~~154 to the square by "the ringing of the bell" on May 13, 1901 where they voted by name on the proposed reparto. 10~~

For their part, the government had certain requirements for the proper execution of a reparto, as expressed in a letter regarding the village of Puacuaro. The reparto would be approved if the following conditions were met.

1. If the indigenas of the cited pueblo possess qui- etly and peacefully the lands to be distributed; 2. If property titles exist in favor of the indigenas, titles that show clearly that the cited indigenas are owners of the said lands 3. If the owners of the bordering lands are in agreement with the dividing lines that the pueblo of Puacuaro recognizes; 4. In case of there being differences in borders among the indigenas and the adjacent owners, if it would be possible to arrive at an a conventional agreement, with the intervention of the government, to fix the borders of the lands of the pueblo; 5. What is the approximate extension of the lands to be distributed, and how many there are; 6. If there does not exist in fact a reparto of the same lands, or they are found actually indivisible and possessed in common. 11 The system for establishing the individual plots generally relied on metes and bounds, often with an initial reference to a village location or place name, and the size of the tract. A typical legal description for a distributed plot, in this case from Santa Fe de Laguna, would be,

~~On the "Plain of Huarapo" [Apolinar Luz] possesses a plot of " dos cuarterones y medio de temporal de sembra-~~

~~dura de maiz , having as its borders: to the East with~~

~~lands of Jacinto Gabriel ; to the North with those of Ysabel Medina, equal division; to the West with those of Pedro Ferritin, equal division; to the South limited by the Lake. 12~~

~~" The repartos generally referred to terrenos ,~~

~~" " tierras , " or bienes " of the indigenas or pueblo, but 155~~

~~frequently specified certain types of lands. Communities~~

~~often asked that hills (cerros) be divided, usually refer-~~

~~ring to a specific name such as Quiroga 1 s "Cerro de la Mina"~~

~~or San Agustin's "Cerro Colorado." 13 Nonagricultural lands~~

~~" f montes ) were commonly mentioned, as in los montes que~~

~~M1< poseen indivisos , and pasture lands were singled out as~~

~~well. 15 On several occasions pueblos asked that badlands~~

~~(malpais) be distribed among community members, as did the~~

~~16 barrio of Patzcuaro, San Francisco, in 1893 . Communities sought distribution of terrenos montanosos , swampland~~

~~(cienaga) , terrenos de siembra de triao y de maiz and lots~~

~~( solares ) . The solares were often mentioned when the commu-~~

~~nity sought to distribute its fundo legal, and their small~~

~~size indicates their use as house lots. The variety of land~~

~~referred to makes it clear that Indians sought to retain~~

~~access to property that had been traditionally for nonagri-~~

~~cultural use, as well as the farm plots that had been as-~~

~~signed through the village property system.~~

~~The comisidn repartidora determined the value of the tracts distributed, usually expressed broadly as first,~~

~~second, or third class in terms of its productivity, and more specifically in currency. In the legal description cited above, for Apolinar Luz's tract, the value was estab-~~

~~lished as sixty-two pe_£££, fifty centavos . Another tract in~~

~~Santa Fe was valued at sixty pesos even though it was considerably larger, four cuarterones to Luz's two and a half. 1 156~~

~~Values were established for tax purposes on all lands including those that had not been distributed, which after~~

1868 made them subject to state taxes. From time to time communities disputed the amount established by the state, arguing that the lands were poor or insufficient for the subsistence of the residents. 18

~~The measurement and distribution of village lands were carried out in different ways by the various pueblos of the~~

Patzcuaro basin. As the residents of Tzentzenguaro pointed out, it was not always possible to "comply strictly with the formalities of the law." 19 Some repartos were based on a standard land value with tract sizes varying from parcionero to parcionero. In other cases, some parcioneros received multiple tracts at various locations within the village's territory. The north shore village of Tzirondaro distributed tracts of precisely the same size to all resident families during a distribution in 1903. 20 San Augustin, a barrio of Patzcuaro, distributed its lands in March of 1868, and the tracts of all forty-six parcioneros were valued at five pesos, even though the sizes varied from one thousand

~~21 to 7,500 varas cuadradas . In this village the lands were measured out in sguare tracts of specific dimensions.~~

~~Nearly half of the villagers received plots three hundred by twenty- five varas.~~

In Quiroga's distribution some 131 villagers were identified as being entitled to tracts of the community's 157 land. The lands were distributed in sizes varying from an individual solar for a house, to several tracts for a single family. Transito Peha received a house lot worth a mere

$4.50, while Apolinar Flores obtained five tracts valued at a total of $41.24. Pena was unusual, however, since most of the families received property of at least one-third hectare, and most received more. The Flores property included

~~three tracts of one almud each, one of a half cuartilla , and~~

one of a cuarteron , for a total of about one and a half hectares of land. There does not appear to be any attempt to value the land in terms of agricultural quality; all tracts of one almud, for example, were appraised at $8.25.

~~It may be that the land distribution in this community was not as inequitable as it seems from the list of tract values, since the amount in pesos is a reflection only of size.~~

Communities with sufficient land appear to have attempted to distribute tracts such that each family received a solar for their house in the fundo legal as well as one or more plots of farm land. Tzentzenguaro, on the southern shore of the lake, distributed three tracts to most of its members: two agricultural plots of three cuarterones (totalling just under one hectare) and a small house lot was the typical apportionment. 22 At San Bartolo Pareo most of the parcioneros received four tracts of land, although a few received a single plot or as many as eight. The properties of all the parcioneros were scattered in various sites 158 around the community, with names such as "El Llano de la

~~Virgen," "El Potrero de Afuera," "La Yacata," or~~

"Tinguintzinaro, " as well as their house lot in the village proper. Some of the tracts were only a few hundred square meters, but several were relatively large— over four hectares. Apolino Alvarez received four tracts ranging in size from 480 square meters to 2,646 square meters for a total of just over one-half hectare. Jose Encarnacion de la Cruz, on the other hand, was alloted a total of nearly four hectares in five separate tracts. Unlike Quiroga, however, all tracts were valued at ten pesos regardless of their size.

The logic behind these distributions is difficult to determine, if indeed there was any logic at all. It is possible that a quarter-hectare tract of highly-productive alluvial land on the lakeshore was worth the same as several hectares of malpais, thus accounting for appraisals in which individuals received tracts of widely differing size.- 3 Or it may be a function of village hierarchy, with well-connected elites receiving the favored tracts, while the less- prominent families were given poorer land. Surprisingly, there were no references in the documents to complaints by individuals who felt that the reparto itself was unequita- ble, although there were many complaints of a different nature as will be seen in the next chapter. We can surmise that the distribution of the lands the Indians were well- accustomed to using, that they already perceived as their 159 own, were the least contentious. Thus the distribution tierras de repartimiento and the fundo legal probably went reasonably well. The division of communal monte or ejido land, however, was more difficult for the commissioners since that land had been used communally and its distribution in severalty brought the more radical change in its tenure. The next chapter looks more closely at how this constituted a change in the ecology of the zone.

~~It does not appear that individual titles to the distributed tracts were issued routinely to the recipients.~~

Occasionally, a village resident sought and received specific documentation of his or her ownership, but generally the only printed record of title was contained in the aggregate listing of distributed tracts or padrdn for the village. Years later, when the owner sought to sell the tract or during some litigation, it would be noted that the land

was without title ( sin titulo ) , but that it had been distributed in an earlier reparto. For example, when in 1887 the children of Don Mauricio Garcia sold the land they inherited from their father they pointed out that he had

"acquired it in the reparto de bienes of the community as an indigena of the pueblo de Erongaricuaro and by means of such acquisition they have possessed it and [are] free of all responsibility to sell it with its uses, customs, rights,

*' 24 and services . . . Similarly, the sisters Cornelia and

~~Francisca Elias acquired their fifteen cuarteron tract "by 160~~

~~inheritance of their late father Ygnacio Ellas who . . .~~

~~acquired it as a participant in the extinguished community."~~

~~The documents of the repartos provided strong evidence of~~

~~ownership, without which "our property will be exposed. .~~

~~.to a denunciation," as the indigenas of Arocutin noted in~~

~~1895." At the same time, the reparto documents made it~~

~~possible for families to sell their lands once ownership had~~

~~been established legally, as the above example illustrates.~~

~~The state established a section in the Archivo General~~

~~y Publico for collecting and maintaining these records. The~~

~~documents were assembled into the Libros de Hijuelas which~~

~~citizens could consult to establish their rights to prop-~~

~~erty. The villagers acknowledged that the their title to~~

land did not exist in law, but the books of hiiuelas provided the written documentation of their claims. 26 For example, Manuel Higinio of San Andres Zirondaro asked that his ownership "without title" of a tract be acknowledged in writing by the state in 1902. The municipal president attested to his "quiet and peaceful possession" of the land for more than twenty years. The documents were bound into a book along with other such claims and requests to form the village's libro de hijuela .- 7 Villagers could also use the documentation in the book to provide proof of ownership during a sales transaction or when the land was involved in some litigation. Candelaria Chico of Purenchecuro complained that her son-in-law had sold land that she possessed 161

~~"as a parcionera of the excommunity . " A government official~~

~~reviewed the hijuelas and determined that, indeed, the woman was the owner of the land in question, and that it could not be alienated by the son-in-law. 28~~

~~Because the effective adjudication of village lands was~~

in most cases a complicated, and sometimes impossible, task, communities on occasion had to ask for time extensions to complete their repartos. 29 Some repartos appeared to be completed in a relatively short period of time, while others dragged on for decades or were, in fact, not completed before the Revolution of 1910. 30 For example, the reparto for the pueblo Cucuchucho was completed within a year of the new tax measure, while Huecorio's reparto would only come two decades later. 31 Ihuatzio's official reparto date was listed by the government as 1878, but records show that the community was still wrestling with nearby Tzintzuntzan over lands after the turn of the century. 32 Tzintzuntzan required at least a decade to complete the reparto of the bulk of its land, but an official government report of 1908 does not list the community as having a verified reparto as of that year. 33 As will be discussed below, the difficulties in completing the repartos resulted from bureaucratic ineffi- ciency, disputes among the parcioneros, and conflicts between villages over lands each claimed.

~~Tax collection further complicated the process of distributing the land to private owners. Punitive taxes 162 were imposed by the state of Michoacan on the undistributed~~

~~land of communities, and federal property taxes were eventu-~~

3 ally required from the new landowners. ' Thus we see frequent requests for exemptions and extensions for payment in the documentary record. Among other reasons, communities blamed their failure to pay the tax on poverty, which in all liklihood became more serious in the basin across the nineteenth century- In the 1870s and 1880s both Tzirondaro and

Purenchecuaro appealed for tax exemptions due to financial hardship. Tzirondaro, self-described as "one of the most miserable pueblos" in the district, complained that their only source of income was from fishing and the making of

petates , which scarcely provided for "the subsistence of their families." 35 Although the government on occasion granted the requested exemptions or extensions, they also at times placed liens on community property, imposed fines, or continued to demand payment. Tzintzuntzan requested an exemption in 1876, but a treasury official found that the village "is solvent and therefore can pay the debt." 36

~~Redefining the Property Regime~~

When the repartos got under way actively in the half century before the Revolution, issues of sovereignty and ownership became critically important in the basin property regime. Sovereignty, how a community conceived of its property vis-a-vis other entities, became intimately connected to the relationship been the state and the local 163

~~property rights structures since the government was often~~

~~called upon to mediate disputes between villages. Individ-~~

~~ual ownership, on the other hand, was to a greater extent an~~

~~internal matter of the villages, and relied on community~~

~~recognition prior to that of any higher-level authorities.~~

~~The perception of sovereignty and ownership was central to~~

~~the way property rights were defined by the individual, the~~

~~village, and the state. In large measure, the definition of~~

~~property rights formed the basis for the control over re-~~

~~sources exercised at these three levels.~~

~~Despite the legal advantages of distributing community~~

~~lands under the reparto laws, some pueblos chose to maintain~~

~~their ties to the land in the old way, even though the state~~

~~government reguired the payment of the tax on undivided~~

~~property. Thus we see the reguests for exemptions and other~~

~~cases in which villages resisted undergoing the formalities~~

~~of a reparto entirely. More than simply resistance to~~

~~change, there often was a fundamental difference in percep-~~

~~tion of land tenure between the pueblo and the state.~~

~~A good example of this change can be seen in the termi-~~

~~nology used to classify lands." Many of the earlier re-~~

~~corded descriptions characterized land in terms of its use~~

~~and its natural features. The legal descriptions of prop-~~

~~erty before the repartos were conducted routinely made~~

~~reference to the amount of corn sown on the plot and to physical features of the tract, sometimes embodied in its ,~~

~~164~~

~~name. A long description of a tract in 1880 denoted bound-~~

~~aries such as "the white oak," "the very tall pine," "the big rock," and "the madrono [tree] surrounded by stones." 38~~

Boundaries occasionally ran along water courses and ridges, but the rough volcanic terrain at such areas generally precluded settlement or cultivated fields. Consequently there was little interest in knowing the precise location of

~~such boundaries since the land around them held little~~

~~interest for basin residents.~~

~~But as lands became distributed to individuals, deeds and contracts increasingly relied on metric measurement, compass bearings, and even longitude and latitude lines.~~

More importantly, a tract was defined by reference to the ownership of adjacent tracts through the system of metes and bounds mentioned above. In a given area, all land came to be owned by someone and an individual 1 s tract could be identified by whose land it was not, suggesting the absolute and private nature of landholding under the new system. In other words, land went from being defined based on its ecological elements, including its usufruct, to an abstract tract with boundaries that needed no reference to natural features. Such references became irrelevant to the legal identity of a specified property, although the quality of the land miqht still have a bearinq on the value of the tract. While metric measurement came into use durinq the

1890s, it was commonly used only for small tracts such as 165 the solares within the fundo legal. Agricultural plots continued to use the method based on the amount of corn sown through the first decade of the twentieth century.

Land was now a commodity; its value was no longer measured in the amount of corn it could produce for a family's subsistence, but was a price based on the conditions in the market for land. The corn-sown measure came to refer to the size of the tract, related only indirectly to its ability to provide food. The Mexican government specified that a faneaa de sembradura de malz was three hectares, fifty-six ares, and required precise measurement of tracts. 39

The fact that a particular tract might include land inappropriate for planting made no difference in determining its corn-sown measure. Indeed, land actually submerged under the lake waters could have its size expressed in terms of the amount of corn sown. 40

Property was now governed by the impersonal state with its interest in centralization and standardization. Local ecological concerns and usufruct were subordinated to a formal classif icatory system that was based on the liberal doctrine of private property. The new attitude reflected the analytic, quantitative approach that characterized the

Mexican leadership of the late nineteenth century, especially during the Porf iriato. 41 Three-dimensional landscapes defined by their use and function for local residents were reduced to "two-dimensional inscriptions" that could be 166 transferred from one owner to another without regard to its ecological qualities. 42

For the purposes of this study it is important to note that the early liberal land tenure measures had a mixed success, at least in part, because they failed to appreciate the very nature of village landholding. The Liberals wanted to place legal boundaries around resources that village ecology bounded in dramatically different ways. The government sanctioned the legal, and sometimes physical, enclosure of resources and thereby denied access to them for those who relied on them for their subsistence.

It was not that the Indian communities always and actively resisted the repartos; as suggested in the last chapter, the rural disturbances of the period were related to long-held agrarian grievances, as well as to opposition to the attacks on the Church. The reason the repartos were so long in coming may have been partly due to the inability of the land users to understand fully the Liberal's concept of private ownership. Indeed, the land reform measure were followed by a flurry of requests for clarification from local officials or the representatives of the indigenous communities as they attempted to determine if and how the laws applied to the various classes of resources they used on a daily basis. In 1865, for example, the subprefect of

Zamora pointed out that the indigenous communities were not covered by the Reforma laws of disamortization because they 167 already enjoyed wide rights of ownership over their lands and were "not simply users and administrators" referred to in the measures. The report goes on to say that although most Indians know the borders of their lands, "they do not know what quantity of lands they enjoy, nor is there exact information about the particular [farm]." Within the West- ern concepts of ownership the ability to measure accurately and value lands appropriately is a basic requirement, but for the Indians, the document suggests that such measurement is unimportant. What matters is the use to which the land is put, and use shifts over time and in response to ecological factors. 43

For example, in 1871 the Indians of Copandaro in the district of Morel ia complained to the governor about the threats to community rights to water and minerals on land that had previously been ceded to private owners. 44 There was a similar case a few years later involving the Indians of Apatzingan. 45 In his 1893 analysis of the disamortization laws, Luis G. Labastida mentions the precedent-setting rulings regarding the concerns of villagers in Uruapan,

Tepozotlan, and Tepiji. 46 A case arose in August, 1856 in which a cofradia sold land to a renter who subsequently began to sell wood from a forest on the property. The mayordomo complained that the original rental agreement had specified that the forest could only supply wood for the needs of the hacienda, and, therefore, the forest should be 168 retained by the cofradia. The government, however, ruled in favor of the buyer, saying that the purchase included all lands including the forest and the cofradia retained no rights to the wood. 47

What the cases suggest is that those using the resources directly and on a daily basis had a different conception of how they could be defined as property. The villagers who made up the cofradia mentioned above understood that they were selling something, but apparently were surprised to learn that upon completion of the sale they had lost their rights to resources on the property. These cases suggest also that a difference between the legal territory as defined by the state and ecological territory of the villagers is that the former is fixed while the latter shifts seasonally or over the longer term. In the village tenurial regime, a resident might be granted authorization to use a piece of land to plant crops for his family's subsistence, but such authorization did not deny entry to others after the harvest or during fallow periods. Thus, even when lands were sold or rented, Indians sometimes claimed use rights over resources on the tracts. The government, on the other hand, considered such transfers to include all rights to resources. Under the 1902 legislation, Michoacan did provide for the retention of water sources and certain other resources, but only by allowing villages to keep such properties titled as communal. 48 169

~~The conflicts over the legal versus the ecological definition of property intensified beginning in the late~~

1860s when the repartos became widespread in the Patzcuaro basin. Under state law lands were reguired to be distributed to private owners. Communities, however, routinely claimed that their lands had, in fact, been distributed

~~"since time immemorial" or, at least, "for many years."~~

Clearly, in their petitions to the government the pueblos were referring to the tierras de repartimiento or the fundo legal, since both were allocated to individual families under the village property regime. When the state demanded taxes on the undistributed land, the pueblos reguested exemption based on their understanding of the meaning of ownership.

The pueblo of San Geronimo Purenchecuaro began arguing in 1869 that its lands had long been distributed to individuals and they therefore should be exempt from payment of taxes for six years under the terms of the December 1868 law. 49 The community apparently was granted the exemption, but many years later the state still was attempting to force the legal reparto of the property. The pueblo continued to claim that the validity of the old, traditional reparto that

had been conducted by their forebears ( antepasados ) of the lands "belonging to all the parcioneros and under the name of the community." In 1902 the community asked that the governor approve the de facto reparto of the village lands. 50 170

~~Similarly, Santa Fe de la Laguna claimed that they had~~

"for many years a reparto although without legal formalities of the fundo legal and the tierras de labor ." 51 In this case, they noted the chaotic situation that existed in the village's land tenure after the turn of the century. The original reparto had had "many modifications because many of

the indigenas have sold to others . . . from outside who do not belong to the community." According to a letter sent to the governor, a majority of the villagers gathered in the plaza at six in the afternoon, April 25, 1901 to request formally that the governor verify the reparto of the properties "as they are found." The fundo legal was fully occupied for "six hundred varas in each direction" so it was necessary that the government recognize and grant title to the current occupants "in order to avoid disorder" among tract boundaries. Complying literally with the law calling for distribution was not possible because the "urban tracts, pastures, and farm lands" were already distributed equally

~~"in quantity and quality." 52~~

The fifty-two family heads of the village of Arocutin, on the southeast quarter of the lake, sought recognition of an old reparto, but no one could seem to remember when it had been made. A state treasury official suggested the partition might have taken place in 1827 or 1828, but that the records had long since been lost. The village's representative argued that despite the fact that the distribution 171

~~had been conducted without observing the formalities of the~~

~~law, the reparto was valid and "satisfies the demands of~~

~~modern societies."" Similarly, the residents of~~

~~Erongaricuaro explained in 1902 that their original reparto~~

~~had been based on community territorial borders spelled out~~

~~in a charter written in 1714. The community provided the~~

colonial charter to support their case for the validiy of the old reparto. However, the records of their individual titles, presumably issued by the local town council, had been destroyed in a fire and the village sought government recognition based on the colonial-era documents of foundation and the testimony of witnesses. 54

For their part, the state often approved the older repartos if the village could substantiate their claims with documentation or witnesses, or if their was general agreement among the community members. Occasionally defects were found in the submitted documents and the state required that they be rectified before the reparto would be approved.

From 1889 to 1896 the village of Tocuaro sought to have their old reparto verified by the government, but the padron was found to lack values and specified borders for some of the properties. The reparto was finally approved when the defects were corrected by the community's representative. 55

What the cases suggest is that older, local tenurial arrangments operated exclusive of the state-mandated measures within community boundaries. The long-established 172 local structures remained a primary allocator of property and enforcer of rights to resources without legitimization by the government. Arocutin, Purenchecuaro, Santa Fe,

Erongaricuaro, and and other communities established the boundaries for individual tenure for community members and only turned to "legal formalities" when changes imposed by the government made it expedient or necessary, such as when local control was contested within the community, an issue that will be explored in the next chapter.

The communities defined property rights differently than the state, and the definitions formed the basis for local control over the allocation of resources that persisted in some cases well into the twentieth century.

Consequently, resource use and the property regime on which it was based were contested over a long period, in Michoacan from at least the 1820s until the Revolution, as property rights were slowly redefined at all levels in society.

~~Community S overeignty and the State~~

All villages had some idea of the territory to which they claimed sovereignty; it might be a vague notion based on the lands the villagers actually used, or precise boundaries that separated a community from its neighbors. Before lands could be distributed and titled to individuals, the community had to determine the extent of the property the village claimed as its own. Santa Fe de la Laguna determined, for example, that its lands comprised about three 173

~~hundred fanegas of agricultural land, or about 1,070 hect-~~

~~ares. The community also had one and a quarter sitio de~~

~~ganado mayor of woodlands and pastures on the Cerro de~~

~~Z irate to the northeast of the village, a claim that encom-~~

~~passed over two thousand hectares. Thus, the total land~~

~~area claimed by Santa Fe was over three thousand hectares. 56~~

~~But at Santa Fe de la Laguna, as elsewhere, the claims~~

~~of the village to the property its members used always~~

~~depended to a certain extent on the recognition of those~~

~~claims by others. As we will see, Santa Fe's claims were~~

~~challenged by both Quiroga and Tzintzuntzan over the years~~

~~and there have been acrimonious land disputes involving the~~

~~community up to the present. Local property rights struc-~~

~~tures can address issues within the community, but problems~~

~~arise in defining a community's territory vis-a-vis other~~

~~entities. Groups must be prepared to defend conflicting~~

~~claims by appealing to a higher authority for mediation or~~

~~by resorting to local, sometimes violent, methods. Such~~

~~conflicts were not new in the late nineteenth century, but~~

~~they often revealed themselves as a part of the state-man-~~

~~dated land distribution process.~~

~~When it became known that the Indians of Quiroga had begun the legal proceedings to distribute their lands in~~

~~18 69, the residents of nearby Atzimbo complained to the governor. It seems that territorial claims to land between the two communities had been uncertain for some time and 174~~

~~Atzimbo expressed the fear that Quiroga intended to distrib-~~

~~ute in the reparto process "the lands whose ownership is~~

~~disputed." They requested that the government prevent the~~

~~representative of Quiroga from "surveying, measuring, or~~

~~distributing" lands along its disputed eastern boundary with~~

~~Atzimbo. Quiroga countered that the village "enjoyed in~~

~~common" the land in question, and, therefore, they should be~~

~~allowed to proceed with its reparto. The conflict appar-~~

~~ently was resolved in 1908 when the disputed area was di-~~

~~vided equally between the two communities. 57~~

~~Across the lake, a dispute was recorded in 1902 that~~

~~apparently had been simmering for at least half a century.~~

~~The villages of Pichataro and Erongaricuaro had made an~~

~~agreement in 1847 granting access for both communities to~~

~~lands that included an important water source and wood~~

~~resources. But, according to documents filed by~~

~~Erongaricuaro, between the time of the agreement and the~~

~~first years of the twentieth century the indigenas of~~

~~Pichataro occupied more and more property "with injury to~~

~~the interests of Erongaricuaro. 1158 Erongaricuaro claimed~~

~~that Pichataro crossed the boundary "invading" their lands~~

~~and, therefore, asked the government "to determine the line that separates definitively the properties of one and the other pueblo." 55 It is notable that the reguest by~~

Erongaricuaro came shortly after new reparto laws were adopted in the state of Michoacan. The complaints made 175 specific reference to the new legislation, which clearly was seen by the Indians as a means to resolve this dispute over village sovereignty. They note that the laws require that

"the questions of boundaries when they were between two communities be resolved by the government." 60 Four years later the boundary between the two villages remained in dispute, and had, in fact, "impeded the reparto of the lands pertaining to Erongaricuaro. " 61

Although the documents do not always record resolutions to these disputes, they illustrate one type of conflict over village sovereignty: where to draw the boundary between each community's territory. Rigid boundaries, of course, were essential under the liberal land laws since they formed the basis for the private ownership of land that the government sought to foment. The reparto law of 1902 in Michoacan spelled out in strong terms the need and procedures for determining community boundaries, and encompassed communally-used land to a greater extent than before. It was these lands that were most often disputed between villages, rather than lands that had long been allocated to invididuals.

Although Atzimbo in the above example was able to head off Quiroga's attempt to distribute the disputed land, such was not always the case, and it was possible that two or more communities might both complete repartos of the same tract. In the late 1890s, Tocuaro and Arocutin argued over 176

~~a property known as "Echaraquacutiro" near the southwest~~

~~shore of the lake. Despite the fact that the land was rocky~~

~~malpais , both communities claimed the land for their members~~

~~and apparently distributed tracts to individuals. It may~~

~~have been that sovereignty over this property only became an~~

~~issue when the new laws threatened to close off access to~~

~~the land. Since the property had little value, being~~

~~malpais, it was probably largely ignored by the communities~~

~~before this period. When the land laws brought the threat~~

~~of denunciation, nearby indigenas took the opportunity to~~

~~claim rights to the property. 62 The case also demonstrates~~

~~how local control over property manifests itself as an issue~~

~~of territorial sovereignty. The disputed land was seen by~~

~~each community as its sovereign territory, subject to vil-~~

~~lage rules over property allocation. The rights to use the~~

~~property, however meager its resources, were defined by the~~

~~community and were granted in opposition to other communi-~~

~~ties. The state had to be called in to resolve the territo-~~

~~rial issue so that local control could be maintained.~~

~~In the cases mentioned above, it seems that the main~~

~~concern of the villages involved the outright usurpation of~~

~~land through the reparto process. Other cases had to do with one village taking the resources of another, as happened with San Andres Tzirondaro, on the lakeshore, and~~

~~Azajo, a sierra pueblo to the northwest. Between the two communities is an area known on maps as "Cuerecuaro" that 177 includes pasture and woodlands used primarily by Tzirondaro~~

Beginning in 1903, Tzirondaro made a series of complaints about the invasions of its land by Azajo, particularly concerning cattle grazing on their land and the cutting of wood in their montes. In this case it does not appear that the communities sought to distribute the land to their members, but that Tzirondaro wished to retain the land for communal uses. In order to do so they turned to the state government to determine the limits of each community's sovereign territory. The boundary established by the government between the two communities was very precise; it relied on careful surveying using compass bearings and metric measurement. 63

Previously mentioned, there had been a long-simmering dispute between Ihuatzio and Tzintzuntzan, under way since at least 1878 and continuing unresolved for several decades, perhaps longer. Once again, the dispute focussed on questions about the boundaries between the two communities with allegations that each side had invaded and made use of the lands and resources of the other. Ihuazio's argument was expressed in a letter to the governor in 1898,

For many years we have had differences with the indigenas of Zintzunzan, because they do not respect the boundaries of our properties which they have invaded intending to take possession of a great part of the land. . . . The expressed indigenas of Zintzuntzan have sold to those of Cucuchucho a tract that legally belongs to us, and that they have declared their property. . . 178

~~While the representatives of the communities involved sought~~

~~the government's help in establishing the boundaries of the~~

~~lands in guestion, the dispute became increasingly violent.~~

~~About fifteen Ihuatzio Indians cutting firewood on the tract~~

~~in October of 1899 were attacked and beaten by a group from~~

~~Tzintzuntzan, and a few days later an armed band from~~

~~Ihuatzio provoked a fight with some Tzintzuntzenos on their~~

~~own land. 65~~

~~Ultimately the goverment ruled in favor of the Indians~~

~~of Tzintzuntzan, finding that they had the better claim. As~~

~~the Ihuatzio claimants pointed out, it came down to an~~

~~interpretation of titles and the legal statutues that determined them. Ihuatzio based its claim on "the spirit" of the~~

land laws, which they believed were intended to promote "the order and peace of the pueblos." 66 The government, on the other hand, was interested in economic development, and sought to establish boundaries that would help bring about private ownership. Obviously, the residents of Tzintzuntzan made a case that was more consistent with the official position on land use. By this time the state was moving away from the recognition a village's sovereign territory; legally a community had no legal standing. Thus, claims cast solely in communal terms were less convincing than those that were likely to provide a means for the ultimate goal of privatization. 179

~~Tzintzuntzan also argued over their boundary with~~

~~Quiroga up until at least the 1930s, when Donald Brand found~~

~~the division between the two municipalities to be "the most~~

~~indefinite of all." 67 As land became private, the boundary~~

~~came to be accepted, in the absence of specifics, as deter-~~

~~mined by the residence of the owners of the lands in the~~

~~disputed zone. Since residents of Quiroga seem to have had~~

~~greater success acquiring lands in this area, the boundary~~

~~has moved toward Tzintzuntzan from about the 1880s. Part of~~

~~the problem was that ancient boundaries were based on ephem-~~

~~eral physical features of the landscape, as was common~~

~~throughout Mexico. In the case of the Tzintzuntzan-Quiroga~~

~~boundary, an arroyo once served as the boundary but at some~~

~~point had been diverted for irrigation adding to the confu-~~

~~sion surrounding the line. 68~~

~~Territorial disputes also existed between the villages~~

~~and the state in that the former sought to retain certain~~

~~communally-used tracts while the latter wanted such lands~~

~~declared baldios or "national lands." As long as the commu-~~

~~nity subjected the land to a reparto, and there was no~~

~~counterclaim made, it appears that it was safe from denunci-~~

ation. But certain communal property remained a sticking point during the period since it was difficult or impossible to divide certain lands among individuals under the terms of the land laws, even if a particular community was inclined to do so. )

~~180~~

~~First, the nature of the property might not lend itself~~

~~to division. The lakeshore community of Tzurumutaro argued~~

~~that only they should have rights to the shoreline in the~~

~~area adjacent to their village. In fact, they may have been~~

~~referring to reedy shallows or the very narrow bank of the~~

~~lake, which could not be distributed to individuals in any~~

~~meaningful way. When others began to encroach on their~~

~~territory, the village asked the government to grant to the~~

~~community riparian rights to the shore of the lake that~~

~~produced eighty pesos annually from fishing. The govern-~~

~~ment, however, claimed "that the lakes are property of the~~

~~Nation" and the community was not entitled to exclusive~~

~~rights to use this property. Although such property would~~

not be subject to a reparto, or denounced and sold to individuals, it was effectively declared to be of open access by the action of the state, and any legal claims of sovereignty were subsequently lost. 69

A similar difficulty arose with tracts that simply were too small to divide among all the community members who might have a claim on them. In 1902 a number of basin pueblos retained "small fractions" of land that they contin-

~~ued to use "in common," typically as woodlots ( astillero .~~

In a number of these cases the government seemed to ignore the absurdity of giving individuals title to tracts of relatively few square meters, and required that the tracts be distributed under the reparto laws. Although the laws 181

~~allowed for certain lands to be retained under village~~

~~ownership, such as those around springs, the trend was for~~

~~increasingly greater portions to be privatized. 10~~

~~Changes in the Lake~~

~~As if the land tenure situation during this period were~~

~~not confusing enough, the very nature of Lake Patzcuaro~~

~~posed special problems for landholding by lakeshore villages~~

~~and individuals. As noted in an earlier chapter, Patzcuaro~~

~~is characterized by fairly rapid changes in surface level,~~

~~and such changes have historically led to resource shifts~~

~~that have had important implications for basin society.~~

~~The extent of the changes in lake level during this period~~

~~are uncertain, but an 1888 document mentions that "year by~~

~~year, Lake Patzcuaro raised its level and invaded part of~~

~~the lands" of the village of Huecorio making it necessary to~~

~~redistribute the lands of the villagers. 71 A hand-drawn map~~

~~accompanying documents from 1897 show "lands of Tocuaro~~

~~occupied by the Lake" and submerged fences; the area known~~

~~as "Copujo" was mentioned as an island in 1903, but today is~~

~~found in a fairly large area of dry land between the old~~

~~lakeshore and the island of Jaracuaro. 72~~

~~It seems likely that the lake remained high until at~~

least the 1890s, but declined sufficiently by 1901 to expose the new lands, a trend that appears to have continued for a number of years. At about the turn of the century the lake was experiencing a downward trend, uncovering new areas of 182

~~land adjacent to some of the lakeside villages. The opening~~

~~up of these lands subsequently brought conflicts over sover-~~

~~eignty and ownership. Villages claimed these lands as their~~

~~own territory, the state sought to designate them as na-~~

~~tional lands, and individuals sought to extend ownership or~~

~~usufruct rights over them.~~

~~In one case Narciso Arias "tried to seize a tract of~~

~~land that was uncovered in the land and that borders with~~

~~the properties of the Indians." The indigenas of Santa Fe~~

~~de la Laguna complained that Arias owned only a small prop-~~

~~erty near the new lands and intended to close off access to the community members. 73 Such lands "uncovered" by the decline of the lake became an issue for Tzintzuntzan around~~

1903. The village claimed sovereignty over the property and requested permission from the government for the exploitation of the land. Specifically, it sought to rent the lands for agriculture with the proceeds accruing to the village

under the administration of the ayuntamiento . Preference in the rentals would be given to those village members whose tracts already bordered on the lands exposed by Patzcuaro's receding shoreline. Some of these same indigenas, however, claimed individual ownership of some of the lands uncovered by the lake and asked that the validity of their ownership be acknowledged. Under the land titles of the time, borders were often expressed as "the shore ( orilla ) of the lake," which would seem to confer a moving property boundary and, 183

~~in this case, an increasingly larger tract. Although the~~

~~government was willing in some cases to grant usufruct~~

~~rights to the newly-opened land, it would remain federal property and not be automatically conferred on the adjacent~~

~~owners. Nevertheless, some of the land was in fact distributed to private owners by the Tzintzuntzan 1 s representative,~~

~~further confusing the already-complex tenure situation. 74~~

~~In another case, near Santa Fe de la Laguna, the reparto conducted by the village was complicated by the declining lake level. It seems that in 1878 Zacarias~~

Hernandez transferred about one-third of the land he farmed on the lakeshore to fellow-resident Dionisio Dimas. Subse- quently, the lake shore, to which the property of Dimas was adjacent, receded and the reparto commission granted him a larger tract when the titles were regularized. Hernandez argued, however, that at the time of the sale, 1878, the water's edge was identified by visible landmarks, and that part of the lands exposed belonged to him. Hernandez claimed that Dimas should be left with only the twenty-five litros that he had acquired originally since the borders were fixed. 75 Dimas countered that since the documents of the sale specified that the southern border of the property was the now-receded lakeshore he was entitled to the property. 76 The state subsequently issued an opinion that neither party had a right to the land uncovered by the lake's decline as it was not included in the original documents. 77 184

~~Relatively flat and fertile, the formerly-submerged~~

~~lands were no doubt quite valuable to the village farmers.~~

~~Consequently, they generated conflicts between community~~

~~claims of sovereignty, individual claims of ownership, and~~

~~state claims of jurisdiction over the disposition of the~~

~~property. The cases show the extent to which private land~~

~~ownership was accepted by the villagers, since they sought~~

~~individual title exclusive of, indeed, in opposition to, the~~

~~claims of their own communities. Once again, the state was~~

~~called in to mediate the disputes. 78~~

~~Conclusion~~

~~It is clear that the legal measures that had the great-~~

~~est effect at the local level were those enacted by the~~

state of Michoacan, laws that had their origin several decades before Lerdo promulgated his well-known scheme. The documents show that most of the communities and individuals at this time were responding to Michoacan state-level measures, and the effects of the Lerdo Law and other federal

~~legislation were felt, for the most part, indirectly.~~

Concerns about denunciation and federal taxation, both reflecting national policy, appear from time to time and often drove the communities to take action. But the specific legal references made by the actors were typically to the laws enacted in Morel ia. Indeed, the period of greatest activity in land distribution appeared to be initiated after the state legislature called for the imposition of a tax on 185

~~undistributed land in 1868, and declared that Indian communities were officially extinguished.~~

~~As suggested in the foregoing pages, the "assault on~~

~~communal holdings" was a drawn-out, highly-contested process~~

~~in the Patzcuaro basin. Although it unfolded over nearly a~~

~~century, the most active phase ocurred between 1869 and~~

~~1910, a period when land was drawn into a regime in which~~

~~control over property would be exercised primarily by indi-~~

~~viduals under conditions established by authorities beyond~~

~~the local community. The property regime was redefined~~

~~during this period bringing with it a fundamental change in~~

~~the relationship between the basin environment and its human~~

occupants. As will be seen in the next chapter, village control eroded, individual tenure was strengthened, and the ability of landed property to provide for the subsistence of the basin residents declined.

~~Notes~~

~~'AHPEM, Morelia, 12:187-354, Feb. 13, 1903.~~

~~2 AHPEM , Morelia, 12:187-354, July 31, 1903; Oct. 26,~~

~~1904 .~~

~~3 The parcioneros of Santa Fe were assessed "one peso for each two cuarterones or for each half almud de sembradura de maiz de temporal." AHPEM, Morelia, 1:166-173, May 19, 1901.~~

4 George Foster calculated Tzintzuntzan • s land at 733 hectares based on eight liters of maize per almud and fifteen liters per hectare. The official measurements used here are based on 7.56 liters per almud and 25.5 liters per hectare.

~~5 See Foster, Empire's Children , 170-173; AHPEM, Morelia, 8:59-363. 186~~

'AHPEM, Morelia, 4:253-275; Padron general de parcioneros Que tienen derecho a los bi enes repartidos de hecho. pertenientes a la extinauida comunidad de San Geronimo Purenchecuaro. See also the case of the indigenas of Patzcuaro who sought title in 1882 to lands in the area, even though the original reparto had been conducted in 1828; AHPEM, Morelia, 35:300-358.

~~7 AHPEM, Morelia, 8, Nov. 21, 1881.~~

~~9 AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 16:175-243, Oct. 2, 1896.~~

~~9 AHPEM , Morelia, 12, July 4, 1903.~~

"The parcioneros of Santa Fe originally voted 324 in favor of the reparto and 2 38 against. But, according to the members of the reparto commission, the objections of the opponents apparently were resolved in short order and the documents of the reparto were filed in Tzintzuntzan. Whether the objections were truly resolved, is unknown. As noted, there were cases of fraud during this time in which the representatives obtained land for themselves. AHPEM, Morelia, 1:166-173, May 19, 1901.

UAHPEM, Morelia, 35:381-391, Jan. 31, 1899. Point number six suggests that "possessed in common" refers to ejido land rather than the tierras de repartimiento. Note that this letter was written in 1899, before the laws of 1902 specifically called for the distribution of ejido lands.

12 AHPEM , Morelia, 5:124-193, 1870; The area measure given in this description is unclear. In this description, the two and a half cuarterones referred to suggest the amount of corn it would take to sow the plot, probably a little over one half pound. Therefore Apolinar Luz's tract described here was very small, probably about a third of a hectare. Toward the end of the century, the metric system began to be used with increasing freguency, and was mandated in a law of June 1895; See p_g_ IV: 8, 5 Abril 1896.

~~13 AHPEH, Morelia, 5:10-14; AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 7:31-34.~~

~~'"AHPEM, Morelia, 32:166.~~

~~UAHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2:101.~~

~~16AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 7:34-39.~~

~~"AHPEM, Morelia, 1:166-173. 73~~

~~187~~

~~19 See AHPEM, Morelia, 5:194-242, Feb. 12, 1872; Ibid, 12:114-137, May 27, 1880.~~

~~19AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 16:175-243, Oct. 6, 1896.~~

~~20 AHPEM, Morelia, 12:187-354, July 18, 1903.~~

~~21AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 7:31-34.~~

~~22 AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 16: 175-243, March 13, 1905.~~

~~2 AHPEM, Morelia, 35:112-172, Feb. 2, 1907.~~

~~24 AHN, Reaistro Publico , April 13, 1887, 227-229.~~

~~"Ibid, Tomo 31, #2014, Feb 10, 1894;AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 4:147-205, Dec. 9, 1895.~~

26The documents are now held in the Archivo Historico del Poder Ejecutivo del Estado de Michoacan. For an example of a community representative's explanation of the use of the libros de hijuelas see the undated letter to the gover- nor from the indigenas of San Bartolo Pareo in AHPEM, Patzcuaro, Libro 13. See also the letter from the Indians of Tzentzenguaro asking for the the approval of their reparto and the distribution of titles in AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 16:175-243, March 27, 1905.

~~2 AHPEM, Morelia, 12:114-137, Sept. 8, 1902.~~

~~29 AHPEM, Morelia, 1:166-173, Feb. 28, 1906.~~

~~"AHPEM , Morelia, 22:3-40.~~

"See "Noticia de los pueblos de indigenas del Estado de Michoacan de Ocampo. que han verificado el reparto de sus tierras conforme a la ley " AHPEM, Morelia, r 32:28-33, 1908. The report gives verification dates for the pueblos of each district.

~~n Ibid, 4.~~

~~32 AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 6:1-210.~~

~~""Noticia"; Foster, Empire's Children , 170-173.~~

34 State and federal tax policy is not discussed in any detail in this paper. It is a complex issue with overlap- ping jurisdictions, conflicting exemptions, and ambiguous rulings. The Libros d e Hiiuelas f however, contain considerable primary material pertaining to tax matters as they were applied to and impacted upon the indigenous villages in .

~~188~~

Michoacan. Scholars interested in exploring this matter should consult the index of the hijuelas for Michoacan available from AHPEM for the many cases in which pueblos and individuals sought exemption from state and federal taxes. Tax bills are often included that explain the breakdown of the assessments.

~~35AHPEM, Morelia, 12:114-137, April 1880.~~

36 For the case of Tzintzuntzan see AHPEM, Morelia, 8:59- 363, May 13, 1876. A lien was placed on Tzirondaro's land over a debt to the government of twenty-four pesos; AHPEM, Morelia, 12:114-137, April 20, 1880. The government fined Purenchecuaro for failing to provide reports on the amount of maize and wheat harvested during the past year, reports apparently required either for assessment purposes or to determine if the community was entitled to an exemption; AHPEM, Morelia, 5:15-23, Nov. 1, 1905.

"William Cronon describes the nature of legal descriptions in his study of colonial New England, especially in Chapter Four, pages 74-75. The following section drew on the concepts advanced by Cronon in his work. For similar issues of legal taxonomies of landholding see Greg Bankoff, "Coming to Terms with Nature: State and Environment in Maritime Southeast Asia," Environmental History Review 19:3

~~(Fall 1995) , 17-37.~~

~~38 AHN, EE, Tomo 4, Jan. 10, 1880.~~

~~" Periodico Oficial March 25, 1895.~~

~~"AHPEM, Morelia, 8:59:363, July 6, 1904.~~

~~"See Hale, Transformation . Ch. 7.~~

~~42 See Merchant, Ecological Revolutions , 22.~~

43 See Heriberto Moreno Garcia, "Un Documento sobre las Comunidades Indigenas de Zamora Durante el Segundo Imperio," in La Sociedad Indigena en el Centro y Occidente de Mexico, ed. Pedro Carrasco (Zamora, Michoacan: El Colegio de Michoacan, 1986), 221.

~~"AHPEM, Morelia, 20:152.~~

~~,5AHPEM, Apatzingan, 9:98.~~

"See Labastida's review of the various classes of property on pages 19-2 3. He provides a brief history and outlines the status under the disamortization laws of bienes comunales . fundo legal, ejidos . terrenos , montes. and aguas 189

~~47LH, 230.~~

~~48 See the discussion of these changes in Chapter Four above. See also Moises Franco Mendoza, "La Desamortizacion de Bienes de Comunidades Indigenas en Michoacan," in La Sociedad Indiaena. 183-187.~~

~~49AHPEM, Morelia, 5:194-282.~~

~~50 AHPEM, Morelia, 4, Aug. 7, 1902.~~

51 AHPEM, Morelia, 1, 27 Abril 1901. As was often the case, the village had earlier distributed some of its lands, but apparently not all. Santa Fe's original state reparto was begun in 1870, but by 1901 there remained land, both house lots in the village proper and agricultural plots, that had not been subjected to legal reparto as required by the state.

~~"Ibid.~~

53 See the documents in AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2, June 27, 1892 and Dec. 9, 1898. Apparently, losing the documentation of earlier repartos was common, as the government official notes in the first letter that such lost records "happened with many other pueblos."

54 The 1714 charter can be seen in AHPEM, Morelia, 21:1- 7. It addresses only the territory of the village and not individual title of the villagers. It is entirely possible, of course, that the individual titles never existed, and that the community leaders in 1902 were making false claims. See AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 4, July 24, 1902.

"AHPEM, Morelia, 35:205-233, May 25, 1896. Apparently, the old reparto had been conducted in 1869, but had never been approved by the government. From 1869 to 1889 the properties of the village "had suffered many modifications," and a new reparto was needed since "it would be impossible for us to subject ourselves to the old padrones without suffering a true revolution in our legitimate rights." Ibid, Feb. 13, 1889.

"The village lands worked out to about five and a half hectares for each of the 562 parcioneros. But the village lands, of course, were not distributed in equal size to members of the community, and the monte and pasta jes (pastures) were probably not distributed at all during this reparto. A notation in the villages hijuelas refers to the reparto fee assessment based on land they actually possessed. Presumably, each parcionero retained the tierras de repartimiento that he had farmed before the reparto had 190

taken place. Based on the terrenos de labor , the agricultural land near the village proper, there was just under two hectares available per family. AHPEM, Morelia, 1:166-173, May 19, 1901, "Puntos de informe."

~~"See AHPEM, Morelia, 4:173-252, Oct. 2, 1869; Oct. 7,~~

1869; Brand Ouiroga , 32. In 1872 residents of Quiroga complained that "the nearby haciendas and pueblos had invaded the lands of the community to such a degree that they had been reduced to possessing presently only some solares.

~~. . " Their claim, however, is certainly overstated since they subsequently distributed larger tracts to their members. AHPEM, Morelia 4:173-252, April 26, 1872.~~

~~58 AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 4:206-225, July 24, 1902. See AHPEM, Uruapan, 15:273-274 for the 1847 agreement between the two communities.~~

~~"Ibid, July 25, 1902.~~

~~60 Ibid, July 24, 1902.~~

~~"Ibid, Nov. 25, 1902.~~

"AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2:151-173, Nov. 8, 1897; Dec. 11, 1897. The area in question can be identified on present-day maps of the region which show a large area of malpais encompassing the region around the villages on the lakeshore to the west. It is steep and very rugged terrain, perhaps the largest area of malpais in the basin.

"The government pointed out that since there was no fence between the lands of the two villages it was not surprising that cattle from Azajo sometimes crossed over into Tzirondaro's property, where they apparently grazed not only on pasture land but on planted ground as well. Once the boundaries were established the government recommended that a fence be constructed. There is nothing in the documents that reveal Azajo' s position on this matter. See AHPEM, Morelia, 12:187-354, March 27, 1903; April 7, 1903; October 21, 1904; Nov. 10, 1904; Aug. 22, 1905. Compass bearings were figured to minutes (e.g., 34° 20'), and dis- tances in meters and centimeters. Why the government did not take the opportunity to demand that the land be distributed to individuals is unknown. Presumably, the tract fell into a category of land that was exempted from reparto by the 1902 legislation (see Ch. 4.).

~~64 AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2:1-101, Nov. 7, 1898.~~

~~"AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2:1-101, Oct. 24, 1899; Oct. 26, 1899; Mar. 18, 1900. 5~~

~~191~~

~~AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2:1-101, Feb. 3, 1902.~~

~~Brand, Ouiroga , 24.~~

"According to Brand, citizens of the area in the 1930s and early 1940s were "not in agreement as to the location of the southern boundary and are guite apt to mention the Arroyo del Cerro Azul or other boundaries." Brand, Ouiroga , 24.

69 See Tzurumutaro • s reguest in AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2:106- 114, April 4, 1900, and the goverment response on April 16, 1900. Although the letter does not specify, the community probably rented the fishing rights along the shore in this area to community members, or perhaps outsiders as well, to produce the income for village expenses. The village is located on the shallow, reedy southeastern arm of the lake.

70 In 1902 local officials from Quiroga reported that small fractions remained undistributed and were used communally in Purenchecuaro, Santa Fe de la Laguna, and Tzirondaro. The report was apparently in response to a circular from the Prefectura of Morelia seeking to identify lands in the region that remained undistributed. AHPEM, Morelia, 3:1-46, Aug. 16, 1902. The results of such distributions are discussed in the next chapter.

~~"AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 10:35-105, Oct. 22, 1888.~~

72 AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2:151-173, Dec. 11, 1897. The rapidity of the changes in Lake Patzcuaro' s surface level should not be underestimated. Apparently, there were rapid and highly-visible drops in the mid-1980s, perhaps related to the earthguake that devastated Mexico City.

~~73 AHPEM, Morelia, 1:24-165, Feb. 22, 1904.~~

~~74 AHPEM, Morelia, 8:59-363, July 21, 1903; Feb. 13, 1903; March 13, 1903; Oct. 7, 1903.~~

~~7 AHPEM, Morelia, 1:24-165, Aug. 10, 1901.~~

~~76 Ibid, Aug, 23, 1901.~~

~~77 Ibid, Sept. 9, 1901.~~

78 The changing surface area of lakes no doubt happened in other areas as well as the Patzcuaro basin. The most notable example would be the draining of the Cienaga de Chapala which opened up thousands of hectares for agricultural development at about this same time. See Brigitte Boehm de Lameiras, "Peasants and Entrepreneurs in the 192

Cienaga de Chapala, Michoacan, Mexico, 1866-1910," Agricul- tural History 63:2 (Spring 1989), 62-76. In 1896 Juan Lopez Aguado began denunciation proceedings on a piece of property that had previously been covered by a small lake. When the lake disappeared about twelve hectares of land were exposed that Lopez denounced and sought to claim; Periodico Oficial 27 December 1896. .

~~CHAPTER 6~~

~~THE REPARTOS AND BASIN ECOLOGY~~

Three processes were related to the distribution of community land to private owners in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Each can be seen as an ecological process in that it was intertwined with the relationship between the basin residents and the environment. One, the role of communities of the Patzcuaro basin in resource use eroded as residents came to accept private ownership over the older communal structures. Although internal conflicts over property no doubt existed long before, the legal exter- mination of the pueblos made it necessary for villagers to turn to the state to resolve such conflicts. The state and the village, however, had different priorities for the use

~~of property and, consequently , the older, local structures gave way to those established by the state and national governments~~

Additionally, landed property declined in its capability to provide for the subsistence of basin residents as private ownership closed off access to resources. Ecologi- cal factors no longer played a role in forming the property regime. Natural resource use came to be based on legally- specified rights based on the belief that private ownership

~~193 194~~

~~would stimulate productivity. But the evidence suggests~~

~~that the users of the basin's resources found that the new~~

~~property regime with its rigid boundaries constrained their~~

~~ability to draw their subsistence from the land.~~

~~Finally, villagers who became private owners often~~

~~found that their best choice in using their property was to~~

~~part with it, now that it was unable to provide for the~~

~~necessities of life. To be sure, some residents had their~~

~~land taken from them through outright theft or fraud, but~~

~~many made the obvious decision to sell for needed cash.~~

~~With little or no land, the basin residents turned to other means to survive, such as full-time handicraft production or~~

~~selling their labor on sometimes-distant farms.~~

~~Individual Tenure and th e Erosion of Community~~

Although the change in the property regime was slow and complex, by the first decade of the twentieth century the role of the community in determining property rights had all but disappeared. Property rights were now based on individual ownership secured by the overarching authority of the government, a state of affairs sought by liberal-minded leaders for at least a century. In Michoacan the Indian pueblos had no legal standing; officially they were merely manifestations of settlement patterns, and their sovereign claims over various classes of property were weakened or subordinated to the claims of individuals, often their own members, or of the state. 195

~~Individual tenure was recognized and understood by~~

~~individual users long before it was mandated by the liberal~~

~~measures of the state and national government. As noted~~

~~above, land apportioned to villagers was sometimes "bought"~~

~~and "sold," but there is reason to believe that the trans-~~

~~fers of rights associated with such transactions were dif-~~

~~ferent from those the Liberals had in mind. The documents~~

~~make clear that villagers were willing and eager to accept~~

~~formal title to the land they used when the land distribu-~~

~~tion laws began to be applied with increased vigor after~~

~~1867. Individuals commonly asked to have their land claims~~

~~recognized by the government, both within and outside of the~~

~~context of the reparto. The residents of the basin pueblos~~

~~understood that unless they participated in the land distri-~~

~~bution, their claims to the plots they farmed individually~~

~~could be undermined or lost entirely.~~

~~Over the period of active land distribution, the~~

~~indigenas came to use the system to protect their individual~~

~~rights, in ways often at odds with the efforts of the communities. The social bond based on community tenure eroded as decisions about land use shifted from the village to the~~

~~individual. Land was allocated under terms established by the state, and families questioned community responsibilities for determining patterns of resource use within village territory. 196~~

~~The naming of the representative and reparto commis-~~

~~sion, generally the first steps in the reparto process, was~~

~~often a fairly contentious issue, with communities sometimes~~

~~divided over who should occupy these important positions.~~

~~The pueblos often complained that the representative did not~~

~~act in their best interests, on occasion granting land to~~

~~those who were not village members. The representatives, of~~

~~course, had to speak Spanish and typically were elite mem-~~

~~bers of the peasant community or were residents of nearby~~

~~cities. In many cases the role was filled by the municipal~~

~~president, but smaller villages probably lacked any individ-~~

~~uals who had the reguisite language skills or knowledge of~~

~~the Mexican legal system. Several of the communities along~~

~~the northern shore of the lake drew their representatives~~

from Quiroga, while those at the south end often chose representatives who resided in Patzcuaro. Whether they were outsiders or members of the community, the representatante generated much conflict within the community as individuals and factions broke away from the village majority when they felt their interests were threatened.

~~The representative from Tzintzuntzan in the 1880s and~~

~~1890s was an Indian named Andres Aparicio, who residents later suggested was a "puppet" of a wealthy resident of~~

~~Quiroga. 1 In 1885, a small group of Tzintzuntzenos publicly revoked the power of their representative, and declared null any contracts he completed on the community's behalf. 2 197~~

~~Aparicio was the subject of frequent complaints by villagers who believed that he alienated communal land in favor of outsiders. Similarly, Indians from the pueblo of San Andres~~

~~Tzirondaro, on the northwest shore of the lake, complained that their representative had injured their interests by~~

"alienating some parts of the tract called 'de La Virgen, 1 whose products have been destined for the cult and for repairs to the church." The village asked that a new representative, "who deserves [our] confidence," be named. 3 In

~~1880 the residents of Erongaricuaro asked that their reparto commission be removed from office "for committing many~~

~~nt abuses .~~

The disposition of the "La Virgen" tract was a particularly contentious affair for the village residents, and shows further how the repartos contributed to conflicts within the community. The property had long been used by the community to support the village church and was probably exploited communally by members carrying out their religious obligations. In order to comply with the 1902 reparto law, the village formed a commission that came up with three options for the property. First, allowing "one or more indigenas to exploit it with the condition of ceding all or or part of the product" to the object designated by the villagers, presumably the church or village expenses.

~~Second, they might sell the land outright and distribute the proceeds among the villagers or use it "for some object of 198~~

~~common utility." Third, the land might be distributed among~~

~~the Indians who had a right to it. The commission decided~~

~~on the third option, no doubt under pressure from the state,~~

~~and began the legal proceedings set out in the reparto law.~~

~~The impending reparto of La Virgen brought an immediate~~

~~protest by a group of about thirty residents who demanded~~

~~that the property not be distributed to private owners. The~~

~~reparto, they argued, was a direct threat to their church,~~

~~and they begged the governor to intervene to protect this~~

~~land as community property. The matter intensified when the~~

~~representative and head of the reparto commission arrived on~~

~~September 16, 1903. The local priest, highly-agitated over~~

~~the threats to his church's base of support, proceded to~~

~~beat and kick the unfortunate representative, Felipe Mendez,~~

~~"for a space of a half an hour," leaving him wounded and~~

~~confined to his bed. Although this state of affairs caused~~

~~"a sensation" in the village, the reparto was conducted as~~

~~reguired by the laws of 1902. 5~~

~~The land used to support the church and other religious~~

~~activities had been the focus of disamortization from the very beginning. As happened in Tzirondaro, the cofradia~~

land often caused disturbances in the villages as some members sought to use the land in traditional fashion while others were willing, perhaps eager, to carve the lands up in private property. San Pedro Pareo divided its cofradia land among village members in 1893, apparently without incident. 6 199

~~Conflicts over cofradia land suggest that the repartos~~

~~were seen as threats to the carrying out of religious obli-~~

~~gations, or cargos . As Pedro Carrasco notes,~~

~~Taking cargos is considered necessary to reach heaven:~~

. . . In Jaracuaro the cargueros wear a crown during processions and it is said that those who take no cargos have no crown, thereby diminishing their standing before God. In Tzintzuntzan it is said that the carguero who does not participate in the Saturday processions has to do so after death. 7

~~When the land laws brought the distribution of land used to~~

~~support the church, the former-community obligations became the responsibility of individuals. "Cult financing came to be done almost exclusively through personal contributions by~~

~~sponsors, and, given the changing economic order, it constituted a burden which often led to impoverishment and the~~

~~loss of land." 7 As community land ceased to be used communally for the support of the Church, individual obligations, along with individual tenure, became the norm. 5~~

~~Individuals also appealed to the government for redress of individual grievances concerning their allocated plots.~~

~~Senora Maria Ignacia Cananea complained to the governor that the representante of Tzintzuntzan had distributed lands that she and her ancestors had possessed since time immemorial.~~

~~Although she admitted that her title was "defective"~~

( defectuoso , ) she clearly believed that the land was hers, by right of occupancy and use as well as under existing law. 10 Similarly, Maria del Refugio Barajas complained that the reparto commission of Santa Ana Chapitiro had granted 200

~~ownership of lands to which she was entitled in that village~~

~~to her sister-in-law. Maria Del Refugio Barajas claimed~~

~~that as the sole heir of the original parcionero, Mariano~~

~~Barajas, she had primary rights to the land even though she~~

~~had since moved to nearby San Bartolo Pareo. To make her~~

~~case she supplied a copy of the original padron showing the~~

~~tracts granted to her father. 11~~

~~At times small groups of individuals sought title to~~

~~the lands they farmed, separately from their village. Under~~

~~the law such groups could apparently apply for a reparto~~

~~exclusive of pueblo status as long as they could convince~~

~~the authorities that they were the usufructaries of the land~~

~~in question. Since the indigenous communities had been~~

~~legally abolished in 1870s, the issue of community residence~~

~~ceased to be a requirement for the completion of a reparto.~~

~~The groups were sometimes acting in open opposition to the~~

larger village reparto, while in other cases the land appears not to have been subject to the community's distribution. A group of eleven indigenas from Tzintzuntzan complained that they had been excluded from the community reparto and provided the government with a list of the specific tracts for which they sought title. 12 In 1878 fourteen residents of Ihuatzio obtained the reparto of a tract, which they intended to sell to a large landowner named Francisco Flores. Some 123 other vecinos of the village protested the division, claiming that the land in 201

~~question had already been distributed by the community~~

~~generally sometime between 1848 and 1861. 13 Another group of~~

~~Tzintzuntzenos asked to have their titles to a monte on the~~

~~Cerro Tariaqueri ratified by the government so that they~~

~~would continue to have access to the wood, "indispensible~~

~~for the pottery industry and domestic services. 1,14~~

~~After the government imposed measures prohibiting the~~

~~sale of community lands in 1902, the documents record numer-~~

~~ous cases of individuals seeking to sell lands that they believed were their' s individually, rather than "of the~~

~~community." After lands of a village were distributed, it~~

is quite clear that individuals had no difficulting understanding ownership, at least at a basic level, as indicated by the frequency that villagers sold their lands once they had legal authority to do so. Although, as has been mentioned, there is some question about the extent to which the sale altered the residents' understanding of their rights to resources.

It also seems likely that the repartos contributed to socioeconomic differentiation as some villagers obtained tracts whose value was greater under the system of private ownership. When lands were distributed two families might be granted tracts of equal size, or equal "official" value expressed in pesos. But their use-value or value on the land market might in fact be quite different as revealed when the tracts were subsequently sold. Those with 202

~~relatively greater landed wealth were able to purchase the~~

~~properties of those whose land was insufficient to provide for family subsistence.~~

~~The conflicts discussed so far can be seen as largely~~

~~internal to the village, and suggest the extent to which~~

~~communal tenure and private ownership conflicted during this period. In an strictly legal sense, the comunidades de~~

indiaenas ceased to exist by the first decade of the twentieth century, and their formal role in property regime eroded dramatically. There were very few occasions when a reparto could be completed without disputes over property rights and resource use within the village. Although both communal and private ownership changed during this period, it would be inaccurate to say that the latter replaced the former.

Within the community, communal ownership was an important means for governing resources use, but villagers by this time had a clear understanding of what it meant to have land of their own. The liberal land measures added new elements to individual tenure, in particular the right to sell the land without approval of the community. The laws also removed from the property regime access to resources on individual tracts granted under the community system, such as grazing and gathering rights often granted during fallow period. Individual land ownership became more absolute, existing exclusive of the use to which the property was put and exclusive of community membership. 203

~~Lands that had once supplied resources to a community~~

~~now were fragmented into individual plots, sometimes of~~

~~absurdly small size, that effectively closed off access to~~

~~resources. Tracts that had been open to all community~~

~~members for part of the year became fully private domains,~~

~~fenced off both legally and physically. Most importantly,~~

~~the privatization of land changed the patterns of land use~~

~~as property became bounded by legal and ideological tenets~~

~~rather than by ecological realities.~~

~~The Degradation of Property~~

~~Thus, the repartos brought the degradation of the ecology of the Patzcuaro basin. But it was not a change in the physical landscape of the area; there was no serious~~

increase in soil erosion, deforestation, sedimentation, and the like. What was lost was the capability of the land to provide for the subsistence needs of basin residents because the new property regime had changed fundamentally the relationship between the people and natural resources. The scholarship on the effects of the land laws of this period has tended to focus on the alienation of land, and the increasing need for the peasantry to work as day laborers.

Indeed, by the time of the Revolution as much as 90 percent of Mexico's indigenous population was landless. But alienation was in many cases a manifestation of the larger problem of the land's declining capability. The Indians who had become private landowners under the reparto laws were unable 204

~~to eke out a living from their property, not because the~~

~~physical nature of the land had changed, but because their~~

~~relationship to the environment had changed.~~

~~As noted in Chapter Three, in the Patzcuaro basin~~

~~fields were sometimes sgueezed into small spaces among old~~

~~lava flows, and on two plots of the same size one tract~~

~~might be capable of producing much while the other was~~

~~capable of producing little. When the village allocated~~

~~community land to its members exclusive of state law, it was~~

~~possible to account for variations in land guality and~~

~~ensure that each family had sufficient land for its subsis-~~

~~tence. When state-mandated distribution was based primarily~~

on size, some villagers might be left relatively rich and others relatively poor, either immediately or over the long term. This was not always an issue with the tierras de repartimiento, which were often distributed based on older, village specifications. Communities that were relatively land rich could distribute one or more tracts to individual families such that each had land sufficient for basic subsistence. But communally-used lands divided in such a way, with absolute measurements, reflected shifts in resource use and control since resources were not distributed evenly over a given tract or within a particular territory.

~~In 1893 Maria Fernandez of Purenchecuaro sold her seven cuarterones of land for a mere fourteen pesos, while Maria~~

~~Marta Salvador of Tzirondaro sold her tract of five 205~~

~~cuarterones the same year for forty pesos. The difference~~

~~in price appears to be that the former included " una parte~~

~~montuosa . " In the village system, the Fernandez property~~

~~might have been sufficient for family subsistence being rich~~

~~in wood or other resources that could be traded or sold.~~

~~But buyers may have been interested only in the potential~~

~~for producing corn and wheat, which resulted in the higher~~

~~price for the smaller, but higher-quality, tract. The point~~

~~here is that even when the state recognized the old,~~

~~village-controlled tract boundaries, the market for land~~

~~could have an important impact on a family's wealth if and~~

~~when the land was sold. It is possible to imagine that, in~~

~~the above example, Fernandez came away impoverished compared~~

~~to Salvador, despite the fact that they may have been rela-~~

~~tively egual before their tracts were sold. 15~~

~~It is also possible that the land's use value declined~~

~~as its boundaries became fixed and its ownership became more~~

absolute. The value of land that previously had been used communally was a function of the availability of resources that could be exploited by the village members. But resources were scattered unevenly across a tract, and some parts of the tract might be rich in a particular resource, while other parts were barren. Further, some resources such as honey or turpentine might only be exploited effectively when they could be collected from a large area, often by the community as a group. A small plot with fixed boundaries .

~~206~~

~~simply does not yield enough of such resources to make their~~

~~extraction worth the effort for an individual owner, whereas~~

~~a buyer might be able to assemble a number of such plots~~

~~into a tract large enough to make resource exploitation viable. A small tract might provide grazing for a few head~~

~~of cattle, but the problem arises of keeping the cattle~~

~~contained. Under the community-controlled system, such~~

conflicts could be mediated locally, or prevented entirely, by having communal pasture separate from farm plots. Most communities in the basin had one or more communal pastures, which became subject to the repartos when state laws after

~~1902 called for their distribution. Dividing a pasture among individual owners, however, made it necessary to build~~

~~fences and walls, a task hardly worth the effort for one or two cows. The best option might be simply to sell the land to a neighbor or an outsider, especially if the plot was small~~

When the state decreed that community land be distributed among individuals it made no provision for the vari- ability in land quality other than a vague notion about equitable distribution. Such decisions generally were left to the reparto commissions established in each community.

~~Consequently, tracts of equal size were sometimes carved out of the community's land base that often left families with small plots of little agricultural value. The tiny tract of~~

~~La Virgen in Tzirondaro was distributed to some 356 207 parcioneros, each receiving a plot of just over seventy-five~~

~~square meters, essentially worthless for agriculture or~~

~~other resource exploitation. 16 The village had complied with the letter of the law and protected itself from denunciation, but had left individual families with insufficient~~

~~land for basic subsistence. The problem of miniscule tracts was experienced at many communities in the basin, and was expressed by the residents of nearby San Geronimo~~

Purenchecuaro who complained that "the lands of our properties are in general of poor class and we sow them in small fractions distributed among all the indigenas to the degree that the harvest of maize raised on each one does not cover the consumption of the family." 7 Similarly, in 1906 the government was apparently pressing Erongaricuaro to complete the reparto of their remaining community land. The village pointed out that all that was left was land that "serves as the woodlot for the pueblo," which, when distributed, would leave each parcionero with "a small fraction of very meager

~~value, that could never provide the resources for . . . life." 18~~

Even in cases where relatively large tracts were distributed, the growth of the extended family would eventually partition the land further. Before the land laws, when villages controlled land distribution and use, there were communal mechanisms for dealing with changing families circumstances. Additional monte could be apportioned, or 208

~~families that declined in size could have their allotment~~

~~reduced. The boundaries of individual plots were thus~~

~~flexible over the long term, and communal land could be~~

~~distributed, or not, as conditions warranted.~~

~~Such flexibility was lost when the state eliminated~~

~~community control and solidified the boundaries around~~

~~individual plots. A rising population combined with the new~~

~~property regime to inhibit the ability of the basin environment to provide for the subsistence of residents in some~~

~~communities. Although population figures for the basin are~~

~~sketchy, it appears that the three pueblos on the northern~~

~~end of the lake more than doubled in size between 1822 and~~

~~1905. Other basin pueblos showed similar growth and some had less dramatic population increases. A few, however, may have declined in population, notably Tzintzuntzan. Conse-~~

~~quently, population pressure alone is an insufficient expla-~~

~~nation for the problems on the land in the basin. Although~~

~~the northernmost pueblos of Purenchecuaro, Tzirondaro, and~~

~~Santa Fe experienced considerable land alienation, communities such as Tzintzuntzan and Erongaricuaro did as well, but~~

~~lacked the dramatic population increases. 19~~

Still, the documents show that within one or two generations of a reparto, the heirs of the original parcionero often sold their inheritance, suggesting that it could no longer support the larger extended family. Paul in Lopez left a tract near Tzintzuntzan of less than one-third 209 hectare to his son Pedro and nephew Pablo; in 1893, the cousins sold the small plot for twelve pesos. The brothers

~~Santos and Librado Lira sold a plot of about three-quarters of a hectare in 1897 that they had inherited from their father, a parcionero of Tzintzuntzan. Similarly, in 1911~~

~~Anastasio, Francisco, and Juan Candelarios sold a small~~

~~"fraction" of land in Huecorio inherited from their grandfa- ther who had died eighteen years before. In the same year~~

~~Margarita, Avelina, and Tomas Talavera sold for thirty pesos a tract "acquired by inheritance from their late father~~

~~Quirino Talavera, who acquired it as a parcionero of the extinguished community of the mentioned pueblo of~~

Zurumutaro. 1120 Each of these tracts might have been able to support the original owner and his family, but it is unlikely that the heirs, now with families of their own, could eke out a living from such small plots. Selling became the best option for properties whose value in terms of providing subsistence declined or disappeared as the families grew.

On the other hand, the land's value as a commodity made it worth more to the owners when a willing buyer offered cash in exchange. Most of the tracts sold were quite small, and given that many were divided among various related families, they had little value in terms of use for subsistence. The largest plot sold by an indigena in 1893 was one-half fanega, or less than two hectares. Most, however, were smaller than one hectare; one " terreno de labor " sold in 210

~~1897 was only two liters or under eight hundred square~~

~~meters. 21~~

~~Privatization also meant a loss of access to and con-~~

~~trol over property for villages. Ihuatzio's residents, for~~

~~example, were incensed when a private entrepreneur opened a~~

~~road across the village's land to transport wood harvested~~

~~on the Cerro Tariaqueri to the lakeshore. 22 A large land-~~

~~owner apparently built a road across the planted fields of~~

the villagers of Tzirondaro in 1903, and the traffic of mules and carts destroyed some five cargas of the farmers' wheat. 23 On the other hand, Santa Fe complained about a private owner who intended to close a road that the commu-

~~nity used, and erect a fence around his "small property"~~

~~such that the villagers would be denied access to resources they had previously used. 24 As part of their long dispute,~~

~~Quiroga and Tzintzuntzan grappled over the rights to con-~~

struct roads and bridges giving access to resources in the disputed area. The Tzintzuntzehos argued that the "puente de Quiroga" over the bordering arroyo opened up their lands to use by outsiders. The value of their land was thus diminished for their own uses. 25

~~All of these examples represent a reduction in the capability of the environment to satisfy a particular use.~~

Although the physical landscape did not change dramatically, the conditions under which the resources of the basin could be used was altered in fundamental ways by the action of the state, or by those taking advantage of the state-mandated measures. Community control over resource use fell away and the individual proprietor became the nearly-sole decision maker on resource use issues. But the primary resource use activities were constrained by the declining ability of the environment to provide sufficient resources for family subsistence. Residents of the basin had to change their means of production in order to survive. As the sixty-two family heads of Cucuchucho pointed out in 1869, their "lands are so insignificant and of such little productivity that

~~[we] have to go outside in search of lands to rent. . .~~

~~The Process of La nd Alienation~~

Much of this study has dealt with ecological decision making, identifying the levels at which resource use decisions are made, from the individual to the state. For many in the basin, a basic decision was whether keeping their land was necessary, or even possible. Early in this period it might have been possible for individuals to find land available to rent, as indicated by the statement of the residents of Cucuchucho mentioned above. But as time pro- gressed, selling the property they had received in their reparto became increasingly common for the indigenas of the basin pueblos. Arguably, the decision to sell one's land had important implications for the individual's relationship

~~with the environment, and, conseguently , for the larger ecology of the region. It seems likely that by this time 212~~

~~the Indians understood that they were yielding all rights to~~

~~their property. The documents recording the transaction~~

~~were unambiguous; the seller generally granted to the buyer~~

~~"full ownership" and agreed to give up all uses of the~~

~~property "in a manner perpetual and irrevocable." Only when~~

~~the contracts specified such did the seller retain any~~

~~rights to use or repurchase the property. We must attempt~~

~~to answer, first, the basic question of why a decision of~~

~~such import was made and, second, how such a transaction was~~

~~carried out. The first part of the question is the more~~

~~difficult one. In the documents recording the land transac-~~

~~tions of the period there are seldom overt statements of why~~

~~an individual chose to sell his or her tract. We may,~~

~~however, conjecture about the motives for what appears, on~~

~~the surface, to be a dramatic change in lifeways.~~

~~The new form given to the property rights regime became~~

~~ecologically important because, among other reasons, it~~

~~facilitated the buying and selling of land—the transfer of property rights from one owner to another that had been~~

~~impossible, or at least difficult, under the former~~

~~community-based system. By 1902 the land laws of Michoacan~~

~~officially prohibited the Indians from selling the land they had received in their village repartos. Consistent with~~

liberal ideals, the government wanted land that was distributed to individuals to remain as small, proprietary farms, and the state promulgated a circular detailing the prohibi- 213 tion of the sales of the village lands. 27 But for reasons explained above, the Indians sought to sell their land and there were freguent reguests to the government for permission to sell the distributed tracts.

~~Land, of course, had been changing hands in one form or another for centuries, perhaps even in prehispanic times.~~

But the laws of the Liberal government of the Mexican republic gave such transfers a new character by the end of the nineteenth century. There were two methods by which land could be transferred legally within the context of the land laws of this period. First, a tract could be denounced as baldio and purchased from the government at auction. Such denunciation was aimed primarily at unclaimed land or undistributed community property, and generally was imposed over any claims that might exist. The second method was the outright sale by an individual who had received the land in the reparto process. The selling of land can be seen as a response to the new property regime that was established by the national and state governments.

Although fear of denunciation no doubt influenced many villages' decisions to distribute their lands to private owners, it appears that relatively little land was auctioned off as baldio in Michoacan. There were only a few cases registered in the official periodical, as reguired under the law, and most did not take place within the Patzcuaro basin.

~~Although it might be argued that basin communities 214~~

~~effectively headed off the denunciation of their lands~~

~~through private distribution, it seems more likely that~~

~~there was little interest in basin lands by the local land-~~

~~owners, who generally sought large tracts for commercial~~

~~agriculture or stockraising. Further, the survey companies that operated during the Porfiriato concentrated their~~

~~efforts in those states with great expanses of land useful~~

~~for commercial enterprises; they generally ignored~~

~~Michoacan. 29~~

~~On the other hand, Indians frequently sold tracts that they had received themselves through repartos of community lands, or that they had inherited from parents who were~~

~~first generation parcioneros. When land titles or sales were recorded in the state property registry the original owner was required to state how the land had been acquired.~~

~~Most often such transactions noted that the property had been acquired "by inheritance" or "as an indigena of the ex-~~

community of. . ." . From the 1890s up to the Revolution, hundreds of land transactions are recorded in which Indians of Lake Patzcuaro villages sold their lands for cash. The outright sale appears common in which an Indian landowner gave up his or her rights to the property, received a cash payment, and often walked away landless.

~~The vast majority of the properties sold were originally acquired in the repartos, either by the sellers themselves or their parents. 29 The records show that sales beqan 215~~

~~immediately after lands were distributed to individuals. In~~

fact, as noted above, some groups of Indians asked for a reparto to be conducted in order to facilitate the sale of the property. Families sometimes held on to properties for considerable periods after the reparto had taken place before agreeing to a sale. We may assume, also, that some families never sold their lands, especially their houselots in the old fundo legal, which may have been retained up to the present day.

~~The use value of a property is also closely related to the life circumstances of the individual owner, which may change within or across generations. Juan, Anastacio, and~~

~~Guadalupe Perez received a tract in the reparto of~~

~~Purenchecuaro, but sold it in 1897. The sales contract~~

" " noted that the brothers were comerciantes ambulantes f traveling tradesmen; they obviously had little use for the hectare or so of pasture land. On the other hand, the forty pesos they received for the tract no doubt provided working capital for their commercial enterprise. 30

Fishermen generally could ply the open waters of the lake that were considered under national jurisdiction, but having shore areas was probably a necessity for professionals in the trade. Since nets, often long seines, were used widely by this time the fishermen needed areas for boatwork, net repair, fish drying, and other related activities.

~~There are a number of cases in which land along lake edges 216 was sold by fishermen, presumably those who left the profes-~~

~~sion for one reason or another. In 1900 Severiano Hernandez~~

~~sold a "bank with water for fishing" on the island of~~

~~"Llunuan" (Yuenen) for sixteen pesos. The property apparently ran along the western edge of the island for some eighteen meters, but its depth is not given. 31 Similarly,~~

Maria Fernanda Medrano, an indigena of Tzintzuntzan, sold the lakeshore site inherited from her father to the fisher- man Narciso Picho in 1896 for twenty-seven pesos. Since women did not routinely engage in fishing as a profession, the land probably had little use value for Medrano. 32

~~At the bottom of most of these transactions was the obvious need for money, especially as the economy shifted from older systems of barter to a greater cash orientation.~~

Maria Ricarda Melchor had inherited a tract of land on the lakeshore from her father, an indigena of Tzintzuntzan. But in 1907 she said that her "meager resources" forced her to sell the property. 33 Similarly, a parcionero of

~~Purenchecuaro sought to sell his two tracts because of~~

"having to cover urgent family necessities." 34 On a few occasions, a village itself had to sell some of its land before distribution to cover community expenses. At some point before 1880 the indigenous community of Quiroga was involved in a costly legal conflict with the hacienda of

~~Tecacho and was forced to sell some of its land to pay for the litigation. 35 217~~

~~Taxes, in particular, were a concern in the years after~~

~~the land had been distributed. As noted above, land sub-~~

~~jected to a reparto was exempt from taxes for a period of~~

~~six years under the terms of the Michoacan state land laws.~~

~~After the exemption ran out, the landowners were required to~~

~~begin paying land taxes, a levy that was often beyond the~~

~~financial reach of many of the Patzcuaro basin villagers.~~

~~While some landowners may have had sufficient land for~~

~~subsistence, that does not mean that their tracts could~~

~~produce a surplus for sale. Unable to produce cash to pay~~

~~their taxes, the best, perhaps only, option was to sell.~~

~~Properties alienated during this period were sold to~~

~~many buyers, although there were a few who appeared to have~~

~~assembled relatively large holdings. On occasion, buyers~~

~~purchased a number of small tracts and assembled a larger~~

~~property within a relatively short time; indeed, on more~~

~~than one occasion, groups arranged the reparto of their land~~

~~and then sold their individual tracts en masse to a single buyer. On other occasions, however, buyers assembled their tracts over a number of years, purchasing individual tracts~~

from the parcioneros or their heirs. As noted previously, the Patzcuaro basin was not characterized by the vast landholdings found in other parts of Mexico. So, while some individuals did assemble relatively large tracts, they could be measured in, at most, dozens of hectares. The motives for purchases probably included extraction, agriculture, 218 stockraising, speculation, or some combination of these.

~~The commercial agriculturalist Florentino Fraga bought lands and assembled a tract near Ihatzio probably for growing corn and wheat. On the other hand, the businessman Ignacio~~

~~Corona bought at least thirty such tracts between 1890 and~~

1907 from the indigenas of Erongaricuaro, apparently as commercial investments. He clearly was not interested in farming exclusively since the tracts included not only farmland, but pastures, woodlands, and house lots. 36 Both of

~~these buyers were local , as were most others during this period, with only an occasional property being sold to someone from outside the region.~~

But, it should be pointed out that not all of the buyers were local Creole or mestizo elites as Indians made up a large proportion of those acquiring land through purchase during this period. In such purchases, however, there probably was little change in the use to which the land was put. When Ricardo Yacata bought a lot on the island of

~~Jaracuaro from the hatmaker Feliciano Tomas, the buyer probably continued to use it as the original owner had.~~

~~Similarly, Domingo Quirino, an illiterate day laborer, managed to obtain sixteen pesos to buy a small plot in~~

~~Cucucucho from Josefa Ygnacia, a second-generation parcionera of that village. 37 These are but two of many such cases where the buyer of a property can be clearly identi-~~

~~fied as an indigena from a basin village. 219~~

Further, sales contracts sometimes included a " pacto de retroventa " in which the seller could repurchase the property within a few years paying a specified higher price to reclaim his or her land. During the term of the contract, the seller could pay rent and continue to use the land, giving the transaction the character of a mortgage. At the end of the period, usually five years, if the seller could pay off the specified repurchase price, he would be able to retain his ownership in the land. 38

It would be wrong, then, to see the land laws as leading directly and rapidly to the alienation of formerly- village property. Indians were common purchasers of individual properties during early part of this period, and were able to acquire land they lacked or to supplement lands they had received themselves in the reparto process. What becomes evident in the two decades or so before the Revolu- tion, is that more lands were sold that had been acquired originally by purchase rather than in a reparto or by inheritance from a first-generation parcionero. Thus, land alienation in many cases came in two stages. First, the first-generation parcionero or his heirs sold the land to another villager. Subsequently, the buyer sold the property to someone from outside. One might suppose that this process would have intensified had the Revolution not disrupted the economic patterns in the region. 220

Land alienation can be seen as an ecological decision related to the declining capability of the environment to provide subsistence under the new political and economic conditions. Given the hundreds of land transactions recorded during this period, it seems clear that much of the landlessness often attributed to illegal alienation was in fact a logical decision given the circumstances in the basin.

There were, of course, numerous examples of outright usurpation and fraud perpetrated on the indigenous residents of the region. Both Brand and Foster report that during their research in the 1930s and 1940s, villagers recounted examples of land being usurped by individuals who obtained land by unscrupulous means.

The residents of Tzintzuntzan, in particular, seem to have lost considerable land in what was know as the "first usurpation" in the 1880s, and the "second usurpation" after the turn of the century. Although folk memory may exaggerate the extent of outright land theft, the documents do show that many of the land transactions were conducted by the village representative, Andres Aparicio, an individual who generated much dissent among the Tzintzuntzenos. The village's land on the Cerro de Tariaqueri was sold or distributed to outsiders "without our consent," according to a

39 group from the community in 1903 . Documents and reports indicated that Aparicio and other representatives bypassed the distribution of village lands to members, and sold directly to outsiders from the larger towns, especially

~~Patzcuaro and Quiroga. Even after a reparto had been conducted, the representative sometimes adjudicated land to someone other than the original claimant. A villager of~~

~~Chapitiro complained that the representative adjudicated a tract that his mother still occupied. 40 Leon Juan Couto of~~

~~Tzirondaro provided documentary evidence of his ownership since 1811 of a tract in the area known as Curecuaro to prevent it from being distributed in a 1908 reparto. 41~~

Far less common were cases in which hacendados usurped village lands. The documents reviewed here revealed few cases in which villagers complained about outright usurpation of land by nearby haciendas. One case was identified in which the residents of Puacuaro complained that the owner of the hacienda of Napizaro had denied them the use of the woodlot and pastures that they had used for many years. 42

And the indigenas sometimes grappled over land with nearby ranchos as reported above. But generally, the lack of interest in hacienda agriculture and stockraising prevented these conflicts which were characteristic of other parts of

~~Mexico during this period.~~

Unfortunately, it is impossible to construct a complete land-loss record for the Patzcuaro basin during this period as the documentary record is far too fragmentary. Neverthe- less, it appears that most lands that passed from Indian )

~~222 ownership during this period did so through sale. Under the circumstances selling their land was a logical decision, rather than a case of theft.~~

~~Conclusion~~

~~Regardless of how landed property changed hands during this period, it is clear that by the second decade of the twentieth century most of the indigenous residents of the~~

Patzcuaro basin had become peones del campo f with little or no land. Those who retained their property had small tracts of little agricultural value; many were left with only a house lot in the village center. Subsistence agriculture as a full-time occuption diminished in the basin as the peasantry turned to other sources to provide for the necessities of life.

In the documents recording land transactions, most of the buyers were listed as agriculturalists, who as a group were relatively small in number and came to control much of the land. For the two pertinent regions, Quiroga and

~~Patzcuaro, there were only a total of 219 agricultores in~~

the 1900 census. Comerciantes , merchants and the like, were also freguent purchasers of land, although they more often bought non-agricultural properties. On the other hand, sellers were generally those listed by a full-time craft

~~profession or as day laborers ( jornaleros and labradores .~~

~~These individuals came from the much larger group of "peons" that numbered over eight thousand at the time." 223~~

~~Although handicraft production had always been used to~~

supplement family income, by the early twentieth century villagers expanded their part-time production of ceramics, petates, and woodwork into the cottage industries that have come to characterize the basin villages. It is evident from the sales contracts of the first decade of the twentieth

~~century that many of the indigenous sellers were listed as having some profession, suggesting that they were not solely peasants who worked the land. 44 For properties in the vil-~~

~~lages along the north edge of the lake, sellers were often~~

~~listed as potters, woodworkers, and petate weavers. Each needed access to resources, but it is unlikely that the plots they received in village repartos always provided such~~

~~resources in sufficient quantity, if at all. Further, clay, wood, and tule reeds could be bought readily by this time,~~

~~so having communal or individual access to such raw materi-~~

~~als was not strictly necessary. Although it cannot be said with certainty that the changes in land tenure were the sole~~

~~cause of the expansion of handicraft production, it is clear that many former subsistence farmers turned to crafts during the period of these changes. 45~~

~~In the last fifty years of the nineteenth century the vast majority of the Indian population of Mexico became~~

laborers, either tied to a commercial agricultural enterprise or hired on a daily wage, the latter more common in the Patzcuaro basin. About 75 percent of the family heads 224 were day laborers in 1910, working on the haciendas and ranchos to which they travelled once or twice a week.

Typically, the jornalero earned thirty-seven to fifty centavos daily, a figure probably insufficient to provide for a family of five.' 6 They continued to rely on their kitchen gardens and supplementary work in crafts.

~~As noted previously, haciendas were not characteristic of the basin, but a few did expand into the lake zone or nearby during the nineteenth century, notably Ibarra,~~

Tecolote, and Chapultepec toward the south side of the lake, and Bellas Fuentes to the north. Tzurumutaro, just northeast of Patzcuaro city, had an indigenous community but has also been idenfied as a hacienda. This may have been one of the few instances in the basin of a village of laborers resident on a hacienda, known as acasillados . According to

West, the southern haciendas had a closer relationship with the pueblos near Patzcuaro city, which accounts for the more-rapid decline of Tarascan monoligualism and other cultural elements among the south shore villages. 47

~~More common in the basin, and throughout the Michoacan~~

Tarascan zone, were ranchos, small to middle sized farms of at least ten hectares and employing several to several-dozen laborers; often all labor was provided by the owner and his family. Many of these ranchos were formed out of the properties acquired from the villagers, some were no doubt owned by Tarascans who had acquired properties from their 225 neighbors. Michoacan had the second highest number of such properties of all the states in 1910 with 4,138 according to census figures. Only Jalisco, just to the north of

Michoacan, had more ranchos. The prevalence of ranchos in this area is not surprising, for, as McBride notes, "the hilly districts where tillable ground is found in small, widely separated plots do not lend themselves to the formation of haciendas but are generally occupied by ranchos." 48

Thus, the Tarascan peasants of the Patzcuaro basin came to have a less-direct relationship with the environment in which they lived. Whereas previously they had consumed most of what they produced, or traded it with their neighbors, they now sold their labor or the goods they manufactured in their homes. They were no longer relatively independent farmers, but laborers dependent on wages and markets over which they had no control. The landholding pueblo declined in its role of providing a structure for the exploitation of resources; it often remained only as a geographic expression of settlement or a center for social life.

~~Notes~~

~~'Foster, Empire's Children , 172.~~

~~2 Periodico Oficial (Aug. 5, 1885), 4.~~

3 AHPEM, Morel ia, 12, July 6, 1903; This case is discussed further below. See also £Q, 25 April 1885, page 4; and AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 12:93-113 for a case in which the village's representative improperly cut trees on the community's lands.

~~'AHPEM, Zacapu, 1:286-300. .~~

~~226~~

~~5AHPEM, Morelia, 12:187-354, July 18, 1903. The list of those who paid their fees (Ibid, July 31, 1903) shows that the lots were distributed to family heads.~~

~~6 AHPEM, Morelia, 35:234-279, Aug. 29, 1893.~~

~~'Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion: An Analysis of~~

~~Economic , Social and Religious Interactions f (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, Tulane, 1952), 47.~~

~~8 Ibid, 57.~~

'This situation is bound up with the whole issue of the separation of church and state fomented under Liberal government. Under colonial rule, possibly in prehispanic times as well, religion and government were connected, with civil leadership often occupying the important lay religious posts. In the nineteenth century, the position of the Church eroded along with the community, which had implications for all aspects of folk culture and the property regime. See Carrasco, Tarascan Folk Religion : and Marjorie Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire: Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan Peasants, and the Redemption of the Mexican Revo- lution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)

~~10 AHPEM, Morelia, 8, Sept. 19, 1903.~~

~~;1 AHPEM, Morelia, 35:359-377, March 15, 1898.~~

~~12 AHPEM, Morelia, 8, May 8, 1903.~~

13 AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2, May 17, 1882; see also the case of some thirty-five indigenas of Quiroga who sought the lands they claimed to possess " en comun ," apparently separately from the rest of the village, AHPEM, Morelia, 3, July 10, 1873.

~~14 AHPEM, Morelia, 8:59-363, April 27, 1907.~~

~~15 AHN, Escrituras Privadas . Quiroga, April 14, 1893, April 28, 1893.~~

~~16AHPEM, Morelia, 12:187-354, July 18, 1903.~~

~~17 AHPEM, Morelia, 5:194-282, March 12, 1880.~~

~~18 AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 4:206-224, July 18, 1906.~~

~~19 For population figures for 1822 see Juan Jose Martinez de Lejarza, Analisis Estadlstico de la Provincia de~~

~~Michuacan en 1822 (Morelia: Fimax, 1974) ; for 1905 see the national census for that year. " "~~

~~227~~

20 Escrituras Privadas (1893) Primo Serrania, Quiroga records the Lopez transaction. For the Lira sale see EE (1897) Quiroga. For the Candelarios case, Reaistro Publico (29) #1722, April 7, 1911, the plot was only ninety meters in length and of indeterminate width because of its "irregular" form. Its selling price of ten pesos suggests its small size. The Talavera case is found in RE (30) #1868, Aug. 20, 1911. See also the Ellas transaction, recorded in EE (31) #2014, Feb. 10, 1894. This sale took place more than a decade before the official reparto date for Erongaricuaro of 1906, suggesting once again the drawn-out process that characterized many of the village repartos in the basin.

~~21 Escrituras Privadas . June 26, 1897. These figures refer to properties other than house lots, or solares , which were routinely measured in sguare meters or varas .~~

"AHPEM, Patzcuaro, 2, Nov. 9, 1900. By this time the steamship was operating on the lake and it is likely that the railroad ties were being brought to a wharf for shipment to a railroad construction site. The letter suggests that the land on which the wood was being harvested belonged to Tzintzuntzan, only the road was at issue for Ihuatzio.

~~23 AHPEM, Morelia, 12:187-354, July 25, 1903.~~

24 AHPEM, Morelia, 1:24-165, Feb. 22, 1904. See also the similar case in which Quiroga complained in 1873 about the renter of their land who "installed two gates on the road that crosses the property," in AHPEM, Morelia, 35:1-32.

~~"AHPEM, Morelia, 8:59-363, Jan. 9, 1878.~~

~~"AHPEM, Morelia, 35:199-200, March 11, 1869.~~

~~27 AHPEM , Morelia, 20:198-233, "Circular No. 19 r Relativa a las prohibicion para vender bienes de las extinauidas comunidades indlgenas. Ano 1902.~~

~~28 See Robert Holden, Mexico and the Survey of Public Lands: The Management of Modernization, 1876-1911 (DeKalb,~~

IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994) . The Peri- odico Oficial (111:134) March 19, 1880 records a denunciation for the "Cerro de Ojo de Agua" located to the west of Erongaricuaro. The legal notice provided little additional information other than that the land was "purely of monte . There were no subseguent notices of challenges to the denunciation, as seen in other cases, by residents of nearby communities, such as Huandacareo (AHPEM, Morelia, 2:1-29) and Chucandiro (Ibid, 63:127). 228

"There does not appear to be a complete run of records for land sales during this period, but notaries recorded many hundred such transfers in the decades before the Revo- lution. Not all of the transactions involved lands distributed in the repartos. In 1893 perhaps five percent of the lands sold had been acquired by purchase. See AHN, Escri- turas Privadas. Primo Serrania, Quiroga, 1893.

~~30 Escrituras Privadas Quiroga, April 11, 1897. r~~

~~31 AHN, Registro Publico (1911), #1827, March 27, 1906.~~

" Escrituras Privadas (1896), July 30, 1896. In the Medrano sale, the buyer, Picho, was from "La Vuelta," the region along the lakeshore west of Tzintzuntzan, an area with a strong fishing tradition, according to Foster.

~~33 AHPEM, Morelia, 8:59-363, Feb. 26, 1907.~~

~~34 AHPEM, Morelia, 1:1-23, Aug. 14, 1906.~~

~~35 AHPEM , Morelia, 3:207-296, July 13, 1880.~~

~~36A11 of Corona's transactions are found in Registro Publico (30), 1911, Patzcuaro.~~

~~37 Reaistro Publico (30) #1942, Oct. 22, 1910; BE (29) #1773, Aug. 2, 1904.~~

38 How often sellers were able to repurchase their lands in such a transaction is unknown. The documents do not contain any records of such repurchases. Most such transactions came on the eve of the revolution, and subsequent land reform probably effectively voided these arrangements.

39 See AHN, Escrituras Publicas . 1896 and 1897 for examples of sales conducted by Aparicio, and AHPEM, Morelia, 8, May 18, 1903. Although acting as the agent of the village, Aparicio was the subject of attempts by some in the community to reject him in this role, as noted previously. See also Foster's account in Empire's Children , 171-173, which is based on interviews conducted in the early 1940s, and may exaggerate the extent to which lands were illegally taken.

~~"AHPEM, Morelia, 35:359-377, Feb. 2, 1898.~~

~~41AHPEM, Morelia, 12:187-344, Aug. 22, 1908.~~

~~42 AHPEM, Morelia, 35:381-391, May 1, 1869. "~~

~~229~~

"Secretaria de Fomento, Colonizacion e Industria, "Division Territorial de la Repiiblica Mexicana formada con los datos del Censo Verificado el 28 de Octubre de 1900, Estado de Michoacan," 1905, 50-51, 198-199.

~~"Women, it should be noted, were routinely listed in sales documents as having no profession "because of her sex.~~

~~"See West's analysis of Tarascan handicrafts (56-71,) and Brand (166-188.)~~

~~"Enrique Florescano, Historia General de Michoacan (Morelia: Instituto Michoacano de Cultura, 1989), 112.~~

,7 There were some 380 haciendas in the entire state of Michoacan in 1910, but most were found in the flatter areas of the tierra caliente or to the northeast and the fertile Bajio region. See George M. McBride, The Land Systems of Mexico (New York: American Geographical Society, 1923), 78, 140-142.

~~"McBride, 99. CHAPTER 7~~

~~CONCLUSION~~

By the nineteenth century the property regime was an amalgam blended from indigenous lifeways, European institutions, and local environmental conditions. Basin ecology evolved under conditions in which imperial structures,

Tarascan then Spanish, imposed to a considerable degree the rights and rules by which resources were exploited. There seems little doubt that Tarascan peasants understood Euro- pean concepts of land ownership and use. Indeed, as in most of Mexico, the Indian villages themselves were often created by the Spanish colonial government and most aspects of local culture gradually incorporated American and European elements. Most important for this investigation, the local understanding of property was crafted in the context of the larger political economy, and provided in large measure the means by which the state impacted upon the local ecology.

This study has shown that in the Patzcuaro basin individuals had long held a proprietary interest in the land they used. At the same time, the collective utilization of resources was basic to Tarascan folk culture. Collective and individual tenure were compatable in the basin and shaded into each other in ways that were determined in large

~~230 231~~

~~measure by the particular conditions of the lake zone. What~~

~~has been called "communal" property was, therefore, a com-~~

~~plex system that should not be characterized in a one-dimen-~~

~~sional way, as the literature has often done. Nevertheless,~~

~~community membership was a fundamental part of Tarascan~~

~~life, and the subsistence of the basin residents depended on~~

~~collective or communal structures and institutions for the~~

~~utilization of resources in the lake zone.~~

~~According to the literature, in the nineteenth century~~

~~land ceased to be "communally" owned and became "privately"~~

~~owned. But this study suggests that it would be wrong to~~

~~see the adoption of the Liberal property regime as an "at-~~

~~tack" on communal tenure. Rather, liberal ideology fostered~~

~~an alteration in the complicated system for using, maintain-~~

~~ing, and controlling resources that incorporated collective tenure and individual usufruct.~~

~~On a political level, it was not national government~~

~~action that had the primary direct impact on the property~~

~~regime in the Patzcuaro basin, but that of Michoacan state.~~

~~In 1856 the Reforma government sought to reduce community~~

~~land essentially to the ejido and fondo legal. Rulings~~

~~later in the year reaffirmed the distribution of all land outside the communally-used properties of the pueblos,~~

~~including the tierras de repartimiento. For the national government, then, an Indian community could continue to exist with communal resources still available to the 232~~

~~villagers, as long as apportioned or rented lands were~~

~~distributed under the terms of the national measures.~~

~~Although the Constitution of 1857 failed to include a provi-~~

~~sion for the ejido, various rulings and decrees suggested~~

~~that users of the lands had first claims to them, which~~

~~often would seem to favor the Indians.~~

~~It was only with the restoration of the Mexican Repub-~~

~~lic in 1867 that the long-sought distribution of communal~~

~~property would begin in the Patzcuaro basin. Michoacan~~

~~state officials sought to encourage privatization at the~~

~~expense of village landholding by first intensifying its~~

~~demands that the repartos take place. Then, in an unprece-~~

~~dented step, the state ordered that the Indian communities~~

~~be legally extinguished. Finally, in 1902, the state pro-~~

~~mulgated a law that brought together and strengthened many~~

~~of the earlier measures and specified the means for removing~~

~~the ejido and fondo legal from community control.~~

~~As Charles Berry found for Oaxaca, the Michoacan expe-~~

~~rience differs in many ways from the general picture out-~~

~~lined for Mexico. It seems likely that further research~~

~~will show that the impact of these changes in the property~~

~~regime was diverse across space and time. We can say that~~

~~the ideological currents of the nineteenth century clearly~~

informed the effort to change the system of property in the basin, but the process was complicated by local-level social and environmental factors, such as the lack of large-scale 233 commercial agriculture in the Patzcuaro basin and the presence of the lake with its fisheries and other resources.

~~This study has emphasized that the changes discussed were part of the long-term ecological evolution of the basin. Since at least the fourteenth century, various~~

~~formal structures and systems have governed the use of basin~~

resources by resident human populations. When the land tenure changes came in the late nineteenth century, conceptions of sovereignty and individual rights changed. Commu- nity sovereignty eroded to a great degree and individual ownership was strengthened as villagers took advantage of official measures for formalizing their rights to land in the basin. Scholars have routinely focussed on the issue of land alienation during this period, the idea being that

Indians lost their land when this shift from communal to private ownership took place. But given that some form of individual usufruct existed long before the liberal land laws, the greater issue is that the privatization of tenure changed the patterns of land use. Access to resources was lost and land that might have had use value in the old community-based system became worthless in a regime where property was bounded by legal and ideological tenets rather than ecological realities.

~~The repartos fostered tensions in the basin both within and between the communities. The evidence indicates that land distribution was often seen as a threat to community 234~~

~~sovereignty. Villages argued over tracts that they believed~~

~~belonged to their members, and called upon the state to~~

~~resolve what were most often boundary disputes. The problem~~

~~was that the land laws required rigid boundaries in order to~~

~~distribute tracts to individuals. Communities, on the other~~

~~hand, were more concerned with usufruct, and in the absence of conflicts over resources, seldom concerned themselves with highly-specific borders between territories. Simi-~~

larly, individuals squabbled over tracts that they claimed by right of community membership and long-term use or occupation. Clearly, individuals were willing and eager to accept formal title to their tracts and turned to the government for support of their claims.

Although there appeared to be some disputes between communities and the state government, there was mimimal active resistance to the repartos by the early twentieth century. Villages and their members seemed to accept the new property regime and the formalization of individual ownership of property. There are early reports of violent opposition or defiance in the basin, but communities either became resigned to land distribution or individuals saw it as a way to further their own interests. When they expressed their grievances or requests to the government, the indigenous villagers relied on the socio-political language of the Liberal leadership, aided by Spanish-speaking elites, that encompassed the liberal conception of property. .

~~Once the land was in private hands, and the indigenous~~

~~communities had been legally eliminated, tracts were rapidly~~

~~alienated from those who had received them in the repartos.~~

~~Scholarship on other areas or Mexico generally indicated widespread fraud or other illegal usurpation of the land~~

~~distributed to the Indians. But in Michoacan it appears far more common that land was sold voluntarily by the basin~~

~~residents who had received it under the land distribution laws~~

~~Various scholars have approached these issues in the past, but they seldom have attempted to determine the historical connections between ecology and property regimes.~~

Typically, research has confined itself to concerns about the effects on social groups of deteriorating and exhausted resources. This study, however, has attempted to take a broader view by seeing degradation as a decline in the capability of resources to sustain residents of an environment. In the basin, people sold their land because it often lost its usefulness to them. That is to say, land became degraded because the new property regime had altered the ability of the property to provide for the subsistence of lake zone residents. Tracts available to individuals became smaller, too small for agriculture, or were bounded in such a way that resources could not be effectively exploited. The new property regime combined with the growing population to alter in fundamental ways the ecology of the lake zone. 236

~~Since the availability of land governed in large mea-~~

~~sure the way time and space were used, we may assume that~~

~~the lack of usable land altered the basin ecology in funda-~~

~~mental ways. For example, attitudes about conservation,~~

~~about maintaining the productivity of the environment for~~

~~future generations, became unimportant to farm laborers who~~

~~had no land to bequeath. Migration became an option for~~

~~some as the basin no longer provided sufficient land for~~

~~subsistence production and Tarascan peasants began to look~~

~~outside the zone for employment. Gender roles altered as~~

~~men moved into craft occupations formerly undertaken only by~~

~~women. Social differentiation increased as some members~~

~~acquired relatively more valuable property while others were~~

~~left with land of little use value.~~

~~All of these changes, and the others mentioned in this~~

~~study, represent the ecological evolution experienced in the~~

~~basin in the century or so before the Revolution. The~~

~~Patzcuaro experience demonstrates the ecological role of~~

~~property rights. As noted in Chapter One, property regimes~~

~~are mechanisms for linking human and environmental systems;~~

~~the rules and duties associated with property determine in~~

large measure the nature of the relationship between a people and the environment they inhabit. In the basin during the period under study, the property regime changed, therefore, the ecology changed. The character, the form, and the structure of the human residents' relationship with 237 the natural environment of the basin was reorganized in response to the new regime and other factors such as population growth.

We should not, however, see this as a "watershed event" but as a part of a continuing process. Ecological changes of this nature seldom can be dated precisely. It was noted that in Michoacan the most active period of land distribution ocurred between 1869 and 1910. But the intellectual basis for defining property, a fundamental part of a group's ecological knowledge, was forged over centuries. Had Euro- pean forms of land ownership been entirely alien to the

~~Tarascans it is unlikely that they would have dealt with the distribution efforts as they did, and the ecology of the basin would have evolved along different lines.~~

~~Joan Martinez-Alier has argued that "some social strug-~~

gles by poor people . . . can be understood also as ecological struggles", and they "have been geared to defend access to natural resources." 1 In Mexico the period of the liberal land tenure changes was closed by the great Revolution that swept the country beginning in 1910. There is no guestion that an important component of the Revolution was the recov- ery of land lost in the previous decades. Many of the revolutionaries had as their goal the removal of property from the generalized market system into which it had been inserted. Although many of the Tarascan landowners had accepted the repartos fairly willingly, they often believed 238

~~they had no choice or failed to see the long-term conse-~~

~~quences. When the ecology degraded to such an extent that~~

~~basic subsistence was threatened, Mexican peasants sought to~~

~~restore a moral and ecological economy that had been dis-~~

~~rupted by the state.~~

~~This study raises a number of questions for future~~

~~research. First, the investigation needs to be carried~~

~~forward in time to encompass the attempts to restore the~~

~~land to the peasantry after the Constitution of 1917 and~~

~~during the administration of Lazaro Cardenas. The study~~

~~should also be broadened geographically to include the~~

~~larger Tarascan cultural area. Environmentally, the~~

~~Patzcuaro basin was somewhat different from other areas of~~

~~the state, and escaped most of the depredations of the~~

~~hacendados experienced elsewhere. Consequently, a cultural~~

~~approach might yield a perspective that would provide a more~~

~~useful analysis for comparason with other regions of the~~

~~country and the world.~~

~~More generally, we should examine further the histori-~~

~~cal relationship between property rights and ecology. Such~~

~~research would have important implications for dealing with~~

~~present day ecological concerns. An understanding of how a~~

~~particular people reacted to ecological and social change in~~

~~the past helps us make predictions about how such changes will affect future generations. 2 Dharam Ghai has mentioned~~

the "paucity of information on the linkages between 239 ecological and social process at the local level." 3 This study had been an attempt in that direction, but there remains much to be learned about the factors that influence human relationships with the environments in which they live. As argued here, property regimes and ecological systems coevolve; the changes experienced in the Patzcuaro basin cannot be separated from the contemporary lives of the

~~Tarascan people." Consequently, the study of how our present ecologies came to be the way they are affects in fundamental ways our understanding of humanity's place in the world.~~

~~Notes~~

~~'Joan Martinez-Alier , "Ecology and the Poor: A Ne- glected Dimension of Latin American History," Journal of Latin American Studies 23 (October 1991), 621.~~

~~2 See Nancy M. Williams and Graham Baines. Traditional~~

~~Ecological Knowledge; Wisdom for Sustainable Development . Canberra: Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies,~~

~~1993 .~~

~~3 Dharam Ghai, "Environment, Livelihood and Empower- ment," Development and Change 25 (1994), 1.~~

4 For general comments on this theme see ibid , William Cronon, "The Uses of Environmental History," Environmental History Review 17 (Fall 1993), 1-22, and Jay Antle, "Ecology and Environmental History, ASEH News 7 (Winter 1996), 1-2; for specific property rights issues see Mario Fandino, "Land Titling and Peasant Differentiation in Honduras," Latin American Perspectives 20 (Spring 1993), 45-53. : :: ::

~~APPENDIX NINETEENTH-CENTURY AGRICULTURAL MEASURMENTS~~

~~Length~~

~~Legua (league) : 4190 meters Vara: .838 meters~~

~~Agricultural Su rface Area~~

Vara cuadrada: .702244 square meters Sitio de ganado mayor: 1755.61 hectares Sitio de ganado menor: 780 hectares Caballeria: 42.795 hectares Fanega de sembradura de maiz: 3.5663 hectares Cuartillo: 8,915.5 square meters

~~Hectarea: 25.5 liters de sembradura Cuartilla: 22.6 liters de sembradura Almud 7.5 liters de sembradura Cuarteron: 3.75 liters de sembradura~~

~~Units of Capacity 1~~

~~Carga 181.6297 liters Fanega 90.8148 liters Almud: 7.5679 liters Cuartillo: 1.8919 liters~~

~~Units of Weight~~

~~Almud 5.6 kilograms Arroba: 11.506 kilograms Carga 136-140 kilograms Cuarteron: 1.4-2.8 kilograms Fanega 68-70 kilograms~~

~~Source: Periodico Oficial IV:37 (May 7, 1896); Brand,~~

~~Ouiroga , 132.~~

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~~BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH~~

~~Mark Smith received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Central Florida in 1975, and his Master of~~

~~Arts from the University of Florida in 1992. He is a member of the American Historical Association and the American~~

~~Society for Environmental History. He intends to continue researching, writing, and teaching history with an emphasis on the complex relationship between human society and the natural world. ^~~

I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the deqree of Doctor of Philosophy.

~~Murdo J/. . MacLeod . ^ha irman Graduate Research Professor of History~~

~~Robert w. McMahon Professor of History~~

~~David Geggus V Professor of History~~

~~Abraham Goldman Associate Professor of Geography~~

This dissertation was submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and to the Graduate School and was accepted as partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

~~August 1997 Dean, Graduate School~~