Florida State University Libraries
Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2005 Roots of an Artisan Community, Guadalajara, Mexico, 1791#1842 Claudia Patricia Rivas Jiménez
Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected]
THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
ROOTS OF AN ARTISAN COMMUNITY, GUADALAJARA, MEXICO, 1791‐1842.
By
CLAUDIA PATRICIA RIVAS JIMÉNEZ
A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2005
The members of the Committee approve the Thesis of Claudia Patricia Rivas Jiménez defended on August 12, 2005.
Rodney D. Anderson Professor Directing Thesis
Matt Childs Committee Member
Maxine Jones Committee Member
The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.
ii
A Santiago, Juan Fernando y Juan Manuel
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Rodney D. Anderson for his supervision of this work and for his generous advice. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee,
Matt Childs and Maxine Jones for their kindness. I am also grateful to the University of
Guadalajara, especially to Itzcoált Tonatiuh Bravo Padilla for his “buenos oficios” that allowed me to come to Florida State University in Tallahassee to pursue this degree.
Thank you also to the Florida Mexican Institute for its tuition exemption award.
Especial thanks go to Vicky Bernal, Debbie Perry, and Chris Pignatiello who always made the paperwork easy.
Working at the Guadalajara Census Project has been a great experience for many reasons. First, it was a perfect opportunity for me to come to the United States and enter graduate school. Second, there, I met the most wonderful and supportive co‐workers and friends who have helped me during all this time in innumerable ways. In particular thanks are due to Andrea Vicente, Sarah Franklin, Monica Hardin, Tamara Spike, and
Travis Hyer. Last, but not less important, having Rodney Anderson as a “jefe” meant always having a great opportunity to learn something.
I remain deeply grateful to my husband, Juan Manuel Franco Franco, for his constant encouragement and love. My sons, Santiago and Juan Fernando also have contributed to this endeavor by being the raison dʹêtre of my life.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables ...... vii List of Figure ...... x List of Maps ...... xi Abbreviations ...... xi Abstract ...... xii
1. ARTISANS AND THEIR HISTORIANS...... 1
The Artisans in Guadalajara...... 18 Descriptions of the sources...... 20
2. THE ECONOMY OF GUADALAJARA AND ITS REGION...... 25
3. GUILDS OF GUADALAJARA...... 44
Apprenticeship...... 54 Journeymen...... 58 Masters ...... 61 Age Structure and Guilds ...... 68 Occupation and Calidad ...... 72 Gender and Guilds...... 81
4. CRAFT COMMUNITY AMONG ARTISANS IN GUADALAJARA ... 85
Marital Status and the Guilds ...... 86 Age at Marriage...... 93 Position in Household and Family...... 97 Individual Guild Crafts and Position in the Household...... 100 Household and Family Composition...... 102 The Craft Household ...... 105
v
Calidad and Family ...... 113
5. ARTISAN RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS...... 121
The City ...... 121 The Barrio ...... 130 Residential Proximity for 1821 and 1842: A Comparison ...... 140 Urban Space and the Artisans...... 143 Where Did the Masters Live...... 145
CONCLUSION ...... 153
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 156
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 169
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Intendancy of Guadalajara’s Production, 1803 ...... 34
Table 2.2: Population by Calidad, 1793‐1821 ...... 41
Table 2.3: Industries in Guadalajara, 1792‐1821 ...... 42
Table 3.1: Increase in Crafts, 1792‐1821...... 49
Table 3.2: Male Artisans by Birthplace, 1821...... 51
Table 3.3: Mean Year of Arrival by Craft, 1821...... 52
Table 3.4: Ratio Apprentices to Master, 1791 ...... 57
Table 3.5: Number of Voting Masters by Year and Guild, 1790‐1820 ...... 65
Table 3.6: Ratio Journeymen to Master, 1821...... 66
Table 3.7: Artisans by Age Distribution, 1821...... 71
Table 3.8: Artisans by Calidad and Social Status, 1821 ...... 80
Table 3.9: Female Artisans by Marital Status, 1821...... 82
Table 3.10: Female Heads of the Household by Craft and Marital Status, 1821 ...... 83
Table 4.1: Male Workers by Occupation and Marital Status, 1821 ...... 89
Table 4.2: Male Workers by Marital Status and Social Status, 1821...... 90
Table 4.3: Male Artisans by Marital Status and Social Status, 1821...... 91
Table 4.4: Male Workers by Occupation and Age at Marriage, 1821 ...... 94
Table 4.5: Male Artisans by Craft and Marital Status, 1821...... 95
vii
Table 4.6: Male Artisans by Craft and Age at Marriage, 1821...... 95
Table 4.7: Male Artisans by Social Status, 1821 ...... 97
Table 4.8: Occupations by Position in Household, 1821...... 100
Table 4.9: Male Artisans by Position in Household, 1821 ...... 101
Table 4.10: Household Structure in Guadalajara, 1821...... 103
Table 4.11: Male Artisans by Household Structure, 1821...... 104
Table 4.12: Occupations by Means, 1821 ...... 106
Table 4.13: Occupations by Means and Social Status, 1821 ...... 107
Table 4.14: Male Artisans by Means and Social Status, 1821...... 110
Table 4.15: Sons in the Household by Craft and Age Groups, 1821...... 111
Table 4.16: Male Children Who Had the Same Job, 1821 ...... 113
Table 4.17: Artisans by Marital Status and Calidad, 1821...... 115
Table 4.18: Artisans by Marital Status, Social Status, and Calidad, 1821.. 116
Table 4.19: Guild Crafts and Non‐guild Occupations by Calidad, 1821... 117
Table 4.20: Guild Crafts and Non‐guild Occupations by Household Structure, Calidad, and Social Status, 1821...... 119
Table 5.1: City Districts by Cuartel Composition...... 126
Table 5.2: Location of Quotients of the Districts by Crafts, 1821 ...... 133
Table 5.3: Distribution of Male Artisans by District, 1821 ...... 134
Table 5.4: Residential Proximity, Five Households, 1791‐1821 ...... 138
viii
Table 5.5: Residential Proximity, Ten Households, 1791‐1821...... 139
Table 5.6: Residential Proximity, Five Households 1821‐1842 ...... 141
Table 5.7: Residential Proximity, Ten Households, 1821‐1842...... 142
Table 5.8: Guilds by Running Master Ratio, 1800‐1820...... 148
ix
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: Population of Guadalajara, 1713‐1823 ...... 26
Figure 2.2: Population on the Viceroyalty of Nueva España, 1793 ...... 31
Figure 4.1: Male Artisans by Marital Status and Age Cohorts, 1821 ...... 92
Figure 4.2: Male Artisans by Position in Household and Age, 1821 ...... 98
Figure 4.3: Male Artisans by Position in Family and Age, 1821 ...... 99
x
LIST OF MAPS
Map 5.1: Guadalajara by District Division, 1821 ...... 125
Map 5.2: Ratio Journeymen to Master by Cuartel, 1821 ...... 151
ABBREVIATIONS
AHMG: Archivo Histórico Municipal de Guadalajara
xi
ABSTRACT
This thesis analyzes artisans and especially the guilds trades in Guadalajara from
1791 to 1842. During the onset of commercial capitalism, the Mexican economy
underwent a process of reorganization. Some scholars have argued that the artisan mode of production declined as new productive forms emerged. However, even
though commercial capitalism brought changes to the established forms of production,
the artisan system continued to function in an adapted manner through the nineteenth
century and on into the twentieth century. Although Guadalajara’s guilds were
formally abolished with Independence, artisans persisted in traditional behaviors that
encouraged the maintenance of an artisan culture, which with time took the place of
guild regulations. Primary, this work is based on the statistical analysis of the 1791,
1821, and 1842 population censuses, complemented by municipal protocols.
xii
CHAPTER ONE
ARTISANS AND THEIR HISTORIANS
In the early 1960s social historians began to take interest in the
reconstruction of the lives of long neglected historical actors. In contrast to conventional history, “history from below” sought to recover the working
classes’ life and work experiences. Previously thought not to possess the resources necessary to participate in the creation of the past, these social actors were now often the historians’ principal subjects. Labor history represented a crucial area of study of this theoretical trend. The transitional process from an economy based on agriculture to an economy based on industrial production and
broad commercialization, and this process’s impact on the formation of a working class, represented the central topics of labor history written in the 1960s to the 1980s.
Initial studies in labor history tended to focus on large textile factories, since it was the industry that developed early during the process of industrialization. Historians considered large factories as the place where the proletarianization of labor happened and where social conflict was most visible.
But in focusing on the industrial working class, historians often ignored other kinds of workers. Among the understudied workers were artisans. It was thought that artisans and the medieval guild institution, to which they often belonged, personified an archaic mode of production that either disappeared with the industrialization process or were irrelevant to class struggle as envisioned by Marxist historians who often were particularly influential in the
1
field. Thus, there was a scarcity of historical studies of artisans and guilds in the first decade of the so‐called “new” labor history.
By the 1960s, however, the influential works of E.J. Hobsbawm, George
Rudé and E.P. Thompson, among others, marked a new approach to labor
history.1 Thompson in particular led a revisionist attack on the Marxist tradition
of explaining social class in terms of economic determinism. Although
Thompson did not reject Marxist historical materialism, he added cultural factors
and human agency to the class struggle. The most relevant aspect of Thompson’s
perspective was that the working class was not something that appeared
spontaneously with the onset of commercial capitalism. Before a class can be
formed, he contended, it must “experience” history, that is, experience
exploitation and unemployment. It is those experiences, along with the norms
and values of their historical culture that lead to class struggle and create class
consciousness. The identification of social antagonism is fundamental to
development of class and class‐consciousness. Thus, the concept of class implied
a dialectic relationship between all members of society and constituted a process
by itself. In other words, there could not be a working class without a bourgeois
class and vice versa.2
Encouraged by E.P. Thompson’s “re‐discovery” of the importance of the
pre‐industrial working class culture in the industrial workers’ struggles,
historians in the late 1970s began to create a more complex analysis of artisans
1 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1966). George F. E. Rudé, The crowd in history; a study of popular disturbances in France and England, 1730‐1848 (New York, Wiley, 1964). Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution 1789‐1848 (London: Phoenix, 1962).
2 E.P. Thompson, “Eighteen‐century English society: class struggle without class?,” Social History 3:2 (1978): 133‐165.
2
and their participation in the economic life. In the Latin American case, the interrelation between the artisanal production of textiles and textile factories
(obrajes) was crucial to understanding the gradual changes that the organization of labor suffered during the expansion of commercial capitalism.3
In contrast to European and to a certain extent, to U.S. labor history, in the field of Latin American labor history, social historians began studying artisans and guilds (gremios) before industrial workers. Those works had a more descriptive than analytic perspective. In 1949, Richard Konetzke suggested that the ordinances of the guilds could be a useful source for the social history of
Latin America.4 He maintained that in order to understand colonial guilds it was necessary to comprehend their foundations and functions in Spain. Nevertheless, beyond the similarities with the Spanish institution, the establishment of guilds in Latin America underwent an adaptation process that depended on the different social conditions and labor necessities from their Spanish roots. The large presence of Indian and Africans in the colonies and the scarcity of Spanish skilled workers in many trades made the guilds’ ordinances more flexible in
Latin America in contrast to their European counterparts. Moreover, Konetzke stressed the institutional nature of guilds and their economic importance to the municipal governments as a means of revenue.
3 Roberto Sandoval Zarauz, “Los obrajes de Querétaro y sus trabajadores 1790‐ 1820,” in Organización de la producción y relaciones de trabajo en el siglo XIX en México (Mexico: Inah, 1979), 129‐145. Also see his work “Artesanos y capital comercial en Nueva España: el callejón sin salida del capitalismo embrionario.” Investigación Económica 162 (1982): 101‐128.
4 Richard Konetzke, “Las ordenanzas de gremios como documetnos para la historia social de Hispanoamérica durante la época colonial,” in Estudios de historia social de España I (Madrid: Instituto Balmes de Sociología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1949), 481‐524.
3
In the case of Mexico, studies of artisans and guilds have concentrated on
the capital, Mexico City. Although, Manuel Carrera’s Los gremios mexicanos refers exclusively to Mexico City’s guilds, it is considered a classic work for its extensive use of primary sources such as ordinances and council acts.5 His work covers the years 1521 to 1861, describing the functions of the guilds in an extremely detailed manner. In the last chapter of his book, he interpreted the historical evolution of guilds. He argued, as did later historians, that the
Industrial Revolution was fundamental to the decline of guilds. The incorporation of new modes of production and the extensive commercialization of commodities weakened their organization. Carrera noticed that industrialization was not the same for all nations; in this sense, Mexico as a colony suffered a later and incomplete modernization in comparison to the
United States and Great Britain. For that reason, even in the textile industry, weavers in small units of production continued working side‐by‐side with large factories. The rest of the trades underwent a similar process. Carrera traced the existence of guilds through the mid‐nineteenth century, a somewhat
controversial finding because many historians have argued that guilds were
abolished in 1813 and disappeared soon after Independence.
In this same tradition, Samayoa’s Los gremios de artesanos covers the history
of guilds in Guatemala from their foundation to their legal abolition during the
Independence.6 This book is similar to Carrera’s book in the wide utilization of
5 Manuel Carrera Stampa, Los gremios mexicanos. La organización gremial en la Nueva España (México: EDIAPSA, 1954).
6 Héctor Humberto Samayoa Guevara, Los gremios de artesanos en la Ciudad de Guatemala, 1524‐1821 (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, 1962). Also for Guatemala, there is a catalog of artisans and artists dedicated to the construction
4
sources from national archives; its weakness is that it focuses only on the capital of Guatemala and that it does not explain the changes that artisans underwent with the process of independence.
For the Spanish origins and roots of the Latin America guilds, Molas
Ribalta’s Los gremios barceloneces, is a classic work in guild historiography.7 Molas
Ribalta pictures the evolution and variation of guilds through time and regions.
In contrast to Latin America, guilds in Europe have a medieval tradition that could be traced back for many centuries. The author argues that in the end commercial capitalism and industrialization destroyed the guild system as a form of production.
Carrera, Samayoa, and Molas Ribalta’s studies are useful because they provide a general and broad vision of artisans and guilds. These books were the
precursors of later guild monographs on Latin America. Some notable examples
include Humberto Triana’s articles regarding Colombian artisans and guilds,
Elizabeth Darwiche’s article concerning artisans in São Paulo, Ramón Gutiérrez’s work in reference to the artisanal organizations in Cuzco, Peru.8 These works
of colonial buildings see Heinrich Berlín, “Artistas y artesanos coloniales de Guatemala. Notas para un catálogo,” Cuadernos de Antropología 5 (1965): 5‐37.
7 Pedro Molas Ribalta, Los gremios barceloneses del siglo XVIII. La estructura corporativa ante el comienza de la Revolución Industrial (Madrid: Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros, 1970).
8 Humberto Triana y Antorveza, “Exámenes, licencias, fianzas y elecciones artesanales,” Boletín cultural y bibliográfico 9, 1 (1966): 65‐73; and “Los artesanos en las ciudades neogranadinas,” Boletín cultural y bibliográfico 10, 2 (1967): 326‐336. Elizabeth Darwiche Rabello,“Os ofícios mecânicos e artesanais em São Paulo na segunda metade do século XVIII,” Revista de Historia 56, 122 (1977): 575‐588. Ramón Gutiérrez, “Notas sobre la organización artesanal en el Cuzco durante la colonia” Histórica 3, 1 (1979): 1‐15.
5
describe the artisans and guilds from local sources; they are not exhaustive archival studies, as were the earlier works. Rather, they focus on specific concerns such as the racial composition of the trades, distribution of artisans in the urban space, and legal requirements. These analyses are based on guild election records, masters’ examination acts, and population censuses. Their principal objective is to explain the internal dynamics of the artisanal world in their particular context. Those works did not explain the changes that artisans and guilds endured during the economic transformation beyond the generalization of the guild decline.
Among American historians, Howard B. Rock and Sean Wilentz focused their works on artisans in New York City. Rock’s Artisans of the Republic analyzed the two first decades of nineteenth century and the transformation of artisans during the process of industrialization.9 Using E. P. Thompson’s cultural model, he argued that industrialization not only changed the organization of the workshop, but also had a “significant impact on artisans’ work culture and moral outlook as well.”10 The new labor organization that modernization imposed was the time orientation of productive activities in contrast to the task orientation of the “preindustrial workshop.”11 In addition, the set of moral attitudes changed to a more disciplinary and efficient way of work, leaving behind such aspects of cultural behavior as “Saint Monday” and the frequent breaks during work time.
9 Howard B. Rock, Artisan of the New Republic (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 295.
10 Ibid., 295.
11 E.P. Thompson, “Time, Work‐Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” Past and Present 38(1967): 56‐97.
6
Sean Wilentz’s Chants Democratic extended the period of analysis from 1788 to
1850.12 His research was centered on working class formation; he contended that the construction of class was not monolithic. There were a lot of particular interests between different groups of craftsmen.
In Latin America, the study of artisans has primarily concentrated on the
urban crafts. However, artisans remain “the largest, least known urban group”
in the history of Spanish colonial America.13 It is not that previously scholars did not realize that artisans concentrated in cities, but that artisans and their labor organizations were put into a broader urban context. Thus, the distribution of the different trades in the city became crucial to understand internal dynamics of artisanal manufacture. Bakery distribution pattern within the city illustrates this point. As the bakeries were sanctioned by the guild authorities, the distribution of them around the city followed economic and social interests that interacted with the physical appearance of the city.14
The correlation between residential patterns and artisanal production emerged as a concern of scholars. The fact that artisans lived in the same place where they worked carried with it the assumption that their families –wife, children and other relatives— were active members of the masters’ workshops.
12 Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788‐1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 96.
13 Fred Bronner, “Urban Society in Colonial Spanish America: Research Trends,” Latin American Research Review 21 (1986), 47.
14 See Aída Castilleja for bakers in Mexico City, “Asignación del espacio urbano: el gremio de los panaderos, 1770‐1793,” Colección Científica 61 (1978): 37‐46. Also for bakers in Argentina see Lyman L. Johnson, “The Entrepreneurial Reorganization of an Artisan Trade: The Bakers of Buenos Aires, 1700‐1820,” The Americas 37, 2 (1980): 139‐160.
7
Some scholars looked for evidence to prove it; the population censuses have been useful for this purpose. The affirmation that the production unit went beyond the workshop to the household as the fundamental unit of production is generally accepted.15
To be an artisan in Spain carried a social prestige that differentiated skilled
workers from unskilled and poorer occupations. Guilds enforced this social
differentiation through strict requirements selecting the right candidates to be
part of the guild. One was the “purity of blood” meaning absence of Jewish or
Muslim ancestors. In Colonial America, this restriction was adapted as a racial
requirement. Nonetheless, guilds could not have the same exclusiveness that
they had in Europe. Some scholars argue that in Latin America the artisanal
studies are focused on Indians, Blacks, and Castas excluding the Spanish “white”
artisans.16 It is generally accepted to use the urban artisanal class as a model to
analyze the social stratification in Spanish America. Since less prestigious trades
were generally the crafts in which nonwhite artisans were concentrated,
15 Gabriel Brun Martínez, “La organización del trabajo y la estructura de la unidad doméstica de los zapateros y cigarreros de la ciudad de México en 1811,” in Organización de la producción y relaciones de trabajos en el siglo XIX en México (Mexico: INAH, 1979).
16 For white artisans perspective see Harry Bernstein, “The Artisan Workers Of Brazil (1640‐1940)” Revista Do Instituto Histórico E Geográfico Brazileiro 337 (1982): 61‐66. For the analysis of other racial groups See Jorge González Angulo Aguirre, “Los gremios de artesanos y el régimen de castas,” in Organización de la producción y relaciones de trabajo en el eiglo XIX en México (Mexico: INAH, 1979). Lyman L. Johnson, “The Racial Limits of Guild Solidarity: An Example From Colonial Buenos Aires,” Revista de Historia De America 99 (1985): 7‐26 and “The Impact of Racial Discrimination on Black Artisan in Colonial Buenos Aires,” Social History 6, 3 (1981): 301‐316. Also for Argentina see Miguel Angel Rosal, “Artesanos de color en Buenos Aires (1750‐1810),” Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana 17, 27 (1982): 331‐354.
8
economic performance is matched to social prestige. However, to be admitted as an apprentice, then to be promoted as a journeyman, and eventually to be examined for advancement to master constituted an opportunity for social mobility.17 Having an occupation and the ability to perform a skilled job distinguished the artisans from persons with no job skills and vagrants without a clear way to make a living.
Artisans and guilds have been studied from the legal perspective as well.
Artisans constituted free labor that contracted themselves as skilled workers by legal agreements known as conciertos and asientos of work. Those legal contracts assured the fulfillment of the conditions from both sides ‐‐the artisan who labored and the person who hired the artisan. Municipal government regulated
the work of artisans through the enforcement of ordinances and usually
arbitrated disputes concerning breach of contract.18
There are numerous studies that have analyzed artisans and guilds from
an economic perspective. In his book Artesanado y ciudad, Jorge González
explained the decline of the guilds starting in mid‐eighteenth century.19 In terms
of economic determinism, he analyzed how little by little commercial capitalists
17 Manuel Pérez Vila, El artesanado. La formación de una clase media propiamente americana (1500‐1800),” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia 69, 274 (1986): 325‐344.
18 Edda O. Samudio A., El trabajo y los trabajadores en Mérida colonial: Fuentes para su estudio (Caracas, Venezuela: Universidad Católica del Tachira, 1984). Francisco Domínguez Compaña,“Regulación municipal del trabajo libre de los oficios mecánicos en Hispanoamérica colonial,” Revista de Historia de América 193 (1987): 75‐106.
19 Jorge González Angulo Aguirre, Artesanado y ciudad a finales del siglo XVIII (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica/Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1983).
9
took control over artisans’ production. Thus, guilds’ existence had lost the principal reasons to be; they could not control the prices of their products and therefore artisans stopped receiving the direct benefits of their work.
Commercial capitalists began to accumulate the production surplus and instead of investing in modern forms of manufacture, they employed the cheap labor of journeymen and apprentices to increase their profits. From a similar economic point of view, Ricardo Franch contends that silk craftsmen in Valencia, Spain, lost their economic independence as the commercial capitalists took control of the silk trade. They increased the price of raw silk so high that artisans could not afford it. Rapidly, artisans became dependent on merchants for silk supply. Hence, the traditional model of artisanal production weakened slowly while silk textile
production expanded during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.20
Artisans had lost the control of the production and merchants received the direct
monetary benefits.
Felipe Castro’s La extinción de la artesanía gremial analyzes the eventual
extinction of the guilds in Mexico City.21 From an economic perspective, he
argues that guilds became an obsolete mode of production in a new era where
the process of proletarianization of the labor force had begun. However, he
recognized that the industrialization process had different features in colonial
Mexico than in France and Great Britain. Similar to González, he emphasizes the
excessive intervention of commercial capital in the manufacturing process.
Castro makes a careful analysis of the debate about freedom of trades in the
Cortes de Cádiz and asserted not only that guilds were abolished legally, but
20 Ricardo Franch Benavent, “Artesanado sedero y capital comercial en la Valencia del siglo XVIII,” Hispania LVII, 1, no. 195 (1997): 93‐114.
21 Felipe Castro Gutiérrez, La extinción de la artesanía gremial (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1986).
10
artisans were no longer required to join craft organizations. He alleged that guilds as a labor system ceased to be a viable option of production. From
Castro’s perspective, the forces of the marketplace sealed the fate of the artisans.
Inevitably, the majority of the craftsmen were destined to become wage laborers.
Another perspective to measure the decline of guilds is studying the situation of apprentices. By analyzing apprentice contracts, from 1775 to 1810 in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lyman Johnson found that apprenticeship system underwent depreciation with the pass of time. Reduced contractual guarantees and declining number of contracts were signs of social discredit.22 Examining the
same evidence as Johnson, Aguirre and Petit arrived at the opposite conclusion.
They argue that the scarcity of labor in Buenos Aires forced masters to accept disadvantageous contractual conditions favoring apprentices. Even though, masters owned the tools and the technical knowledge for producing.23
More recently, Sonia Pérez’s Los hijos del trabajo has provided a more complex perspective about artisans’ role during the onset of commercial
capitalism.24 Working with Mexico City data, and contrary to González and
Castro, Pérez claims that the social and economic importance of artisans
remained strong during the first half of nineteenth century, not only as form of
22 Lyman L. Johnson, “The Role of Apprenticeship in Colonial Buenos Aires,” Revista de Historia de América 103 (1987): 7‐30.
23 Susana Aguirre and Marta Petit, “La contratación de aprendices en la actividad artesanal en la ciudad de Buenos Aires durante el Virreinato. Su análisis a través de los Registros Notariales,” Temas de Historia Argentina 1 (1994): 7‐15.
24 Sonia Pérez Toledo, Los hijos del trabajo. Los artesanos de la ciudad de México, 1780‐ 1853 (México: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa/El Colegio de México, 1996).
11
labor organization, but also as a form of social association. She states that even though many artisans did not participate in guilds, artisans in most trades kept the traditional way of production. The freedom of commercialization allowed the importation of many manufactured goods only affordable for the smallest socioeconomic stratum. The majority of the inhabitants of Mexico City were
poor, thus, they satisfied their basic necessities by buying national commodities
which were produced by artisans using traditional modes of production.
Moreover, the training process for the different crafts remained as it had been
before the economic transition.
Pérez’s contention is also supported by Argentine data. As late as 1850 in
Salta and Jujuy, Argentina, artisans and guilds retained their economic
importance. According to Emma Teresita Raspi, artisans were crucial in fulfilling
the urban demand of Argentine communities.25 Artisan’s economic importance
was not exclusive to Latin America. In Malmö, Sweden craft production
survived and contributed to the economic growth during industrialization,
according to Egren.26
Through closer scrutiny inside municipal council structure during the
years immediately after Mexican Independence, Pérez has found that there was a
legal vacuum regarding guilds. Even though the colonial legislation had been
annulled, many artisans continued going to the municipal office asking for
master exams and permission to establish a workshop. Thus, artisanal system of
25 Emma Teresita Raspi, “El mundo artesanal de dos ciudades del norte argentino. Salta y Jujuy, primera mitad del siglo XIX,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos LVIII, 1 (2001): 161‐183.
26 Lars Edgren, “Crafts in Transformation?: Masters, Journeyman, and Apprentices in a Swedish Town, 1800‐1850,” Continuity and Change 1, 3 (1986): 363‐383.
12
production continued to be supported by the direct intervention of council authorities, practicing the same functions as before the “abolition” of the guilds.27
Pérez also found continuity in labor traditions among artisans. Guild organization persisted in diverse forms such as association, training, and production. This was caused by cultural patterns that artisans recreated even when the legal framework had disappeared.28
María Fernanda Duque found a similar situation in Pasto, Colombia. The
colonial social structures persisted throughout the first decades after the emancipation from Spain. Despite the fact that the authorities considered the artisanal system of production to be a restriction for the development of industry, artisans and guilds continued to have a strong presence in the social life of the community.29
Research on artisans and guilds in colonial and nineteenth century
Guadalajara has been limited. One of the pioneer studies of artisans is Rodney
Anderson’s “Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working‐Class
Spaniards, Indians, and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1821.”30 He analyzed the social stratification of Mexican society using occupation and social status
27 Sonia Pérez Toledo, “De cambios y continuidades: notas sobre la estructura del ayuntamiento de la ciudad de México después de la Independencia,” Iztapalapa 32 (1994): 151‐164.
28 Pérez, 164.
29 María Fernanda Duque,“Legislación gremial y prácticas sociales: los artesanos de Pasto (1976‐1850),” Historia Crítica 25 (2003): 115‐136.
30 Rodney D. Anderson, “Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working‐Class Spaniards, Indians, and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1821,” Hispanic American Historical Review 1988 68(2): 209‐243.
13
expressed by the hidalguía as the ordering factor in society. His principal argument is that by the early nineteenth century, ethnic affiliation had lost its predominance to define the social position of individuals as economic factors began to intervene with the onset of commercial capitalism. Even though this study does not focus on guilds as a corporative institution, its quantitative analysis of the different artisanal occupations in the social ladder is fundamental for understanding the dynamics of Mexican society.
Other relevant aspect of artisans’ life is their religious association around confraternities. Gerald Gies’ dissertation “Artisan Culture in Guadalajara,
Mexico, 1780‐1830: Guildsʹ Response to the Economic Challenges of Commercial
Capitalism studies the relationship between guilds and confraternities. He argues that as the onset of the commercial capitalism undermined guild economic system, confraternities provided a cultural bond that allowed the development of an artisanal community.31
In contrast to most other works, Los zapateros de Guadalajara by José
Olmedo, is a study dedicated to a specific craft: shoemaking.32 He analyzed the
internal organization of the guild, following its evolution over time. By
describing particular experiences of shoemakers, he reconstructed what it meant
to be a shoemaker during the colonial period in Guadalajara. He portrayed a
whole vision of this guild, relating specific aspects such as financial duties to the
municipal government, production –from acquisition of the raw material to the
31 Gerald A. Gies, “Artisan Culture in Guadalajara, Mexico, 1780‐1830: Guildsʹ Response to the Economic Challenges of Commercial Capitalism (Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 1995).
32 José Olmedo, Los zapateros de Guadalajara. Nueva Galicia, 1751‐1824 (Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara/Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1997).
14
kind of tool used, —and commercialization of the making of shoes. Olmedo’s work did not stress the transformation that artisans underwent with the onset of
commercial capitalism and he did not consider artisans as the antecedent of a
working class. For him, the guild system was something that ended with the
emergence of the Republic. However, from his research he could deduct that the establishment of guilds in Guadalajara happened during the mid‐eighteenth century, something somewhat surprising because the end of colonial rule was close at hand. It is particularly significant that even while guilds were not officially set up in Guadalajara until 1750’s, artisans and authorities behaved as if
the regulations existed. This is evidence of artisans’ culture and how traditional
practices and customs were the actual norm that ruled the craft world. For
example, Guadalajara’s shoemakers formally established a guild in 1751 that
continued to be “legally” functioning until 1824, when the state of Jalisco’s
constitution was proclaimed.33 This was similar to the case of the silversmith
guild in Panama. There were no ordinances but silversmiths sustained annual
elections to choose guild’s representatives and followed all the guild practices
without having a legal framework.34 The importance of Olmedo’s book consists
in its detailed examination of a guild in a region that was relatively far from the
administrative influence of Mexico City.
One of the latest works concerning Mexican guilds is the book Los gremios
acostumbrados written by Amaro about artisans in Zacatecas.35 As the book’s title
33 Olmedo, Los zapateros, 21.
34 Angeles Ramos Baquero, “Ordenanzas, cofradía y gremio de plateros en Panamá durante el periodo colonial,” Revista Lotería 413 (1997): 25‐48.
35 René Amaro Peñaflores, Los gremios acostumbrados. Los artesanos de Zacatecas 1780‐1870 (Mexico: Unidad Pedagógica Nacional/Unidad Zacatecas, 2002).
15
indicates, they were “customary guilds” referring to the continuity of artisanal production beyond legislative modifications. In the case of Zacatecas, as in other places, the artisanal system of production coexisted with factories through the nineteenth century. In other words, the artisanal system was not a contradictory outdated mode of production but was a complementary part in a dynamic confluence of modern and traditional system of production. This is true not only for Latin America, but research suggests that it is true for European countries as well.36
Eventually, in Republican Mexico City, these “customary artisans” became part of the new legal organization called Junta de Fomento de Artesanos.37
However, this organization had strong ties with the government, which implies that artisans were prevented from developing class‐consciousness by official intervention. The government worked as an intermediary between classes, mitigating if not eliminating the antagonism between social strata. In this sense, as E. P. Thompson has argued, the development of a class consciousness was not possible since class struggle was not present. Even when Mexican artisans constituted a group with many shared features, the formation of the working class in Mexico remained far away.
Inevitably, the “New” Cultural History’s post‐modern perspective has affected labor history, adding new dimensions to old issues. William H. Sewell
36 Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz‐Gerhard Haupt, eds., Shopkeepers and master artisans in nineteenth‐century Europe (London ; New York : Methuen, 1984) and Geoffrey Crossick, ed., The artisan and the European town, 1500‐1900 (England: Scholar Press, 1997).
37 Carlos Íllades, Hacia la república del trabajo. La organización artesanal en la ciudad de México, 1853‐1876 (México: El Colegio de México/Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa, 1996).
16
and Gareth Stedman Jones raised questions of language, as historians began to
add the subjective experience of historical actors to the traditional material
considerations, and to Thompson’s cultural views.38 Marc Steinberg’s article is a
suggestive work in that sense, incorporating language in the inquiry of the
formation of working class.39 First, language is seen as a tool that artisans learned
to use in order to establish communication with the hegemonic culture; and
second, artisans reinvented that same language, converting it to part of their
strategies of resistance. In others words, historians can use language as a cultural
expression of artisans.
In colonial Mexico, through the contrast of guilds ordinances and
complaints from artisans, it is possible to explore the construction of a particular
language among artisans and the official discourse, and in this way, give to
artisans the social agency to influence their reality. In general, traditional studies
referring to artisans are focused on cities where the archival information is easier
to access. A general trend in recent studies of the craft system is that it was not
only an economic organization; it carried out many different functions: social,
cultural, religious as well as economic.
The transitional period from a precapitalist mode of production into
commercial capitalism ushered in the beginning of the end for artisans and
38 William H. Sewell, Jr., Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) and Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class. Studies in English Working Class History 1832‐1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). See also Ronald Grigor Suny, “Back and Beyond: Reversing the Cultural Turn?” American Historical Review 107 (2002): 1476‐1499.
39 Marc W. Steinberg, “‘A way of struggle’: reformations and affirmations of E.P. Thompson’s class analysis in the light of postmodern theories of language,” The British Journal of Sociology 48 (1997): 471‐492.
17
guilds, but the ideological and cultural aspects changed slowly. The same traditional sources have been used to interpret artisans and guilds. What have
changed are the questions scholars ask. Ordinances, council documents, church documents, census manuscripts, newspapers, wills, labor contracts,
apprenticeship contracts, and commercial records have been the material for analyses.
The Artisans of Guadalajara
Currently, Guadalajara is known for the extensive number of small production units—small factories, artisan shops, and a large variety of craft‐style
small producers—frequently relying on family work and requiring relatively little investment. Referring to this phenomenon, Patricia Arias has called
Guadalajara “the big city of small industry.”40 The industrialization process in
Guadalajara has meant the coexistence of large scale, modern forms of production and small, traditional enterprises. Although, the scope of my thesis is not contemporary Guadalajara, I believe that the small industry has its origins in the artisanal form of production. During the onset of commercial capitalism, the economy underwent a process of reorganization and some scholars have argued that the artisan mode of production was declining as new productive forms emerged. Rodney D. Anderson argues that “the subjugation of the craft economy” to merchants, and the increase in journeymen artisans relative to the
40 Patricia Arias, ed., Guadalajara, la gran ciudad de la pequeña empresa (Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1985).
18
number of masters was factual evidence of the guild system’s decline.41 My thesis is that, though commercial capitalism brought changes to the established
forms of production, the artisan system continued to function in an adapted
manner through the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth century. It is
my belief that, by 1821, Guadalajara’s guilds still remained a strong organization.
Of course, not all crafts had the same degree of strength, but in general, one can say that the guild system continued to function. The formal abolition of the
guilds arrived with the Independence; however, artisans persisted in traditional
behaviors creating a sense of community among them which, I believe,
represented the roots of modern Guadalajara’s system of small producers. I have
avoided the use of the “labor aristocracy” theory supported by scholars who
believe that artisans constituted privileged workers that culturally and
economically differentiated themselves from the rest of the urban working class,
and therefore politically identified with the bourgeoisie.42 In spite of the
importance of this concept, I will suspend judgment in so far as the concept
applies to Guadalajara during the timeframe of my thesis. My approach is to
attempt to identify the social commonalities and differences between the guild artisans of Guadalajara and other socio‐economic groups, and between the guild
crafts themselves. Further, my belief is that as the guild system lost its formal
41 Rodney D. Anderson, “Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working‐Class Spaniards, Indians, and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico In 1821,” Hispanic American Historical Review 68 (1988): 218‐219.
42 E. J. Hobsbawm, “Artisan or Labour Aristocrat?,” The Economic Hisotry Review 37 (1984): 355‐372. Takao Matsumara, The Labour Aristocracy Revisited. The VictorianFlint Glass Makers 1850‐80 (Oxford: Machester University Press, 1983). Geoffrey Crossick, and Heinz‐Gerhard Haupt, “Shopkeepers, Master Artisans and the Historian.”
19
monopoly during and after Independence, it, none‐the‐less, maintained and even strengthened certain traditional social and cultural customs and behaviors— marriage patterns, family organization, residence patterns, etc.—that enabled artisans to better cope with the economic changes accompanying commercial capitalism.
Description of the sources
This thesis is based essentially on three Guadalajara population censuses
(1791, 1821, and 1842). However, I included diverse documents from the Archivo
Histórico Municipal de Guadalajara, basically municipal council documents related to guilds and artisans. The 1791 census is considered one of the most complete censuses available for Nueva España for the eighteenth‐century.
Viceroy Conde de Revillagigedo ordered three different population counts: one for tributary population (Indians and Mulattoes), another for the entire population, and the last one for hombres útiles (useful men), that is, those who were eligible for military service—Spaniards, Castizos and Mestizos.43
Unfortunately for Guadalajara, only the latter has survived. Even though this census did not include all Guadalajara’s residents, it contains valuable information not only about “useful” men, but also about the members of Spanish,
Castizo and Mestizo households. The data describes in detail the information
43 Carmen Castañeda, “Guadalajara hace 200 años: el Reglamento de Cuarteles de 1790 y el Padrón de 1791,” in Vivir en Guadalajara. La ciudad y sus funciones, ed. Carmen Castañeda (Mexico: Ayuntamiento de Guadalajara, 1992), 44.
20
about men from 14 years old and older—occupation, marital status, ethnicity,
and military classification.44
The 1821 census was ordered in October 1821 by Col. José Antonio
Andrade y Baldomar, the provisional governor of the newly independent
province of Nueva Galicia (later changed to the state of Jalisco). Andrade authorized a committee to draw up instructions for a complete economic and
population census (padrón) of the entire province. The finalized instructions
criticized the earlier 1813 colonial census as “incomplete…inexact” and ordered
the authorities to “form a timely padrón or census, exact and with all the
particulars of all the inhabitants of their district, men and women alike, young
and old, with regards to age, race, trade or occupation…”45 At the same time, the
instructions called for each district to provide information on a list of eighteen
types of economic data—acres of land under cultivation by what crop, minerals
being mined, and a variety of data on economic subjects. Clearly, then the census
had a long‐term motivation to provide important economic and social
information for the new province. There is no indication that the census was ordered by national authorities; besides the districts of Nueva Galicia (today the states of Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas and Nayarit), only the state of Puebla is known to have taken its own census.46
44 Archivo General de la Nación, Padrón Militar de la Ciudad de Guadalajara 1791. Padrones, volumen 113, expediente 1.
45 AHMG, legajo 37, expediente 101, dated Octubre 29, 1821. A more detailed description is found in Rodney Anderson, “A History of the Censuses of 1821 and 1822,” in Guadalajara Censuses Project, edited by Rodney Anderson,
46 Lyman D. Platt, Census Records for Latin America and the Hispanic United States (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1998).
21
The completed census is a remarkably detailed description of
Guadalajara’s population. Most districts provided at least the minimum information of address, name, title, age, marital status, occupation, and sex.
Birthplace data is available for about two‐thirds of the city’s residents, and
slightly less than half were identified by calidad (ethnicity). This would be the
last major Mexican nineteenth century census that incorporated calidad as a part
of the classification of population. Guadalajara was divided in twenty four
cuarteles, of which the manuscript has survived for all but cuartel sixteen.47
The origins of 1842 census are unclear. We know that it was not part of a
national count, since there is no evidence of a similar census in other large
Mexican cities. At that time, Guadalajara was divided in nine cuarteles, the
manuscripts for six of which are located in the city’s municipal archives. The
whereabouts of the remaining three districts is unknown.48 This census contains
the same basic information as the 1821 census, the only addition being the
variable literacy. Birthplace and calidad were not given. The total population for
the 1842 census is not known; however, a census in 1848 gave the city population
as 35,762.
The reliability of eighteenth and nineteenth century censuses for
demographic, economic and social analysis is more limited than the modern
counts. However, the 1821 census appears to be remarkably accurate for the era.
For example, one measure of accuracy is the ratio of the very young (ages 1 to 4)
to the next age cohort (ages 5 to 9). Modern demographers consider that in a
stable population in which the very young were usually recorded, that one
47 AHMG, Padrones 1821.
48 AHMG, expediente 25, página 99.
22
would expect the ratio of 5 to 9 year olds to 1 to 4 year olds to be less than unity.
Guadalajara’s ratio was .935, similar to Spain, for example in 1950 (.947) and to the state of Jalisco in 1960 (.912). Colonial censuses often undercounted the young; that the 1821 census did not is an indication of the general accuracy of the
census.49
It is certainly likely that the census undercounted individuals, a problem
that not even modern censuses have completely eliminated. However, the large numbers of individual cases mitigate against most undercounting; demographic patterns can be reliably described when the universe of cases is so large, unless the undercounted are a very specific socio‐demographic group, such as marginal individuals. However, the artisans of the era were far more likely to be counted.
Another major source of error was any hidden or unconscious bias in gathering the data by the census taker. For example, it is clear that women’s work was far less likely to be noted than men’s. Occupation was given for 81 percent of all males ages 15 and over. Only 14 percent of all females age 15 and over were given occupations. Nonetheless, over three thousand girls and women were given one of 112 different occupations, an important source of information on women’s work. For the purposes of my study, the most unfortunate missing data is a record all the spouses who helped their artisan husbands in his work. But in general, among demographic historians a larger error margin is acceptable, because they are few historical sources available for demographic analysis.50
49 Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah, Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean, vol. 1 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971), 204‐ 05. In Spain in 1940, after years of civil war, that ratio was 1.228.
50 Ibid., 19. Parochial records are the other important source for demographic analysis.
23
This thesis is divided into four chapters. After this introductory chapter, chapter two describes the economic situation of Guadalajara during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Essentially, it recounts the impact of the Bourbon reforms in Mexico. Chapter three describes the principal features of the guild system in Guadalajara and analyzes the strength of guilds through age structure and journeymen/master ratio. Finally, chapter four describes artisan
household and residential pattern among artisans as indicators of the emergence
of an artisanal community.
24
CHAPTER TWO
THE ECONOMY OF GUADALAJARA AND ITS REGION,
1791‐1821
Throughout the eighteenth century Guadalajara’s importance increased, becoming the administrative, clerical, and commercial center for much of the
Mexican west and northwest. As a capital of the intendancy, Guadalajara
constituted one of the largest cities in the entire colony.51 And in contrast to other
intendancies that based their economies on mining, Guadalajara’s productivity
rested on agricultural and livestock activities as well as mining.
The royal decree of 1532 named the newly explored territory in western
central Mexico, Nuevo Reino de Galicia and designated Compostela as its capital.
Compostela was located to the north and west of Guadalajara, and currently is in the state of Nayarit. The Spaniards had to change the location of the region’s capital several times due to hostile natives and the availability of natural resources. In 1542, Nuño de Guzmán founded the city of Guadalajara in the
Valle de Atemajac, and named it after the Spanish city where he was born. In
1560, Guadalajara became the capital of Nueva Galicia, in large part because it constituted a safer place for the provincial administrative functions, being located further from the northern frontier where Indians continued to fight.52 As the
51 The original division of Spanish America was based on reigns (i.e. Reino de la Nueva España, Reino de Nueva Galicia, etc). In 1786, Spanish territory was restructured on intendancies.
52 José María Muriá, Sumario histórico de Jalisco (Mexico: Editorial Gráfica Nueva, 1996), 49‐72.
25
provincial capital, Guadalajara represented the political power through two of the most important colonial institutions: the Real Audiencia and the Episcopal office. The Real Audiencia of Guadalajara had under its jurisdiction the provinces
of Nuevo Galicia, Nueva Vizcaya, Nuevo Mexico and the Californias. The
Viceroy still controlled the military.53
45,000
40,000
35,000
sons 30,000 Per 25,000 of
20,000 s 15,000 Thou ands 10,000
5,000
0 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840
Year
Figure 2.1 Population of Guadalajara, 1713‐182354
53 Ibid., 135‐136.
54 Rodney Anderson, Guadalajara a la consumación de la Independencia: estudio de su población según los censos de 1821‐1822 (Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco,), 45.
26
In the first two centuries of Spanish rule Guadalajara grew slowly. It was not until the eighteenth century that Guadalajara would see a large expansion of its economy and population. The fact that Guadalajara was not founded near any major Indian community prevented the intensive use of Indian labor through
the encomienda and repartimiento of labor as happened in others parts of Mexico.
The constant decrease in the Indian population that began with the Conquest
ended in the late seventeenth century, and the recuperation of the Indian
population took place throughout the Spanish colony. In general, Guadalajara
saw a steady increase in its population during eighteenth century due both to the natural growth of the population and to migration from the countryside (Figure
2.1).
As a general measure to control the Indian population, Spaniards re‐ settled Indians villages in towns close to Spanish settlements.55 These Indian towns in time became neighborhoods of Guadalajara.56 Most Indians pueblos in
Central Jalisco had relatively little farmland and often depended on wages from
the crafts and their labor for livelihood, or on temporary migration to
Guadalajara. Many left the pueblos altogether to live full time on the region’s ranchos and haciendas.57 The bad harvest of 1786‐1787 was another element that
55 Enrique Florescano, “La formación de los trabajadores en la época colonial, 1521‐1750,” in La clase obrera en la historia de México (Mexico: Siglo XXI/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1980), 39.
56 According to Hélène Riviére D’Arc the villages of Analco and Mexicalzingo were integrated to Guadalajara City on 1667. “Las fases del crecimiento,” 163.
57 William B. Taylor, “Indians Pueblos of Central Jalisco on the Eve of Independence,” in Iberian Colonies, New World Societies: Essays in Memory of Charles Gibson, eds. Richard L. Garner and William Taylor (Private Printer, 1985), 164.
27
forced Indians to leave their villages looking for food.58 But not only Indians were forced to migrate to the city. Eric Van Young estimates that the failed harvests of 1785‐86 drove as many as twelve thousand rural and small town refugees into the city in search for food.59 The immediate consequence of an overcrowded Guadalajara was a plague that killed nearly one‐fifth of the population. However, this temporary high mortality did not represent a dramatic turnover in the continuous growth of the city; by 1788 the population recovered all the normal demographic rates such as marriage, birth, and mortality rates.60
Although not dependent on mining, the discovery of the Bolaños silver mine in 1736 propelled Guadalajara’s economy. According to Richard Lindley, the Bolaños mine “had a great deal to do with the sudden expansion experienced by the city after about 1760.”61 However, the largest transformation of
Guadalajara’s region was due to the Bourbon monarchy’s socioeconomic reforms
and agrarian activities during the eighteenth century. These reforms began under Charles III’s reign in 1759. The reorganization of the administration had a notable impact on the economy of the American colonies. In particular, the freedom of commerce granted to the colonies in 1778 allowed them to trade with each other and Spain without the direct intervention of Mexico City. This new
58 David A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763‐1810 (Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 1971), 72.
59 Eric Van Young, Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth‐Century Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 94‐103.
60 Ibid., 103.
61 Richard Lindley, Haciendas and Development. Guadalajara, Mexico, at Independence (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), 25.
28
policy restructured the regional markets and in Guadalajara led to the development of a provincial merchant oligarchy.62 Moreover, the Spanish Crown ordered the colonial authorities (intendentes and subdelegados) to promote commerce and industry in their jurisdictions.63
In 1786 the Spanish crown restructured the administrative division of
Mexico, into twelve intendancies. The purpose of this reform was to recover control over the reign that, according to the peninsular authorities, exercised too much autonomy.64 The old reign of Nueva Galicia was transformed into the
Intendancy of Guadalajara and the city of Guadalajara remained as its capital.
The Intendancy occupied an extensive area of west central Mexico. In accordance
with Humblodt’s report it measured 6,381 leguas cuadradas (35,559 km2 or 22,047 miles2), representing eight percent of the whole territory of the Viceroyalty of
Nueva España; it was the fifth largest intendancy. Also it was the third most populous intendancy with 623,572 individuals (Figure 2.2).65 The intendancy consisted of twenty six partidos (before called alcaldías mayores and corregimientos).
62 Muriá, Sumario histórico, 100.
63 Antonio Ibarra and Bernd Hausberger, eds., Comercio y poder en América colonial: los consulados de comerciantes, siglos XVII‐XIX (Mexico: Instituto Mora, 2003), 146.
64 Hélène Riviére D’Arc, “Las fases del crecimiento y del desarrollo de Guadalajara y de su región durante la colonización,” in Lecturas Históricas de Jalisco. Antes de la Independencia, vol. II, ed. José María Muriá (Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1982), 162.
65Alejandro de Humboldt, “Tablas geográficas políticas del reino de Nueva España, que manifiestan la superficie, población, agricultura, fábricas, comercio, minas, rentas y fuerza militar (enero 1804),” in Descripciones económicas generales de Nueva España, 1784‐1817,” compilated by Enrique Florescano (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1973), 177.
29
Throughout the rest of colonial rule the lands comprised by the intendancy changed many times but always kept, more or less, the same territory.66
Currently it would cover the state of Jalisco and Aguascalientes, and parts of the states of Nayarit, Durango, Zacatecas, and Colima. In the north and the west the mining activity was important, while in the south and east, agriculture and breeding cattle were the predominant activities.67
Both Antonio Ibarra, in his interpretation of the 1802 report of intendent
Fernando Abascal y Sousa, and Richard Lindley, found that the value of the silver production in the intendancy was inferior to that of agricultural production. In general, almost all the metal production of the intendancy of
Guadalajara was exported. Silver represented the bulk of the exportation.
Several metals had to be imported including copper and lead. Almost one‐third of the region’s agricultural production was exported, principally in the form of grains to the rest of region.68 Of the region’s industries, only tannery, soap production, salt extraction and textile production showed development.69 The
66 Those partidos were Acaponeta, Sentispac, Tepic, Bolaños, Tomatlán, Huachinango, Autlán, Amula, Zapotlán, Tequila, San Sebastián, Santa María del Oro, Ahuacatlán, Hostotipaquillo, Ahualulco‐Etzatlán, San Cristóbal, Cuquío, Tonalá, Tlajomulco, Tala, Juchipila, Tepatitlán, La Barca, Lagos, Aguascalientes, and Guadalajara. Ibíd., 141.
67 Linda Greenow, Credit and Socioeconomic Change in Colonial Mexico. Loans and Mortgages in Guadalajara, 1720‐1820 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1983), 5.
68 Antonio Ibarra, La organización regional del mercado interno novohispano. La economía colonial de Guadalajara 1770‐180, (Mexico: Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2000), 88 and Lindley, Haciendas and Development, 21.
69 José Fernando Abascal y Sousa, “Provincia de Guadalajara. Estado que muestra los frutos y efectos de agricultura, industria y comercio, 1803,” in Descripciones
30
first three of the four industries depended on raw materials generated in the haciendas. Cattle breeding supplied hides of different animals to tanneries as well as the animal fat necessary to make soap. All of these economic activities implied an interaction between the countryside and the city.
1,600 1,400 1,200 1,000 Inhabitants 800 of
600 400
Thousands 200 0
go da ora ias ruz tosí N.M. Po adolid alajara
Puebla Son Méri Mexico Oaxaca all Duran Verac Zacatecas aliforn V Luis C Guanajuato
Guad San Intendancy
Figure 2.2 Population of the Viceroyalty of Nueva España, 179370
económicas regionales de Nueva España (Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública/ Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1976), 110‐117.
70 Alejandro de Humboldt, “Tablas geográficas políticas del reino de Nueva España, que manifiestan la superficie, población, agricultura, fábricas, comercio, minas, rentas y fuerza militar (enero de 1804)” in Descripciones económicas generales de Nueva España, 1784‐1817,” comp. Enrique Florescano (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1973), 147‐148.
31
The region’s textile industry had grown, especially the manufacture of cheap materials for popular consumption.71 But the technology used in the production of textiles was rudimentary, the process of cleaning the cotton was done by hand, and the majority of looms were antiquated waist looms.
However, the increasing demand of textiles encouraged more individuals to enter to this trade. Abascal suggested that Guadalajara Consulate of Commerce should install a factory of wool and cotton textiles and import European machines and looms that would allow greater efficacy.72
Cattle ranching exported a variety of animals to Nueva España, including horses, mules, donkeys for mining work and for transportation, and cows, sheep, and hogs for human consumption. Nonetheless, the importation of commodities from Europe and Asia surpassed the value of regional exported products. The bulk of those products were goods that the intendancy of Guadalajara did not produce and a small part was made up of luxury commodities. Certain imported products were impossible to produce in the region because of climate conditions or the unavailability of raw materials, but other goods were not produced locally because of monopolistic policies imposed by the Spanish Crown.73 Half of the region’s tannery production was exported to the rest of Nueva España.
71 Cotton pieces in diverse forms such as mantas, sayales, jergas, jerguetillas, cambayas, frezadas, rebozos, and sarapes.
72 “… si el Consulado determinase una suscripción entre individuos y otras personas pudientes para establecer una fábrica de géneros de lana y algodón, haciendo venir de Europa los telares y máquinas propias para abreviar los trabajos, al mismo tiempo que éstos salen más vistosos y consistentes.” Abascal y Sousa, “Provincia de Guadalajara,” 122.
73 Ibid., 123.
32
Antonio Ibarra affirms that together agriculture and ranching constituted
the key for the growth and mercantile integration of Guadalajara and its region.74
The importance of these activities increased with the demand of grains from
Nueva España during the year of starvation, 1785‐1786, when a frost destroyed
the majority of grain crops in the central region. The hacendados (landowners)
profited greatly from the scarcity of grain in central Mexico. During that year the
demand for credit increased substantially, as many hacendados bought the right to collect Church tithes in the countryside for the following year. The tithes were collected in grains, and their value would increase because most of the storage reserves had been sold during the years of the poor harvest.75 At the same time,
Guadalajara’s population growth increased the demand for food.
It is evident that Guadalajara was not an economic system unto itself but a part of a larger regional system, as well a network of international commerce.
The concept that colonial cities and haciendas were autarkical systems of production does not explain the complex relationships that the dichotomy city/countryside implied to the colonial economy. The industries that were crucial in the region’s balance of trade were tannery and textiles, both of which depended on raw material from the countryside.76 As Guadalajara’s textile production increased in the late colonial era, it began to take over markets in the north and west once controlled by the rival city of Puebla.77 Hence, Guadalajara’s
74 Ibarra, La organización regional, 77.
75 Linda Greenow, Credit and Socioeconomic Change in Colonial Mexico. Loans and Mortgages in Guadalajara, 1720‐1820 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1983), 170.
76 Ibid., 83.
77 Guy P. C. Thomson, Puebla de los Angeles. Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700‐1850 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989) 17‐18.
33
economic growth in the last decades of colonial rule was based on the interrelationship of agricultural production, population g rowth and the expansion of these industries where the region had a natural advantage of production (Table 2.1).
Table 2.1 Intendancy of Guadalajara’s Produc ti on, 180378
Values of Value of Value of Production Production Imports Exports
Agriculture $3,051,215.5 $150,879.1 $903,856.2 Cattle Breeding $1,340,558.0 $260,687.4 Commerce $2,240,946.4 Industry $1,320,451.2 $69,324.2 $624,014.0 Tannery $406,577.4 $128,482.4 $199,253.4 Textiles $1,620,423.1 $135,740.4 $307,739.2 Metals $990,395.3 $12,211.0 $884,493.3 Total $8,729,620.5 $2,737,583.5 $3,180,043.5
Preindustrial economies are not characterized by the commercialization of production. Usually such economies only trade with the agrarian surplus, and, therefore, could survive as autonomous entities. The nature of Guadalajara’s economy in the late eighteenth century appears to be very different from that of a preindustrial economy. The center of colonial economy was mining production but the profits from mining had fed internal markets concentrated in urban
78 Abascal y Sousa, “Provincia de Guadalajara” (Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública/ Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1976), 117.
34
centers. The urban demand for agrarian products and services in turn stimulated the increase in agricultural production.79
Nonetheless, certain anomalies persisted. Colonial authorities controlled
the grain production and the mineral extraction. The royal monopolization of
production through institutions such as pósito and alhóndiga expressed the
preindustrial character of the colonial economy.80 On the local level, however,
the craft guilds’ attempts to control artisan production met with a mixed record
of success. In the latter years of the eighteenth century, Bourbon policy sought to
open up artisan production by reducing the rights of the guilds to regulate the
production of trades. The success or failure of that policy will be one of the
themes of this study. Eric Van Young wrote that the demand for food supplies
increased because of the population growth as well as the growth in the
countryside, thus enhancing agricultural productivity. However, this increase in production was not due to technological changes, but to an increase in the size of
the units of production; in other words, the hacienda expanded on the expense of
the smaller producers, usually the indigenous pueblos. The hacendados saw it
as the most efficient way to get maximum benefits in short time with low
investments.81
As has been said, Guadalajara was the center of the region’s economic
system, constituting a regional market. Even though, at first sight, the hacienda
could be regarded as a closed economic system with extensive independence, one
should consider that the greater part of its production was destined to a lucrative
market. Richard Lindley has demonstrated the crucial relationship between
79 Ibid., 110‐111.
81 Eric Van Young, “Urban Market and Hinterland: Guadalajara and Its Region in the Eighteenth Century” Hispanic American Historical Review 24 (1979): 633.
35
landownership and mercantile enterprises. Guadalajara’s elite enhanced their
access to capital and other economic resources through intermarriage.82 As
Lindley states “the relation between trading house and hacienda was…central to
Nueva España’s society…”83 Since the colonial economy was marked by a scarcity of liquid capital, only those who owned real state could obtain capital in its diverse forms. The amalgamation between urban‐mercantile interests and rural‐agricultural interests was “a common strategy of commercial development in… precapitalist western societies.”84
Linda Greenow found the same close relationship between rural and
urban interests by analyzing the credit market in Guadalajara from 1720 to 1820.
Greenow confirms the regional integration between Guadalajara and its hinterland by a common market. The importance of this integration was fundamental as a strategy of elite adaptation:
It was no longer possible for families to succeed financially by being only efficient ranchers or storeowners; financial independence gained new meaning in this era which witnessed a more intensive exchange of recourses between city and region. Agriculture continued to consume the greatest part of the credit supply, and urban property thus became more common as collateral during this late period.85
82 Lindley, Haciendas and Development, 117.
83 Ibid., 116.
84 Ibid., 118.
85 Greenow, Credit and Socioeconomic Change, 224.
36
The loans and mortgages circulated back and forward from the city to the countryside and were generally used to expand agricultural production, manufacturing, mining, ranching, and trade.86
The lack of liquid capital in the economy made the credit activities crucial in times of crisis as well as times of prosperity. The source of this problem was caused by many factors. The ecological factor derives from geographic difficulty that hindered communication between different areas and led to the sparse distribution of settlements. Farming and livestock activities depended on annual natural cycles of production which implied an investment that only could be
recovered the subsequent year. Mining, as well, was an activity that required a high‐volume investment that often required years to become productive. Also, the expatriation of the surplus of colonial production aggravated the shortage of currency. Indeed, the principal economic activities –mining, agriculture (farming and livestock), and commerce— depended on annual natural cycles and rudimentary technology. In addition, economic patterns of payment and production imposed by the colonial system damaged enormously the availability of currency. One element that marked a substantial improvement during the late
Spanish rule was the opening of San Blas harbor by the Bourbon reforms of
1774.87 The port added even more to the city’s economy after 1813, when
Acapulco lost its monopoly of the Asian trade to San Blas. Contradictory as it sounds however, this flow of imported goods increased the scarcity of currency since considerable currency went to pay for these products.88 Mercantile
86 Ibid., 12.
87 Lindley, Haciendas and Development, 25.
88 Eric Van Young, Hacienda and Market, 146.
37
enterprises meant the investment of large quantities of money which could be recovered only in the long term.
The Church was the principal lender under colonial rule performing the actions that banks normally do. Greenow found that the Church did not act as a
“corporate body, but as a set of interlocking interest groups,” and identified three different classes of lenders within Church –central diocesan council (Cathedral), missions orders (such as the Convent of Santa María), and secular clergy
(through the capellanías).89 The capellanía was a fund that a lay individual established to support a clergyman during his studies or when he was already a
priest.90 Agueda Jiménez, who analyzed the credit system in the north region of
Nueva Galicia, found that the credit market in this region was quite similar to
Guadalajara, in the sense that the Church was the principal lender. The largest part of the credit was used to invest in agricultural enterprises. Jiménez concludes that the role of the Church was positive in the colonial economy.91
However, that positive impact suffered from the consolidación de vales in 1805.
In 1805, the amount of currency in circulation worsened because the law of consolidación de vales reales. The Spanish crown wanted to reduce the economic power of the Church by selling every property that the Church did not rely upon
for subsistence. The other purpose of this law was the collection of loans issued by Church institutions.92 The collected money was sent to Spain leaving
89 Ibid., 223.
90 Agueda Jiménez‐Pelayo, “El impacto del crédito en la economía rural del norte de la Nueva Galicia” Hispanic American Historical Review 71 (1991): 506.
91 Ibid., 529.
92Greenow, Credit and Socioeconomic Change, 155.
38
agriculture, mining and commercial activities in a precarious economic situation; the circulating currency was reduced and the traditional role of the Church as a lender was severely undermined.93
The economy of Indian villages depended on repartimiento de comercio for
the most part of colonial rule, “alcaldes mayores” distributed merchandise and
domestic animals to the Indians on credit, and cash in advance for products such
as cotton and cochineal.94 This system had a double function: one was to provide
a livelihood to alcaldes mayores, since they did not received a salary for the administrative functions they performed. It also enabled Indians to receive credit
to carry out some of their basic economic activities such as ranching and
commerce. Spanish authorities believed that the repartimiento de comercio was
harmful for the Indians communities since they did not have the freedom of
commerce to sell or buy goods in accordance to their choice. Contemporary
scholars usually have agreed, interpreting the repartimiento de comercio as a
burden on Indian communities. However, new evidence has showed that the
prohibition of repartimiento de comercio may have a detrimental effect on the
larger colonial economy. When repartimiento de comercio was prohibited as a
part of the Bourbon reforms, from 1786 to 1795, the Indian communities lost one of the most important sources of credit.95 Specifically detrimental for Nueva
93 Consolidación law was enacted from 1805 to 1809, collecting more than eleven millions of pesos. See Asunción Lavrin, “The Execution of the Law of Consolidation in Nueva España: Economic Aims and Results” Hispanic American Historical Review 53 (1973).
94 Brading, Miners and Merchants, 47.
95 Other forms of credit available to Indian were from religious organizations such as confraternities.
39
Galicia, the livestock trade underwent a difficult time as a result of this prohibition.96 The system of repartimiento de bienes had compensated the
imperfect colonial markets, giving access to Indians communities to a credit and
cash. 97
Guadalajara was the center of regional redistribution of local and
imported goods from Europe and China in all the intendancy. In 1791 regional
merchants organized themselves in a commercial board (Junta de Comercio) and
requested that the Spanish Crown create a Consulate of Commerce in
Guadalajara to manage all the overseas trade destined for Province of
Guadalajara. Despite the opposition of Mexico City’s merchants, who
understandably fought the establishment of a Commercial Consulate in
Guadalajara, the Crown allowed the establishment of a Consulate in 1795.
Mexico City was no longer the dominant commercial center in Nueva España.98
Indeed, another consulate was opened in Veracruz the same year. The
immediate consequences of this was the “…diversification of exchange, lowering the costs of commercial transactions in favor of the local elites.”99
Overseas commerce fluctuated during the last decade of the eighteenth century. This allowed the growth of industrial and craft production for regional
96 Arij Ouweneel, Shadows over Anáhuac: An Ecological Interpretation of Crisis and Develpment in Central Mexico, 1730‐1800 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996), 207.
97 Arij Ouweneel, Shadows over Anáhuac, 177.
98 Greenow, Credit and Socioeconomic Change, 147.
99 Ibarra, La organización regional, 164.
40
consumption.100 Besides the economic statistics on production, the changing nature of the labor market also demonstrates the economic development of the region. The following is an analysis and description of the occupational structure of Guadalajara based on aggregate statistics from the Revillagigedo census of
1792‐1793, and on the population census manuscript of 1821.
Tabl e 2.2 Population by Calidad 1793‐ 1821
N % N %
N %
ds ds
stiz N N Year % Total Castas Castas (Mestizo/ (Me o/ Indians Spaniar Spaniar Indians Castizo) Castizo) Population Mulattos Mulattos
1793 9,572 39.5 3,898 16.1 4,241 17.5 6,538 27.0 24,249101
1821 8,426 49.0 1,993 11.6 6,348 36.9 419 2.4 17,186102
The 1793 census aggregate count gives the following distribution (Table 2.
2). In 1821, the officially results of the census was 38, 087 individuals. The city of
100 Ramón María Serrera Contreras, “Estado económico de la Intendencia de Guadalajara a principios del siglo XIX,” in Lecturas Históricas de Jalisco. Antes de la Independencia, vol. II, ed. José María Muría (Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1982), 117.
101 José Menéndez Valdés, Descripción y Censo General de la Intendencia de Guadalajara 1789‐1793 (Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1980), 161.
102 In the 1821 census, calidad was only provided for 17, 186 out of a total population of 38, 012. The above table can only evaluate calidad for the 17,040 individuals for whom it was provided.
41
Guadalajara underwent an annual increase of 2.3 percent during the thirty years
between the two censuses.103
By 1821, the percentage of population with a job was 37.6 percent. The
analysis of the productive structure of Guadalajara shows that in 1792, 16.4% of
the total individuals were dedicated to commercial activities; in 1821 the
percentage increased to one fifth (19.6%). In both years the proportion of merchants to the total of the population is significant, corroborating
Guadalajara’s commercial vocation as center of redistribution. The agriculture
sector r epresented the 8.1 percent of the population in 1792 and by 1821 there were only 7.2 percent of residents who had as p rimary activity the farming
production, showing a decrease (Table 2.3).
Table 2.3 Industries in Guadalajara, 1792‐1821
1792104 1821 Industry N % N % Construction 159 5.9 255 2.2 Manufacturing 1,235 46.0 5,206 44.9 Commerce 439 16.4 2,267 19.6 Services 470 17.5 2,585 22.3 Agriculture 216 8.1 830 7.2 Militia 163 6.1 440 3.8
Total 2,682 100.0 11,583 100.0
103 A 57 percent during the period of time of almost thirty years.
104 AHMG, paquete 12, legajo 35, 1792.
42
The construction sector showed a great reduction from the 1792 to 1821,
probably reflecting the decline in construction after the long period of growth
from the mid‐eighteenth century, when many of the city’s numerous churches,
chapels, nunneries, monasteries as well as other public or private structures were
either finished or started.105 In absolute numbers, the presence of militiamen
grew with the city possibly caused by the recently ended independence war. The manufacturing sector proportion stayed relatively stable in both censuses,
representing almost half of the occupied population. Besides weaving, shoemaking was one of the manufactures that increased significantly during the following years. However, it was a lower status trade and principally an activity restricted to urban centers.106 Services showed a slight increase from one census to the other.
The stable proportion of the manufacturing sector was due to a group of new situations. One of the most decisive factors was the demographic recovery that allowed the increase in the urban population and consequently, the expansion of the market. Moreover, the frequent interruptions in the overseas
trade during the late colonial era and the final rupture with the metropolis
permitted the development of an incipient industry, principally textile
manufacture, to satisfy local demand as well as markets in the west and north of
Nueva España. In fact, as we will see in the next section, weaving was one of the
activities that exhibited the highest growth.
105 José Cornejo Franco, Guadalajara (Mexico: n.p., 1946).
106 Abascal y Sousa, “Provincia de Guadalajara,” p.111.
43
CHAPTER THREE
GUILDS OF GUADALAJARA
In the second half of the eighteenth century, Guadalajara began to experience important economic changes that allowed it to grow as a regional
center. These economic transformations were parallel to, and perhaps
instrumental in, a steady population increase that expanded the urban market for
basic products and services. As the market expanded, so did the manufacturing
sector. Artisans constituted an important segment of this manufacturing sector.
Artisans were defined as skilled workers with special mechanical abilities, who,
in theory at least, controlled the process of production. Artisans were expected to
own the tools that allowed them to practice their crafts and eventually, to qualify
as a master of their trade, and (hopefully) own their own workshop.
Spanish crown regarded artisans as an important sector of colonial society.
They not only contributed economically to the municipal governments by paying
taxes and fees, but they also provided commodities and services to the urban
population.107 Some artisans were able to overcome these transformations more
successfully than others. In order to isolate and examine the nature of the craft
community in Guadalajara, I will concentrate on those crafts which together were
known as the guild (gremio) trades.
Traditionally, all artisans were organized into guilds. The guild system
was a European organization of labor that had its origins in the Middle Ages.
107Richard Konetzke, “Las ordenanzas de gremios como documentos para la historia social de Hispanoamérica durante la época colonial,” in Estudios de historia social de España I (Madrid: Instituto Balmes de Sociología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1949), 481‐524.
44
Spanish authorities introduced this institution into the New World, but as it developed over time, the guild system changed and evolved. Beyond the similarities to the Spanish institution, Latin American guilds underwent a process of adaptation to the different New World social conditions and labor necessities.
One peculiar difference from European guilds was the large presence of Indians and Blacks in the colonies and the scarcity of Spanish skilled workers in many trades. Initially, Spanish guilds denied admission to individuals who could not prove their purity of blood from both sides of their parents. Although, as developed in Spain, this practice was meant to limit the guilds to Christians and keep out individuals who were Jewish or Muslim, this racial/religious exclusivity was impossible to enforce in Nueva España. The scarcity of artisans in the different crafts forced the Spanish Crown to admit Indians, Blacks and persons of mixed blood.108 The Mexican guild system developed according to regional and local conditions. For instance, the local government of Nueva España’s capital enforced guild regulations as early as the sixteenth century.109 Other cities such as
Guadalajara did not see the establishment of the guild system until the eighteenth century. In Guadalajara, the guild system was introduced in the
1730s.110
108 Jorge González Angulo Aguirre, Artesanado y ciudad a finales del siglo XVIII (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica/Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1983).
109 Manuel Carrera Stampa, Los gremios mexicanos. La organización gremial en la Nueva España (México: EDIAPSA, 1954), 260.
110 José Olmedo, Los zapateros de Guadalajara. Nueva Galicia, 1751‐1824 (Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara/Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1997), 60‐67.
45
As a corporative organization, the guild’s fundamental functions were the control of the production as well as the sale of commodities produced by the guild‐organized artisans of the city. In addition, guild masters were to instruct and train apprentices in the art and craft of their profession. All guild members were required to participate in annual public events both specific to their trades and as a collective, city wide celebration of the major holidays.111 Among the public festivities that the guilds were expected to attend were kings’ and viceroy’s birthdays as well as the mourning of a royal member, oath to the king,
saints’ beatification and canonization, city patron’s saint, Holy Week and Corpus
Christi commemoration.112 It was common that the trade ordinances stipulated these responsibilities. Article nine of Guadalajara tailors’ ordinances, issued in
1748, specified that every year the overseer was responsible to organize the
participation of the tailors in the Holy Friday and Corpus Christi processions.113
Other example of the importance of these public celebrations was the oath to the
king. In Guadalajara in 1808, the municipal authorities issued a pronouncement
that they expected that “all craft guilds… must swear their loyalty to the new
King [Fernando VII] in the public plaza in the accustomed mode and form.”114 In
111 For a recent work about colonial celebration, see Linda Curcio‐Nagy, The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City. Performing Power and Identity (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004).
112 Carrera, Los gremios mexicanos, 95.
113 Luis M. Rivera, comp., Documentos Tapatíos, Documento No. 125 (Mexico: UNED, 1989), 108.
114 AHMG, paquete 22, legajo 37. According to Carrera, from Carlos V to Fernando VII, there were eleven oaths for each one of the viceroy, Los gremios mexicanos, 105.
46
addition, every craft guild celebrated its patron saint’s day with a mass followed
by a feast.115 Some guilds dedicated an altar to their craft in a church parish, convent, monastery or hospital.116
Municipal authorities enforced the attendance of the guilds at the public festivities with the practice of fining the artisans who did not go to the procession. The fines ranged from 10 to 30 pesos according to artisan’s rank inside the guild. Artisans who held office as alcalde (President or chief officer), veedor (overseer) or mayordomo (treasurer) paid 30 pesos, masters were fined 20 pesos, and the rest of the members (journeymen and apprentices) would be fined
10 pesos for missing a mandatory function.117
The town council organized these public events through the figure of diputado de fiestas (delegate of parties). The delegate of parties coordinated these celebrations by giving instructions to the different sectors of colonial society who were meant to participate. He was obligated to attend every celebration as he was responsible for its success.118 The designation of a specific individual to arrange these parades indicates the social importance of those celebrations to the community, and to the guilds. The procession had specific orders and procedures that were dictated by tradition and any disruption to the customary order was considered a threat to the stability of the community. A general rule
115 To consult the whole list of assigned Saints to each guilds as well as the specific date of the celebration see Carrera, Los gremios mexicanos, 89‐91.
116 Ibid., 91.
117 Ibid., 94.
118 Ibid., 96.
47
was that every guild had a similar tunic (fabric and color) and marched with the guild emblem.119
An example of the importance that the city authorities attached to such celebrations is seen in the following incident. In 1806, during the annual procession commemorating the crucifixion of Jesús on Good Friday, an incident disrupted the “immemorial” tradition. Don Josef Pérez de Acal, sergeant of militia, committed a “shameless” act that eventually resulted in a file of relevant documents fifty nine pages long. Don Josef was charged to organize properly the city’s garrisoned troops who were to march in the parade. Instead, Don Josef brought a poorly dressed troop of only thirty soldiers, along with one lone drum.
The troop’s condition was so pitiful that the town council and the Bishop intervened. Don Josef was accused of disturbing the system by acting disrespectfully toward the municipal authorities and slighting the celebration’s importance and overall giving a extremely bad impression to the common people of the authorities.120 This kind of processions took place in many European cities, as Robert Darnton found in the description of Montpellier’s parade in France during the eighteenth century.121 As he mentioned, these public demonstrations represented the symbolic order of society. All sectors of colonial society marched in a specific sequence according to “rank and dignity.”122 Nobility, clergy, militia, municipal authorities, and artisans tried to show off in the best way.
119 Rivera, Documentos Tapatíos, Documento No. 125, 108.
120 AHMG, paquete 20, legajo 28.
121 Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Basic Book: 1984), 107‐143.
122 Ibid., 118.
48
Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate any document that provides the description and order of the parade, such as Darnton uncovered. Although other means are available to provide a view of the artisan social order, a reconstruction of the procession would be of great value.
Table 3.1 Increase in Crafts 1792‐1821
Increase Crafts 1792123 1821 1792‐1821 % Weavers 417 1,706 309.1 Bakers 60 217 261.7 Shoemakers 178 574 222.5 Carpenters/Coach makers 77 247 220.8 Blacksmiths 38 117 207.9 Silversmiths 51 137 168.6 Hat makers 72 167 131.9 Barbers 39 87 123.1 Leather tanners/Saddlers 126 201 59.5 Tailors 276 377 36.6 Wax makers 10 10 0.0 Fireworks makers 6 6 0.0
Total 1,350 3,846 184.9 Total population 24,249 38,012 57.0
The focus of the remainder of this chapter is the description of guilds, their
importance in the colonial economy and the changes introduced into the local economy that affected the nature and economic health of the various guild crafts during the late eighteenth century and the beginning of nineteenth century. In
Guadalajara, there were a total of twelve trades that were organized into guilds:
123AHMG, paquete 12, legajo 35, 1792.
49
silversmiths (plateros), blacksmiths (herreros), barbers (barberos), carpenters & coach makers (carpinteros/carroceros, who because of their dependence on the
other’s craft were usually organized together), tailors (sastres), shoemakers
(zapateros), wax makers (cereros), bakers (panaderos), weavers (obrajeros/tejedores),
leather tanners & saddlers (curtidores/silleros), hat makers (sombrereros), and
fireworks makers (cohetero). (Because fireworks makers were so few, only 6, they
will usually be left out of the tables and the discussion.)
Guadalajara experienced a steady increase of population during the late
colonial period. Between 1792 and 1821, a period of just thirty years,
Guadalajara’s population grew 57 per cent, from 24,249 to 38,012 by the official
padrones (censuses). At the same time, the guild artisans increased nearly two
hundred percent (Table 3.1), and from six percent of the total population in 1791
to ten percent in 1821. The trades that underwent the largest increase were
weaving, bakery, shoemaking, carpentry, and blacksmithing. While the
increased number of weavers represented a real expansion of the market, since
the cotton textile industry was expanding (both to supply the local population increase and by taking Puebla’s place in the region’s west and north), the far greater increase in guild artisans than the city’s population meant, in general terms, more competition from their fellow craftsmen.124 With the exception of blacksmithing, the crafts that had greatest increase were the easiest to enter, requiring a relatively low outlay for tools and little practical experience. Also, as the table 3.2 shows, the same occupations that grew the most were the occupations with largest portion of individuals who were born outside
Guadalajara (weavers, 40.5 %; shoemakers, 30.5 %; bakers, 27.3 %). In other
124 Guy P. C. Thomson, Puebla de los Angeles. Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700‐1850 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989) 17‐18.
50
words, the increased population and expanded markets enticed craftsmen from elsewhere.
Table 3.2 Males Artisans by Birthplace, 1821
Guadalajara Elsewhere Total Crafts N % N % N % Weavers 634 59.6 429 40.4 1063 100.0 Shoemakers 301 69.5 132 30.5 433 100.0 Bakers 96 72.7 36 27.3 132 100.0 Carpenters/Coach makers 139 76.0 44 24.0 183 100.0 Hat makers 89 78.8 24 21.2 113 100.0 Barbers 45 80.4 11 19.6 56 100.0 Blacksmiths 74 81.3 17 18.7 91 100.0 Tailors 221 82.2 48 17.8 269 100.0 Leather tanners/Saddlers 154 84.2 29 15.8 183 100.0 Silversmiths 76 88.4 10 11.6 86 100.0 Wax makers 5 100.0 0.0 5 100.0 Total 1,834 70.2 780 29.8 2,614 100.0
One might also ask to what extent the increase in artisans resulted from the dislocations and disruptions of the Insurgency. After all, major battles took place not far from Guadalajara and the city had even been occupied (briefly) by
Hidalgo’s forces.125 This question cannot be answered in general, but there is evidence for specific districts. For cuartel 18 and 20, the census takers gave the number of years in residence for 771 inhabitants (both sexes). From that evidence, we can know that their average (mean) year of arrival to the city was
1809. However, only 5.1 percent of the immigrant population arrived in 1810.126
125 Luis René Navarro, “La abolición de la esclavitud,” in Lecturas Históricas e Jalisco, eds. José María Muriá, Jaime Olveda and Alma Dorantes (Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno del Estado, 1981): 87‐91. The occupation of Guadalajara lasted less than two months, from November 26, 1810 to January 15, 1811.
126 Independence War proclamation was issued on September 16, 1810.
51
Between the years of more violence, 1810‐1818, only 39.4 percent were new residents. After 1818, when violence had subsided, a significant 26.1 percent of the migrants had migrated into Guadalajara. Also 34.5 percent of the population had migrated prior to 1809. Hence, even though insurgency likely brought a significant number of migrants to the city, most were probably not driven by the
Insurgency. Of the 147 individuals who were guild artisans, the average year of arrival was 1804. In table 3.3, there are the average years of arrival by craft.
Table 3.3 Mean Year of Arrival by Craft, 1821 Mean Immigrants Occupation Year N Barbers ‐‐ Carpenters/Coach makers 1812 9 Wax makers ‐‐ Leather tanners/Saddlers ‐ ‐ Blacksmiths 1799 3 Weavers 1803 84 Bakers 1796 12 Silversmiths 1816 3 Tailors 1812 6 Hat makers 1801 1 Shoemakers 1806 29 Total 1804 147
Merchants 1809 23 Landowners 1808 46
Inevitably, local guilds complained of these newcomers. Authorities and
master artisans regarded migrants as a “vagabonds” who “created disorder on
52
the streets.”127 While they were portrayed as impoverished and poorly skilled
workers, the migrants in fact likely brought with them training in the craft that they had learned elsewhere. In spite of the negative image that authorities and master artisans attached to the immigrants, they were able to participate in the growing trades because no legal barriers prevented their entrance as journeymen and because many would have brought their own tools with them. Masters, however, were required to “prove” their qualification or be re‐examined, but
here again guild efforts to enforce the regulations were not always successful.
And, in a practical sense, the economic changes of the Bourbon era had already
introduced into Guadalajara the rudiments of a market economy, and the city’s
important Merchant Consulate was working to undermine the guild’s traditional
regulation of production. Already many guild complaints about “unliscensed”
masters, and about journeymen selling goods on their own (strictly forbidden under guild regulations), indicated that commercial capitalism was making inroads in a craft economy. Complaints about unfair competition from artisans who produced commodities without adhering to the requirements of the guilds were common place. Nonetheless, despite evidence of weakened guild control and capitalist competition with the craft economy, it cannot be assumed automatically that the guild crafts were in decline, nor that each craft was affected equally by change. Indeed, as I have stated earlier, it is my contention
that the guild crafts were in surprisingly good shape, despite the obvious decline
in their ability to control their markets. Further, that even with the decline in the guild’s formal apparatus of control, that the city’s crafts were in the process of
127 AHMG, paquete 19, legajo 134, 1800, quoted in Gerald Gies, “Artisan Culture in Guadalajara, Mexico, 1780‐1830: Guilds Response to the Economic Challenges of Commercial Capitalism” (Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 1995), 57.
53
creating a craft community, perhaps even a craft culture, that would enable them to survive capitalism’s deprivations, and some even to prosper. The following is an examination of how the guilds worked in practice, as well as theory.
Apprenticeship
Guilds maintained the same vertical organization than Spanish guilds based on the distinction between masters, journeymen, and apprentices.128 The apprenticeship was the first step in the hierarchical organization of the guild system. In theory, a young man entered an apprenticeship to acquire sufficient knowledge and skills to practice a particular craft. Each craft stipulated a minimum age at which one might enter as an apprentice. According to Manuel
Carrera Stampa, the range of ages among apprentices was from nine years to eighteen years.129
Usually the legal guardian or one of the parents and the master signed a contract before a notary to begin the apprenticeship of a minor. This contract stipulated the rights and obligations of both contractual parts. For example, the contract usually stipulated that the apprentice would spend a specific amount of time learning the trade. During that period, the master was responsible for teaching not only the secrets of the craft but also the religious precepts according to the Catholic Church. From the parent’s point of view, an apprenticeship to a good master in reasonably lucrative trade was a means to insure their offspring a
128 Manuel Carrera Stampa, Los gremios mexicanos. La organización gremial en la Nueva España (México: EDIAPSA, 1954) and Héctor Humberto Samayoa Guevara, Los gremios de artesanos en la Ciudad de Guatemala, 1524‐1821 (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, 1962).
129 Carrera Stampa, Los gremios mexicanos, 25.
54
livelihood.130 For instance, María Rosa Cisneros contracted for her son to work as
an apprentice for five years to Juan Mora, a carrocero (coach maker) master, in order that her son, Felipe Morales, “would learn an occupation that would allow him to subsist and support himself decently and honestly.”131 And, of course, a
faithful son with a good income would be able to help provide for his parents in
their old age. To terminate a contract, either of the contractual parties had to present reasonable evidence before the local authorities.132 Moreover, the master had to provide food and shelter for the apprentice even during periods of illness and was directly responsible for the moral conduct of the apprentice.
The apprenticeship length did not appear in the Guadalajara’s available guild ordinances.133 According to Carrera, only in some guilds ordinances for
Mexico City appeared the apprenticeship duration. However, from the surviving contracts it is possible to confirm that the apprentice training period ran from two to seven years. There is some evidence to confirm that silversmiths and coach makers spent five years in training, tailors three, blacksmiths two or three and shoemakers two years.134 Even in the same trade, there was not a defined period
130 Felipe Castro Gutiérrez, La extinción de la artesanía gremial (Mexico: Universidad Nacional de México, 1986), 74.
131 “… aprenda un oficio… con que pueda subsistir y mantenerse decente y honestamente,” Rivera, Documentos Tapatíos, Documento No. 128, 114.
132 Castro Gutiérrez, La extinction de la artesanía, 27‐37.
133 I could consult silversmith, shoemakers, blacksmiths, and tailors ordinances. According to José Olmedo, from the twelve established guilds in Guadalajara only six ordinances have been found, Los zapateros, 67.
134 AHMG, Gremios 1796/1804, paquete 19, legajo 41; Gremios 13/1748, paquete 2, legajo, 98, quoted in Geis, “Artisan Culture,” 53. Rivera, Documentos Tapatíos, Documento No. 128, 114.
55
of learning. The number of years that an apprentice had to spend on the master’s
workshop was stipulated in the agreement between the parent and the master.
According to Manuel Carrera Stampa, the apprenticeship time period stipulated in the contract could have been an indication that established masters wanted to
restrict the number of apprentices that eventually would become masters. In other words, the longer the apprenticeship, the longer the master would be provided with cheap labor.
The number of apprentices that any one master might employ at any one time was a contentious issue. While some artisans were unable to resist the attack of commercial capitalism without becoming dependent producers, other artisans managed to establish larger workshop that employed the cheap labor of journeymen and apprentices.135 The local guilds were sufficiently concerned about the problem that on May 21, 1792, the guild’s apprenticeship supervisor
(Síndico Procurador), Eugenio Moreno de Tejada, presented before the local authorities a new set of regulations which the guilds wished to add to the masters’ duty towards apprentices.136 Among the new regulations was the stipulation that no master would be allowed to employ more than two apprentices in his workshop. In Moreno’s opinion, the majority of masters employed between eight and ten apprentices. In other words, masters employing that many apprentices did not need to employ journeymen artisans to whom they would have to pay a far greater wage.137
135 Ibid., 189.
136 Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola approved these regulations. Rivera, Documentos Tapatíos, Documento No. 127, 113.
137 Ibid., Documento No. 127, 113.
56
According to the 1791 census, the number of apprentices and individual craftsmen between the ages of nine and eighteen were far fewer than that. Even accounting for the missing Indians and Mulattoes, Moreno’s charges seem exaggerated. Only blacksmiths exceeded that average (Table 3.4).
Table 3.4 Ratio Apprentices to Master, 1791
1791 Voting Ratio Craft Apprentices 9 Masters 1790‐ Apprentices to 18 years old 1792 to Master Bakers ‐16 ‐ Blacksmiths 49 11 4.5 Wax makers 5 4 1.3 Barbers 9 9 1.0 Tailors 16 17 0.9 Leather tanners/Saddlers 13 20 0.7 Carpenters/Coach Makers 11 24 0.5 Hat makers 10 41 0.2 Silversmiths 1 10 0.1 Shoemakers 1 10 0.1 Weavers 1 23 0.0 TOTAL 117 185 0.6
A word of caution is needed, however. In 1791 it is evident that a
substantial number of young men of apprentice age were listed with no occupation in the manuscript census. It is possible, of course, that a portion of those persons were actually employed in masters workshops without acknowledging their work, either purposeful (on the part of the master) or negligence on the part of the census taker. Even so, the overall ratio is a quite
57
modest figure indicating no great takeover of the artisan production by merchant capitalists operating in the guise of masters.138
Journeymen
At the end of the stipulated time, apprentices became journeymen.
According to the ordinances, to be a journeyman was a provisional stage. A journeymen’s goal was to become a master and own their own public workshop.
However, this idealistic model of artisanal training conformed only loosely to colonial reality. A large proportion of journeymen never took the master’s exam.
One of the principal reasons was the excessive cost of the procedure. They had to pay for the right to be examined and for their title as a master.139 In addition, they had to pay for the drinks, food, and gifts for overseers and the persons who were present during the examination. Also they would have paid the cost of the master’s piece that was required to demonstrate their skills. In 1792, the síndico procurador (municipal authority) issued an edict that prohibited guild authorities
from receiving drinks, food, or any kind of gift from journeymen who were to be
examined. He calculated that journeymen spent between seventy five and eighty
pesos in all the fees, taxes, and expenses related to their examination. The
138 One should note that my interpretation is at variance with and possibly in contradiction of, the conclusions of Rodney D. Anderson in his article, “Race and Social Stratification,” 219. The number of the voting masters in table 3.4 is higher of the three years 1790‐1792.
139 In 1805, the total amount to be paid was eight pesos and four reales. Six pesos and 4 reales for the media annata, and two pesos for the exam. AHMG, paquete 42, expediente 15. Eight reales constituted one peso.
58
principal motive for issuing this law was to encourage journeymen to take the examination and, thereby, to avoid clandestine work.140
During the time that an artisan was a journeyman, he worked for a master who had to pay for his services. The “natural” place to work for a journeyman was a workshop. However, some journeymen worked by the “putting out” system at their homes; that is, they received consignments assigned by a master or a better‐off merchant that took advantage of the situation in which journeymen were forced to live. Those clandestine workshops constituted a disloyal competence according to the established masters and journeymen.
Frequently the latter protested about unfair competition from artisans who produced commodities without adhering to the requirements of the guilds.141 In the case of Guadalajara, hat makers presented a complaint before the municipal government concerning “the huge number of resellers of hats in any plaza and street.”142 The issue of uncertified journeymen selling their products on the streets, in unregulated shops, or out of their homes, was a constant complaint from both the city’s journeymen and their masters. In 1803 the tailor’s guild complained about those who sold unauthorized clothes “on the street corners or
140 Rivera, Documentos Tapatíos, No. 129, 115.
141 Sonia Pérez Toledo, “Artesanos y gremios de la ciudad de México: una desaparición formal y una continuidad real, 1780‐1842,” in Ciudad de México: Instituciones, actores sociales y conflicto político, 1774‐1931, eds. Carlos Íllades and Ariel Rodríguez Kuri (México: Colegio de Michoacán/Universidad Autonóma Metropolitana, 1996), 229.
142 “…la multitud de regatones y revendedores de sombreros en cualquier plaza y calle,” AHMG, Documentos varios del ramo de gremios, 1807.
59
in their homes.”143 The city government promised to force the unlicensed to take the exams, but complaints continued throughout the end of the colonial era and on into Independence.144 As late as 1819, the hat makers were still complaining about the number of “strangers” selling hats on the streets and in the inns, “to the great hurt and damage…to the hat makers craft.”145
As already mentioned, among journeymen’s responsibilities was the participation in the social and religious events of their guilds. The article twelve of blacksmiths’ ordinances issued in 1764 for Guadalajara said “…every
journeyman must go to religious processions with a lit candle and followed the
whole parade circuit. If somebody has a fair necessity to leave, he has to ask
permission to the overseer. If someone does the opposite, he will be fined with
four gold tomínes.”146
143 AHMG, caja 1124, legajo 42, expediente, 54, quoted in Anderson, “Race and Social Stratification,” 218.
144 AHMG, caja 1124, legajo 42, expediente 54. For other complains see Geis, “Artisan Culture in Guadalajara, México,” 63 and 75‐80.
145 AHMG, paquete 21, legajo 33, quoted in Geis, “Artisan Culture,” p. 80.
146 “Ordenaron y mandaron que todos los oficiales de dicho oficio de herrería que en esta ciudad estuvieren, sean obligados de ir personalmente con sus candelas de cera encendidas en las procesiones…, y no salgan de la procesión para ir a otras partes… Si alguno tuviere alguna justa necesidad de salir de la procesión, que para ello pida licencia a el veedor…y el que lo contrario hiciere, incurra en pena de cuatro tomínes del dicho oro.” Rivera, Documentos Tapatíos, Documento No. 126, 111.
60
Masters
To achieve the highest position inside the guild hierarchy, it was necessary
to take an exam to prove the abilities and skills proper of each trade. In accordance with the trade, every journeyman had to take a theoretical and a practical exam. The practical examination consisted on making a “master piece” in front of the guild authorities, generally the overseer, the mayordomo and two other masters of the trade.147 If the journeyman passed the examination in conformity with the ordinances, he received a carta de examen (letter of examination), also called título, from the guild authorities in a solemn ceremony in which the new master pledged to perform his trade with loyalty to God and the Mary Virgin and to the patron saint of his trade.148
As an examined master, the individual had the right to open a public
workshop, receive apprentices, and hire journeymen. They also had the right to hold a guild office. However, not all the journeymen were able to become a master, some decided to work without paying attention to the guild regulations.
This was a constant dispute between journeymen and masters.
In 1807, Mónico Cervantes, Manuel García, Josef María Montaño, Basilio
Banderas, and Josef María Medina were denounced by masters affiliated with the tailor’s guild for “having public workshops, with journeymen and apprentices,
doing this for a long time, but resisting verification [that they have taken] the
147 AHMG, paquete 42, expediente 15. AHMG, paquete 42, expediente 56.
148 Carrera, Los gremios mexicanos, 38‐39.
61
masters exam.” 149 In other words, these were “journeymen” even though they
had extensive experience in the trade (“ser antiguos en la profesión”).
Despite these complaints, it is difficult to assess accurately the true economic and cultural “health” of the guild crafts. Using only material considerations and documented complaints such as those above, both Geis and
Anderson, assert that there was a “craft economy in crisis”150 Anderson believes, as does Gies, that the “ownership of the means of production was narrowing significantly for the majority of the city’s trades”151 Certainly, those constant complaints are the indication of the loosening of the formal control the guilds once exercised (at least in theory).
It is certainly true that the guilds’ economic position was weakening by the economic reforms during the Bourbon’s administration. Among these reforms was the liberation of commercialization that encouraged the intervention of commercial capital into the craft production. When the city’s master tailors tried to elicit city government’s support against certain merchant‐masters’ large scale workshops, they were informed that restrictions on large enterprises were
“contrary to the spirit of the times.”152
Nor is there any doubt that the abolition of the guilds was another fundamental modification. On June 8 of 1813, the Cortes de Cádiz decreed the
149 “…mantener oficinas públicas, con oficiales y aprendices, y ser antiguos en la profesión [pero se] resisten el verificar dicho examen.” AHMG, Documentos varios del ramo de gremios, 17 mayo de 1806.
150 Geis, “Artisan Culture,” 61‐94.
151 Anderson, “Race and Social Stratification,” 219.
152 Geis, “Artisan Culture,” 86.
62
abolition of the guilds and on January 7 of 1814, this decree was published in
Mexico by Viceroy Calleja.153 But there is a curious ambivalence about the implementation of the decree, and one needs to attempt to deconstruct the evidence with care. Actually, guild’s “abolition” did not revoke the privileges of the members, but only opened the crafts to anyone who desired to practice them:
“every Spaniard can practice any craft without presenting a master exam before
the respective guild.”154 This meant that long after the formal abolition of the
guilds, they continued to function.155 For one thing, local governments were
reluctant to implement such an apparent radical change. Puebla authorities, for
example, continued to support guild elections and craft examinations through
1819.156 In Guadalajara, the city government’s confirmation of guild elections
continued through 1820. Indeed, the city published a list of guild officers who
had not paid their title (título)‐‐that is the fee they owed upon election to a guild
153 Cortes de Cádiz, Diario de las discusiones y actas de las Cortes, 1810‐1813 (España, Cádiz: Imprenta Real, 1810‐1834, vol. 1). Dorothy Tanck, “La abolición de los gremios,” in El trabajo y los trabajadores en la historia de México, eds. Elsa Frost and Josefina Vázquez (México: Tucson: El Colegio de México/University of Arizona Press, 1979), 314.
154 AHMG, GS, 1813, paquete 29, legajo 167.
155 Sonia Pérez Toledo, “Artesanos y gremios de la ciudad de México: una desaparición formal y una continuidad real, 1780‐1842,” in Ciudad de México: Instituciones, actores sociales y conflicto político, 1774‐1931, ed. Carlos Íllades and Ariel Rodríguez Kuri (México: Colegio de Michoacán/Universidad Autonóma Metropolitana, 1996), 240.
156 Guy P. C. Thompson, Pueba de los Angeles. Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700‐1850 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), 112‐13.
63
office.157 The fees owed for the elections and examinations were a constant source
of revenue for the city, and they were reluctant to give them up.
I will return to the issue of the “health” of the craft sector of the
Guadalajara’s economy in a later chapter. However, I would like to emphasize
that the current historiographic trend is to dispute the once common assumption
that the handicraft industry declined everywhere in the face of first commercial and then factory competition. Some trades suffered nearly everywhere (e.g. weaving), but others prospered or held their own depending on the craft, the region, the integration into the needs of the expanding commercial and industrial
process. Although often dependent on the capital controlled by merchants, the
small producers were surprisingly resilient, and survived in many countries until
well into the twentieth century.158
Table 3.5 shows that the majority of crafts maintained a constant number
of voting masters through the period 1790 to 1820. Shoemakers and barbers
witnessed an increase in the number of masters who participated during the
annual elections for offices.159 This could be a sign of strength in the guild, since
more masters competed for a position inside the guild. In the case of
shoemakers, José Olmedo found that 48 percent of the masters held office more
157 AHMG, GS 23/1817, paquete 32, legajo 42.
158 Crossick and Haupt, Shopkeepers and Master Artisans,pp. 10‐14. For Guadalajara in a later era, see Rodney D. Anderson, “Guadalajara’s Artisans and Shopkeepers, 1842‐1907: The Origins of a Mexican Petite Bourgeoisie,” in Virginia Guedea, Jaime E. Rodriguez )., eds. Five Centuries of Mexican History. Cinco siglos de historia de Mexico (Mexico, 1992), pp. 185‐201.
159 Usually the elections took place every January first.
64
than once, even though this implied a monetary burden.160 The idea was that the older and more experienced masters occupied the guild offices. In 1817, a group of masters complained that in the last elections masters were chosen who did not have the age and experience required according to the non‐written tradition.161
Apparently, to hold a guild office gave to the masters a higher social status than their colleagues, a thing that some did not want to give up (Table 3.5).
Table 3.5 Number of Voting Masters by Year and Guild, 1790‐1820
Year Guild 1790‐ 1791 1792 1794 1795 1796 1811 1816 1817 1819 1820 Barbers ‐‐ 9 10 14 13 17 13 15 ‐‐19 Carpenters/Coach makers 24 16 ‐‐ 16 19 23 12 12 16 22 Wax makers 4 2 ‐‐ 2 ‐‐ ‐‐ ‐‐ 6 5 ‐‐ Leather tanners/Saddlers 20 19 24 19 15 18 8 9 ‐‐14 Blacksmiths ‐‐ 11 ‐‐ 16 14 15 9 11 19 13 Weavers 23 15 23 18 21 16 23 29 ‐‐27 Bakers ‐‐ 16 18 24 14 10 ‐‐ 15 ‐‐15 Silversmiths 9 10 15 11 11 ‐‐ ‐‐ ‐‐ ‐‐ 12 Tailors 17 12 19 20 18 ‐‐ 11 13 ‐‐14 Hat makers 41 36 23 8 17 13 11 15 ‐‐18 Shoemakers 10 10 14 14 13 15 29 15 ‐‐24
Weaving was one of the most popular occupations among Guadalajara’s
residents and the voting lists show that the weavers also had the largest number
160 Olmedo, Los zapateros, 98.
161 AHMG, Gremios, 1816/1817, paquete 31, legajo 131.
65
of masters. Leather tanners/saddlers and hat makers witnessed a decrease in their number of masters. But in general, all crafts show a fluctuation of the number of voting masters, perhaps attributable to migration, or mortality among
masters, or other conditions not directly related to a decline in the guild system.
Table 3.6 Ratio Journeymen to Master, 1821162
9 to to to
old
1 3 2 N
N
1820 Masters ‐ Crafts 1821 don years
Ratio Ratio Ratio Don
Master Master Master 18 1811 No
Apprentices to Journeymen Journeymen Journeymen Voting
Weavers 1,706 29 189 57.8 51.3 80 1,231 15.4 Tailors 377 14 53 25.9 12.6 109 209 1.9 Shoemakers 574 29 83 18.8 15.9 16 475 29.7 Bakers 217 15 25 13.5 11.4 28 146 5.2 Silversmiths 137 12 15 10.4 6.7 77 48 0.6 Leather tanners/Saddlers 201 18 36 10.2 6.1 14 100 7.1 Carpenters/Coach makers 247 23 53 9.7 5.6 52 175 3.4 Hat makers 167 18 20 8.3 2.9 13 152 11.7 Blacksmiths 117 19 18 5.2 7.7 25 80 3.2 Barbers 87 19 15 3.6 16.3 45 37 0.8 Wax makers 10 6 ‐ 0.7 1.7 5 1 0.2 Total 3,840 202 507 18.0 15.5 464 2,654 5.7
A high ratio journeyman to master is considered a sign of decline in the artisan trades, as it reflects that the guild system no longer provided the proper conditions to its reproduction. Fewer artisans were able to become masters while
162 The number of voting masters used is table is the larger number of voting masters taken from table 3.5 for the years 1811 to 1820. Ratio 1 was calculated by subtracting voting masters from the number of artisans in 1821. Ratio 2 was calculated by subtracting voting masters and apprentices age (9‐18) from the column 1821. Ratio 3 is the result of non‐don artisans divided by don artisans.
66
the number of journeymen increased.163 The calculation of this ratio is a difficult matter, since there is no way to distinguish journeymen from masters in the available sources. However, with the existing material it possible to get an approximation of how many journeymen were for every master. Table 3.6 shows different manners to get the ratio. Ratio 1 is the most conservative since take in account all the artisans registered as a guild artisan in the census, for this reason the ratio is larger. As expected in the easy to enter trades the proportion of journeymen are higher such as weavers and shoemakers. High status crafts had lower ratios as it was more difficult entered to those trades as silversmithing, barbering, and blacksmithing. When one takes out also the apprentices, the ratios are smaller for the most of the trades. Weaving still has a larger ratio since was the most popular occupation and one of the lower social status occupation.
The third ratio was calculated by taking social status as a surrogate of mastery. If an artisan held the don, he is assumed to be a master. The low status trades, weaving, shoemaking and hatting are the crafts the have the highest ratio due to the fact that fewer numbers of individuals received the don, even though more were certainly masters.
Three different ratios have been presented in table 3.6 because it is impossible to credit any ratio as the closest approximation to the facts. Ratio one includes all individuals who were credited with a guild occupation in 1821.
Apprentice‐age individuals are almost never considered in such a ratio, however, and the ratio must be considered too high as a result. The apprentice‐age cohort has been used rather than persons labeled apprentices, as that term was very rare in the census manuscripts for 1821 (only 17 apprentices were listed and none in a guild occupation).
163 Anderson, “Race and Social Stratification,” 219.
67
Even more problematic, both ratio one and two use the highest number of
voting masters in any one of the five years available since 1811. This number, however, clearly does not represent all the masters in any one field. The list of masters gathered from various documents dating from 1810 through 1820, including but not exclusive, and the number of masters were certainly more.
Against that theoretically but likely higher figure, one would have to account for those masters who died, who retired or moved away –none of which can be
estimated with any accuracy.
Further, it must be acknowledged that ratio three based on hidalguía is too low for the higher status crafts (silversmiths, tailors, blacksmiths, wax makers)
and too high for the lowest status crafts (shoemakers and hat makers). I have
concluded that a rough but reasonable estimation lies somewhere between ratio two and ratio three. If so, then both the average for guild crafts, and the vast majority of the individual guild crafts were characterized by a ratio well under the capitalism.164 That conclusion is supported by the following analysis of age distribution among guilds.
Age Structure and Guilds
The analysis of age distribution among guilds provides a general vision of the guilds’ strength. The model that scholars have applied is based on the principle of the “industrialization” of the labor force.165 In brief, the more
164 Michael B. Katz, Michael J. Doucet, and Mark J. Stern, The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press, 1982): 46.
165 Susan E. Hirsch, Roots of the American Working Class. The industrialization of Crafts in Newark, 1800‐1860 (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1978)
68
teenagers were employed in certain crafts, the more likely that the process of proletarianization had begun. As has been said, age was an important factor in guild structure. Young ages signified that individuals were apprentices of a craft, usually between nine to eighteen years old. Artisans between nineteen and thirty years old were considered, in general, individuals who had finished their training and were journeymen. In some fields, such as shoemaking, individuals in their twenties could be masters. As they became older, the probability that artisans were masters increased and many had established their own work shop.166 The hierarchy of guild system linked age with skills and knowledge, but with the onset of commercial capitalism one would expect that this balance would become obsolete as more young and unskilled labor were employed in detriment to the traditional productive organization.
In the case of Guadalajara, the pattern that predominates was a relatively small “youth” age cohort, ages nine to eighteen, and a far larger “older” age group, a sign that the craft system was still working as expected if the process of proletarianization had not yet begun (Table 3.7). The age cohort that showed the larger concentration was the nineteen to thirty year olds. In the last two age cohorts, the proportion diminished as other factors intervened, primarily mortality but also retirement. Only four crafts displayed a larger proportion of young individuals (9 to 18) in comparison to the general average— carpenters/coach makers, leather tanners/saddlers, barbers, and shoemakers.
Especially significant is the case of carpenters and coach makers since carriage making was the most “industrialized” trade of all the guild crafts. Because of the
and Howard B. Rock, Artisans of the New Republic. The Tradesmen of New York City in the Age of Jefferson (New York: New York University Press, 1984).
166 Hirsch, Roots of the American, 41.
69
nature of their activity, the masters hired artisans who specialized in leather and metal to finish a carriage. That meant that a certain division of labor existed in the same workshop, something contrary to the guild precepts. Usually those workshops employed up to thirty individuals, according to the product demand.167 The higher proportion of young artisans dedicated to this craft is sign that the masters/merchants had taken advantage of cheap labor by hiring apprentices and younger, relatively inexperienced journeymen. It is interesting to note that those young men were generally not children of the master following in their father’s footsteps. As will be seen in the following chapter, carpenters and coach makers children who remained in the household were the least likely of all the crafts, excepting only tailors, to practice their father’s trade.
A significantly relatively larger number of leather tanners and saddlers, and shoemakers, were also in the youngest age cohort, but for different reasons from the carpenters and coach makers, and from each other. Although both crafts worked with leather, each had different reasons for the relatively large number of young practitioners of the trade. Tanners, particularly, employed young men in the early stages of the tanning process as it was labor intensive and required relatively little skill, and because the nauseous nature of the process attracted few journeymen. Shoemakers tended to be younger because the trade itself required relatively little capital and experience to gain entry. Moreover, in both cases (in contrast to the carpenters/coach makers), male children residing in the household of both journeymen and masters tended to follow their father’s occupation in greater portions than most guild trades. In shoemaking in particular, the journeymen and masters were more likely to be heads of their own households than other crafts, reflecting the household production nature of the
167 González Angulo, Artesanado y ciudad, 62.
70
craft. Family members participated in the various stages of curing, cutting and
sewing. The selling of shoes usually was performed by artisans’ wives. Well established artisans had a workshop where they sold their product, but poor artisans sold their production on the streets and plazas.168
Table 3.7 Artisans by Age Distribution, 1821
40 years 9 to 18 19 to 30 31 to 40 old and Occupation years old years old years old older Total N % N % N % N % N % Wax makers 0.0 4 50.0 2 25.0 2 25.0 8 100.0 Shoemakers 83 15.1 251 45.6 108 19.6 109 19.8 551 100.0 Blacksmiths 18 14.5 56 45.2 22 17.7 28 22.6 124 100.0 Silversmiths 15 11.0 58 42.6 31 22.8 32 23.5 136 100.0 Tailors 53 14.2 154 41.4 72 19.4 93 25.0 372 100.0 Barbers 15 17.6 35 41.2 14 16.5 21 24.7 85 100.0 Bakers 25 13.0 78 40.6 43 22.4 46 24.0 192 100.0 Leather tanners/Saddlers 36 18.2 79 39.9 46 23.2 37 18.7 198 100.0 Weavers 189 13.4 516 36.6 355 25.2 348 24.7 1,408 100.0 Carpenters/Coach makers 53 21.5 86 34.8 51 20.6 57 23.1 247 100.0 Hat makers 20 12.0 53 31.7 48 28.7 46 27.5 167 100.0 Total 507 14.5 1,370 39.3 792 22.7 819 23.5 3,488 100.0
In many ways, the case of barbers is opposite that of the shoemakers.
Nearly sixty percent were ages thirty or younger; only shoemakers and
blacksmiths were younger, and only carpenters/coach makers and
tanners/saddlers were more proportionately more numerous in the youngest age
cohort. Barbering was a high status, “respectable” occupation that required a
long apprenticeship to learn both hair cutting and minor surgery, which was part
168 Olmedo based this statement in the analysis of Caste paintings, Los zapateros, 201.
71
of that craft’s expected skills. It should be noted that the portion of barbers forty years and older was higher than most crafts, an indication that the trade was healthy. Also, the apprentice‐age barbers to masters ratio was one to one (table
3.4), arguing for the stability of the craft and clearly showing the reason for the
large portion of younger barbers.
Occupation and Calidad
During colonial times, Spanish rule established new forms of social organization over the Americas. Part of this system was a complex organization based on calidad. The presence of Indians and eventually the arrival of Blacks put into play a complex racial system. Calidad was one of the significant factors that decided the position of individuals within society. A frequent assumption about Colonial Spanish Rule is the pervasiveness of the caste system in the society. Many historians have written about whether caste system determined the position of each individual within colonial society.169 Rodney Anderson, as
John Chance, has claimed that calidad had lost its predominance since the establishment of commercial capitalism that meant that economic factors began to emerge as social organizer. This does not mean that the caste system did not have importance in late colonial Mexico; however, in an empirical analysis, the authors discovered that economic factors began to take part in determining
169 John K. Chance, Race and Class in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978); Patricia Seed, “Social Dimensions of Race: Mexico City,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 64, no.4, 1982: 602‐04; Verena Martínez‐Alier, Marriage, Class and Color in Nineteenth‐Century Cuba: a Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), 57.
72
individuals’ position in society. In other words, they argue that occupation and
wealth integrated with calidad determined one’s social standing (for example, as evidenced by the presence or lack of the hidalguía).170 For this reason, the analysis of the interaction between occupation, calidad, and class has been used for historians as the most important indicator that the caste system began to diminish in importance within colonial society with the passage of time. The setting of commercial capitalism and the intense mixture of the races (mestizaje) were crucial factors to determine this flexibility.
But how reliable were the racial designation in the censuses? And who designated the calidad of individuals in the census—the person or the census taker? Although no documentation exists to verify my opinion, I believe that usually individuals defined their own racial affiliation. In the case of Indians, by
1821 there was little reason for the census taker to designate “Indian,” as the tribute had been abolished. Indeed, despite the fact that the census instructions required the census takers to obtain “exact and with all the particulars of all the inhabitants of their district, men and women alike, young and old, with regards to age, calidad, trade or occupation…171,” slightly less than a half the individuals
(45 %) received the designation. Nonetheless, the nearly twenty thousand individuals (17, 1816) with calidad were scattered throughout the city, provide a statistically‐reliable measure of calidad for the entire city. The results show a city with nearly half its residents (49 %) Spanish, 36.9 percent Indian, 11.6 percent mestizo and 2.4 percent Mulattoes. If calidad was a self‐designation, a substantial number chose to consider themselves “Indios.” Why might nearly
170 Spanish authorities granted the honorific title of hidalguía to individuals of high social status, expressed by don or doña before the name.
171 AHMG, legajo 37, expediente101, dated 29 Octubre 1821.
73
forty percent of the residents of this important city consider themselves Indians?
After all, according to noted scholars William Taylor and Eric Van Young, western Indians were heavily hispanicized, far more than the Indian of central
Mexico, for example. Except for isolated mountain villages, few spoke an Indian language or dressed in traditional Indian clothes. 172
First of all, precisely because tribute was no longer an issue, no financial
loss would result. Yet, that does not explain the positive motivation. Far more
important, I believe, would have been the fact that the “Indian” had certain rights
to land in his native pueblo, for example, and might want to be designated an
Indian to keep those rights. Moreover, as will be discussed later in this chapter,
Indian artisans had argued that they were not subject to the guild fees and dues because they were, as Indians, exempt. There is also a political argument that might be made. Van Young documents what he perceived to be Indian participation in the recent Insurgency against the Spanish crown, precisely because (he argues) they saw themselves as protectors of local indigenous community culture, its norms and traditions.173 The Insurgency in the
Guadalajara region had taken on an aspect of race war, with Indian villages south
of the city and particularly in the Chapala Lake area defending their communities
against Spanish forces. Hence, for some to assert their “Indianness” would have
172 William B. Taylor, “Indians Pueblos of Central Jalisco on the Eve of Independence,” in Iberian Colonies, New World Societies: Essays in Memory of Charles Gibson, ed. Richard L. Garner and William Taylor (Private Printer, 1985), 180‐181.
173 Eric Van Young, The Other Rebellion. Popular Violence, Ideology, and Mexican Struggle for Independence, 1810‐1821 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001): 497‐498.
74
been a political statement as well. So various complex and overlapping motivations could well have accounted for the fact that in a city and in a region which one day would be considered a center of Spanish Creole culture, a very considerable number of people opted to be called “Indios.”
The term that Spanish authorities employed to refer to an individual’s ethnicity was calidad. This was the term, for example, which headed the 1821 census columns under which were written “español,” “indio,” or “mestiza.” The term is translated into English as “quality,” and clearly meant in the context of the era as a reference of “one’s reputation as a whole.”174 According to McCaa, the factors that determined one’s calidad were among others color, occupation, wealth, purity of blood, honor, integrity, and also place of origin.175
Miscegenation among Spaniards, Indians and Blacks resulted in a wide variety of
mixtures called Castas (castes); in a broad sense, caste meant mixed blood. The primary combinations were Spaniard‐Indian (Mestizo), Spaniard‐Black (Mulatto), and Indian‐Black (Zambo). The mestizaje among these fundamental combinations
had its own name; for example, Spaniard‐Mestizo was Castizo; Mestizo‐Mulatto was
Coyote; Spanish-Mulatto was Morisco; and so on.176 Spaniards constituted the top of
174 Robert McCaa, “Calidad, Clase, and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral, 1788‐90,” Hispanic American Historical Review 64 (1984), 478.
175 Ibid., 477‐78.
176Chance, Race and Class, 126. In this case is important to consider that the contribution of Mulattoes is very modest in the crafts and it was impossible to trace their evolution over time; however, it is expected that they participated in crafts that underwent greater growth, such as weaving, shoemaking and tailoring. Also it is important to mention that the census of 1821 was the last Mexican census in which race was enlisted as a part of population census information.
75
the racial system, followed by Indians, and then by Blacks. Theoretically, persons with a mixed background occupied intermediary stages in the hierarchy according to the “whiteness” of their skin.
This socioracial order represented the imperial Spanish attempt to control the multi‐racial groups of its colonies. The classification into different calidades mirrored the white perspective of the conquistadores. Many dimensions constituted the caste system; the most significant was the legal dimension, because Indians and Mulattoes had to pay tribute while Spaniards and Mestizos
were exempted from paying it. Behind the phenotype classification there were a system of values, cultural identities and ideologies.177
In theory, one can assume that Spaniards were at the peak of this racial
system, followed by the Indians, and then by Blacks. Did the occupational structure of Guadalajara (ordered by the social status of the occupation) reflect the social stratification inherent in the caste system? One would expect that the occupational structure would have evolved specific features in response to the racial hierarchy of the caste system. Moreover, we know that Spanish rule
imposed certain restrictions on the practice of certain crafts by specific racial
groups, as was the case of silversmithing. Also, we know the guild system itself created its own restrictions concerning racial groups, at least in certain eras and in certain countries. Even in the lack of legislation restricting racial groups to certain crafts, the question is did the crafts tended to be dominated by specific racial groups, depending on the social status of the craft itself, reflecting the hierarchy inherent in the caste system? In other words, will an investigation into
177 Robert McCaa and Stuart B. Schwartz, “Measuring Marriage Patterns: Percentages, Cohen’s Kappa, and Log‐Linear Models,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 25:4, (1983), 711.
76
the primary sources find that the professions and skilled occupations were primarily reserved for Spaniards, while the semi‐skilled and unskilled
occupations were the occupations for Indians, Mestizos and the other castes?
At first glimpse, one can say that the racial hierarchization among guilds was quite flexible during the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth
century. There was no racial exclusivity within guilds. However, the predominance of certain racial groups over specific crafts shows the economic division between occupations. The relationship between crafts and calidad was an economic one. Spanish artisans frequently occupied crafts of better status in which the investment was greater than in the crafts dominated by Indians and
Castes.
Probably the most supervised guild was silversmithing as precious metals
were particularly important for Spanish authorities. The guild’s laws for
silversmiths were racially the most restricted. In 1804, new ordinances were issued for this guild, reinforcing the prohibition of the entrance of “color
quebrado” (broken color or mixed race) apprentices. Every apprentice, the
ordinance reads, should prove that he was a “Spaniard of good and laudable
customs.”178 Spaniards dominated this craft. González Angulo points out that
even the most prestigious crafts had made exceptions, accepting artisans without
racial requirement.179 Here the limitation was not a legislative one, but economic.
The high cost of the raw material and the tools prevented poorer individuals
from entering the craft.
Among the crafts in which Spaniards were dominant because of the initial
high investment were silversmithing, blacksmithing, tailoring and wax making.
178 AHMG, paquete 19, legajo 41, fojas 8‐18.
179 González Angulo, Artesanado y ciudad, 148.
77
On the other hand, in crafts in which the tools and the raw materials were more modest in cost, Indians and castes tended to participate. Such crafts were
shoemaking, hat making, and weaving. It is important to point out that Indians
had only economic restrictions preventing their access to certain crafts. The
government officially allowed Indians and Castes the freedom to work in
whichever craft they might choose. From the government’s point of view, labor
market freedom made good sense. Indians were a vital part of the Colonial
economy. They both provided tribute to the government, and supplied
agricultural products and manufactured goods for the consumption of the
Spanish community, the latter described by William Taylor as “predominantly
nonagricultural.”180 In this sense, by allowing Indians to freely pursue a
livelihood, the Spanish Crown ensured that they would be able to fulfill their
financial obligation.181
Nevertheless, it was not uncommon that Indians complained before the
municipal council about guild authorities’ abuse of power, for example, by
demanding that Indian artisans pay the annual media annata and participate in
the religious processions, which required paying for the wax. This was the case
of blacksmith José Guadalupe García, tributary Indian of San Pedro,
Tlaquepaque,182 who moved to Guadalajara’s Analco district because his wife
was sick and needed to live close to a doctor and pharmacist. In 1799, he lodged
a complaint with the city government, maintaining that, as an Indian tribute
180 William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979), 17.
181 González Angulo, Artesanado y ciudad, 151.
182 An Indian town close to Guadalajara, that currently is part of the urban area.
78
payer in his hometown of San Pedro, he was exempt from paying the blacksmith guild’s annual fees. As a precedent, he used a local case from 1788, in which leather tanners and saddlers Salbador Cayetano Escobar, Francisco Xavier Patiño, and Juan María Zeledón had successfully argued that they were Indians from
Mexicalzingo, evoking the privilegio de tributarios (tributary privilege), which, they maintained, exempted them from guild fees. 183
The issue of the significance of calidad within the guild occupations is complicated by the vague and ambiguous but inescapable question of class. For example, if one looks only at calidad, Spaniards clearly dominated, or at least were more numerous, in the most prestigious crafts (indicated by the portion of the craft honored with the hidalguía)—wax makers, silversmiths, barbers, tailors, carpenters/coach makers, blacksmiths. However, if the non‐don Spaniards are considered separately, as clearly the census takers considered them to be, since they pointedly refused to provide them the don, the picture changes.
First of all, you find that the non‐Spanish group (i.e., Indian and Other
Castas) were larger than either the don Spanish or the non‐don Spanish in every craft except the first three (Table 3.8). Indeed, the Indians alone were the largest calidad in all but the first five crafts. Don Spaniards dominated the crafts with better social status, such as silversmiths, barbers, and wax makers. As the social status of the occupation dropped, however, the proportion of non‐don Spaniards increased, i.e. among leather tanners/saddlers, bakers, hat makers, and weavers.
The logic conclusion is that not all Spaniards were equal; being white did not automatically guarantee a higher social position contrary to the thesis of Silvia
Arrom.184
183 AHMG, paquete 17, legajo 16.
184 Arrom, The Women of Mexico, 155‐159.
79
Table 3.8 Artisans by Calidad and Social Status, 1821
Other Spaniard Indian Castas No No No No No No Don Don Total Occupations Don Don Don Don Don Don N % N N % N % N % Wax makers 2 66.7 1 33.3 0.0 0.0 3 Silversmiths 34 54.8 22 35.5 3 4.8 3 4.8 62 Barbers 16 39.0 15 36.6 4 9.8 6 14.6 41 Tailors 53 34.0 48 30.8 22 14.1 33 21.2 156 Carpenters/Coach makers 35 25.9 43 31.9 33 24.4 24 17.8 135 Blacksmiths 14 24.6 16 28.1 17 29.8 9 15.8 57 Leather tanners/Saddlers 7 12.1 18 31.0 23 39.7 9 15.5 58 Bakers 5 6.0 21 25.3 44 53.0 12 14.5 83 Weavers 24 3.9 140 22.7 339 55.0 111 18.0 616 Shoemakers 6 2.1 42 14.5 191 65.9 48 16.6 290 Hat makers 1 1.2 11 13.6 50 61.7 18 22.2 81
Merchants 291 76.2 53 13.9 29 7.6 6 1.6 382 Landowners 50 18.1 49 17.7 149 53.8 27 9.7 277
Total 538 24.0 479 21.4 904 40.4 306 13.7 2,240
The automatic correlation between calidad and social status, i.e. being white equals being rich and being non‐white equals poor, has oversimplified the complexity of colonial society. In many trades, Spaniards and Indians shared the
same economic conditions. Were we to search further, for example, we would
find that non‐don Spaniards tended to live in the same neighborhoods as Indians and Castes, and indeed, often in the same household.185 Thus, at least the
185 Anderson, Race and Social Stratification, 228‐30.
80
statistical evidence seems to confirm that economic factors began to intervene in the social position of individuals of colonial Guadalajara.186
Looking at the control groups –merchants and landowners— one find that
Spanish merchants were predominantly dones (76.2 %). Commercial activities
relied on social networks that extended throughout the colony and abroad. And it required capital. Among landowners, a little more than a half were Indians
(53.8 %). This situation explained the fact that land owners from the formerly
“Indian” pueblos of Mexicalzingo and Analco were incorporated into the city, and therefore the census. Of course, this does not imply that Indians possessed large extensions of land. Nearly eighty Indians were accorded the don, however, suggesting that neither were all Indians poor and landless.
Gender and Guilds
Most guilds’ ordinances did not clarify women’s participation in the productive process. Commonly, women worked in occupations that were not part of the guild system, for example seamstress and spinner –of silk, cotton,
wool, or linen. 187 The larger proportion of women worked as domestic servants
in all variations for instance washer, cook, wet nurse, etc. The preparation and
sale of food products was other activity that frequently women performed such
as tortillera (tortilla maker), chocolatera (chocolate makers), and atolera (atole
maker188). In 1821, of the all working women, 11.3 percent worked in a guild
trade distributed in only seven of the twelve recognized guilds (Table 3.9). As
186 Ibid., 231‐237. 187 González Angulo, Artesanado y ciudad, 140.
188 Atole is a traditional drink based on maize.
81
one can see, almost 84 percent of these women were weavers, a job of easy entrance without strong guild control.
Table 3.9 Female Artisans by Marital Status, 1821
Total Total Craft Single Married Widow N % Weavers 72 126 84 282 83.7 Bakers 12 6 6 24 7.1 Shoemakers 2 17 2 21 6.2 Tailors 5 5 1.5 Leather Tanners 2 1 3 0.9 Silversmiths 1 1 0.3 Hat makers 1 1 0.3 Total 86 157 94 337 100.0
Almost half of these women were married (157), suggesting that most of
them “helped” their partner in the workshop (Table 3.9). Very probably, female participation in industrial activities was larger than what the numbers shows.
Female subordination to their husbands or fathers hides their real contribution to the family workshop. Single female artisans were concentrated in weaving,
showing that this was the more dynamic productive trade. Single and married
women were not protected by guild regulations. In the case of masters’ widows,
however, ordinances stipulated that they could keep the public workshop by
contracting an examined master to manage it –usually they gave them a year to
find a master. In case she wanted to re‐marry, she had to choose someone with
the same occupation in order not to lose the workshop.189
A little more than fifty percent of widow artisans headed their own
household, most of them weavers, probably unsupervised by guild officials.
189 González Angulo, Artesanado y ciudad, 140.
82
However, eight widow heads of the household were accorded a craft closely inspected by guild authorities. We know, for example, that of the five widow
heads called “panaderas” (bakers), four were doñas, indicating that they were
respectable women in a profession considered appropriate for women.
Table 3.10 Female Head of the Household by Craft and Marital Status, 1821 Craft Single Married Widow Total Weavers 5 3 41 49 Bakers 1 1 5 7 Leather tanners 1 1 Silversmiths 1 1 Shoemakers 1 1 2 Total 6 5 49 60
Spanish authorities, certainly inspired by the policy of freedom of trade
and promotion of industry, issued a law in 1799 that prohibited the guilds from
restricting women and female children from working in jobs “compatible with
the honor, physical strength and disposition of their gender.”190 Nonetheless, it is
impossible to evaluate what effect this disposition had on the female artisans
who appeared in our data base.
In conclusion, artisans were an important part of the colonial society, by
paying taxes and fees to the municipal government and by producing
commodities and providing services to the urban community. Complaints about
“unlicensed” artisans selling their products were common during the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth century, suggesting but not proving that the
190 “… [debemos] emplear las manos de las mujeres en todas aquellas manufacturas compatibles con la decencia, fuerzas y disposición de su sexo,” AHMG, paquete 17, legajo 25, fojas 48‐50.
83
guild system had begun to lose control. However, not all the crafts underwent the same process of deterioration and generally guilds remained amazedly strong.
By 1821, the age structure of the crafts shows a healthy proportion of young to older artisans corroborating that the artisan crafts continued to function, as they had traditionally, even as the guild system declined and was finally formally abolished.
84
CHAPTER FOUR
CRAFT COMMUNITY AMONG ARTISANS IN GUADALAJARA
This chapter will treat the question of whether or not the city’s artisans, and
particularly the guild artisans, can be identified as a social community within the larger community of the city of Guadalajara. And if artisans can be identified as
a distinct social community, can one distinguish between specific crafts on the basis of the prestige of the craft, or its social status, or other factors that differentiate one craft from another? Among the issues to be discussed will be marital status and the composition and nature of the artisan family and
household.
There is an extensive literature about family history in Europe, the United
States and Latin America.191 Social historians have been interested in the role the
family played in the transition from the craft economy to industrial society, and
in the nature of family relations in the modern bourgeois and working class
family.192 Yet, despite the need to understand the artisan family in the craft
191 For historiographic overview of the entire field, see Tamara Hareven, “The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change, American Historical Review, 96:1 (February 1991). For Latin America, see Elizabeth Kuznesof, “Household, Family and Community Studies, 1976‐1986: a Bibliographical Essay,” Latin American Population History Bulletin, n. 14, 1988.
192 For example, see Tamara Hareven, The Family Time and Industrial Time. The Relationship Between the Family and Work in a New England Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
85
economy in order to be able to explore the nature of the transition to more modern family forms, relatively little work has been done on the artisan family.193
In this chapter, I propose to describe and analyze the artisan family,
specifically that of the guild craft family. I will explore the types of household
structures, comparing the individual guild crafts, and contrasting the guilds with
other occupational categories. I will also seek to identify those aspects of artisan
family life that relate to the relationship between the artisan’s economic functions
and their household and family conditions. For example, to what extent do other
household members—children, spouse, kin, boarders—participate in the
common craft enterprise? Are artisans children more likely to stay at home than
other occupational categories? Which guild occupations are more likely to have
kin living in the household? Which guild occupations have higher rates of
marriage?
Traditionally, the guilds sanctioned the economic aspects of artisans’ lives.
Guild and craft traditions, however, served as the focus for their social life as
well. These two features gave to the artisan life style the corporative character
orientation instead of the individual oriented style of life that commonly it is
assumed as product of the process of industrialization. The question for
Guadalajara is, to what extent can one identify the “corporate” aspect of the artisan culture, and to what extent can one discern the influence of economic
change brought by commercial capitalism, specifically in the realm of the artisan
household and family?
193 Recent studies on the European artisan family are Josef Ehmer, “Family and Business among Master Artisans and Entrepreneurs: The Case of Nineteenth‐ century Vienna,” The History of the Family 6 (2001), 187‐202. Also in the same issue is Juanjo Romero‐Marin, “Familial Strategies of Artisans during the Modernization Process: Barcelona, 1814‐1860,” 203‐224.
86
The source for this study will be primarily that of the census manuscripts from 1791, 1821 and 1842. Hence, the evidence will be primarily demographic data, although non‐quantitative data will be used, especially municipal protocols when available.
Marital Status and the Guilds
First of all, to what extent were guild artisans married and heading their own households, as opposed to remaining single and living in another’s household? By tradition, journeymen artisans remained single, often living in the households of their masters, while they gained experience and capital towards owning their own shop. A corollary or alternative to living in the masters household was the European tradition of the “tramping” journeymen, obtaining experience in his profession by living temporarily in other towns of the region, prior to marriage and settling down in one place.194 Usually, therefore, in
European historiography, the higher portion of married journeymen, the greater the likelihood that the craft was losing the ability to regulate the number of practitioners, and hence the more remote the possibility of the journeyman actually becoming a shop‐owning master.
This presumed dichotomy between the “traditional” artisan household and modern family is based on the conception that during preindustrial times there was not a clear division between private and public spheres. Therefore, so the argument goes, the artisan family is a unit of production where the economic
194 Josef Ehmer, “The Artisan Family in Nineteenth‐century Austria: embourgeiosement of the petite bourgeoisie?,” in Shopkeepers and Master artisans in Nineteenth‐century Europe, ed. Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz‐Gerhard Haupt (New York: Methuen, 1984), 196.
87
and the private sphere constantly mixed. Ehmer argues, however, that the
importance of family among artisans only increased during the process of
industrialization:
Where artisan production was transformed into domestic industry and subordinated under the putting‐out system, masters’ or journeymen’s families were, to some extent, forced to work together in a real family working unit.195
In this sense, Ehmer believes that the “traditional” artisan family is product of modern times and not previous to the onset of the commercial capitalism. Moreover, Ehmer argues that this kind of generalization hides the internal variations in family type that existed among the different crafts. To what extent does the Guadalajara data support Ehmer’s revisionist view versus the traditional interpretation?
In 1821, the vast majority of Guadalajara’s artisans were married (69.9%),
25 percent were single and only 5.3 percent were widowers.196 In 1791, the figures are slightly lower—61.3 percent of the artisans were married, 34.4 percent were single, and 4.4 percent were widowers. The difference might show the impact of the fact that Indians and Mulattoes were left out of the 1791 count, an issue to which we will return later in this chapter. Or it might also be a result of
195 Josef Ehmer, “Family and Business,” 189.
196 The total of artisans with expressed marital status is 3, 221. González Angulo found that in Mexico City the 72.5 percent of the artisans were married in 1811. Jorge González Angulo Aguirre, Artesanado y ciudad a finales del siglo XVIII. (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica/Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1983): 125.
88
the guild system in crisis in the late colonial era, in which marriage might have become a positive value in comparison to remaining single.
However, there is another way to look at the figures. Instead of seeing the high portion of artisan marriages as the negative result of the decline in the guild system, one might also see marriage as a particular useful “strategy.” For the average artisan, postponing marriage may have not been seen as a chance to
“save” for one’s own shop, and, indeed, with the onset of the commercial capitalism, the formation of a family may have signified more an advantage than a disadvantage. Marriage expanded the artisan’s social networks, expanded the potential for customers, perhaps even the opportunity to own one’s shop if one married into a master’s family, and certainly provided the potential of wives working in the production process, and later children to help as well.197
Table 4.1 Male Workers by Occupation and Marital Status, 1821
Single Married Widower Total Occupation N % N % N % N % Landowners 114 17.0 527 78.5 30 4.5 671 100.0 Other Skilled Artisans 147 22.3 481 73.1 30 4.6 658 100.0 Merchants 245 25.2 681 70.1 46 4.7 972 100.0 Guilds Artisans 806 25.0 2,244 69.7 171 5.3 3,221 100.0 Skilled Workers 758 34.9 1,326 61.0 91 4.2 2,175 100.0 Elite 244 41.2 319 53.9 29 4.9 592 100.0 Unskilled Workers 926 56.1 639 38.7 87 5.3 1,652 100.0 Servants 326 62.7 171 32.9 23 4.4 520 100.0
In comparison to other groups of workers, one can see that in general, marriage was important in most of the categories (Table 4.1.). Among landowners, the proportion of married individuals is significant higher (78.5%).
197 Romero‐Marín, “Familial Strategies,” 211‐222. González Angulo, Artesanado y ciudad, 135.
89
These were mainly small land holders (labradores), for whom a family to help
work the land was indispensable. Also, between for “other skilled artisans” and merchants the proportion of married individuals was even higher (73.1% and
70.1% respectively). The proportion of married individuals decreases among
“skilled workers” and particularly between unskilled workers (61 % and 38.7%
respectively), although the latter includes all persons over the age of twelve not
listed in the above categories, a fact that would have lowered the average age and
hence increased the likelihood of being single. The value of marriage to most
working people can be seen when one compares individuals with the don and
those without.
Table 4.2 Male Workers by Marital Status and Social Status, 1821
Single Married Widower Total
N
% % %
Occupation Don Don Don
% % % Don
Don Don Don No No No No Landowners 12.8 11.8 83.3 83.4 3.8 4.8 415 Guilds Artisans 25.2 22.6 68.3 71.8 6.5 5.6 2,393 Other Skilled Artisans 29.7 21.3 66.3 74.6 4.0 4.1 507 Merchants 29.6 12.5 65.8 82.8 4.6 4.7 256 Elite 38.8 48.6 56.7 45.9 4.5 5.4 37 Skilled Workers 38.9 33.5 55.6 62.8 5.4 3.7 1,424 Servants 48.1 64.9 51.9 30.8 0.0 4.4 481 Unskilled Workers 67.7 50.9 26.8 44.2 5.5 4.9 1,109
If we view the issue of marriage through the lens of class, or at least social
status, the principle is clear: higher status gives one the luxury of postponing
marriage, perhaps waiting for a more socially desirable mate, or possibly saving for a shop of their own. In table 4.2 we have the same occupational categories
90
divided by social status. In all groups the proportion of single individuals is larger among persons with don, except for servants and elite. In contrary, the proportion of married individuals increases when persons do not have the don.
Dividing the guild crafts by the hidalguía, in two of the five highest status (tailors and carpenters) non‐dons were married in greater portions than dons. The
present of the blacksmiths as the fifth most likely craft to be married, and
silversmith the sixth, likely represent the reverse logic—both were relatively high status crafts, being able to afford the luxury of a family that did not generally participate in the craft (Table 4.3).
Table 4.3 Male Artisans by Marital Status and Social Status, 1821
Single Married Widower Total Non Non Non Non Craft Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don % % % % % % N N Wax makers 25.0 34.3 66.7 62.9 8.3 2.9 3 1 Carpenters/Coach makers 47.9 34.0 39.6 59.7 12.5 6.3 48 159 Tailors 33.3 0.0 33.3 100.0 33.3 0.0 100 191 Silversmiths 23.1 24.2 76.9 73.6 0.0 2.2 66 43 Barbers 20.0 32.4 72.0 66.2 8.0 1.4 36 35 Blacksmiths 16.7 22.4 80.6 71.7 2.8 5.8 25 71 Hat makers 3.8 18.5 84.6 76.2 11.5 5.4 11 133 Leather tanners/Saddlers 30.3 25.6 63.6 72.1 6.1 2.3 13 91 Weavers 33.0 29.8 61.0 65.4 6.0 4.7 72 1,146 Bakers 27.3 14.3 72.7 82.7 0.0 3.0 26 130 Shoemakers 7.7 23.1 92.3 69.3 0.0 7.6 13 437 Total 26.9 23.8 66.6 70.7 6.5 5.5 413 2,437
Among those craftsmen least likely to be married (Table 4.5, carpenters, barbers, tailors, shoemakers and silversmiths), all except the shoemakers were higher status crafts with a favorable ratio of journeymen to masters (Table 3.4).
Interestingly, they were also among the crafts with the highest ratio of own male
91
children in their households (again excepting shoemakers), and, at the same time, among the top six craftsmen most likely to be a child of the head of the household (Table 4.9). The implications are that many were working in the family business, perhaps either waiting to take over the business, or at least save
sufficient funds to start off on their own. Shoemakers were generally younger,
which accounts for their lower marriage rate.
100.0 88.5 90.0 80.8 82.2 80.0 74.8 70.0
rtisans 60.0
A Single
of 50.0 Married 40.0 Widowed e e 30.0 24.8 Perc ntag 17.0 20.0 13.6 10.0 5.6 6.0 4.2 0.5 2.2 0.0 15 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 and older
Cohort of Age
Figure 4.1 Male Artisans by Marital Status and Age Cohorts, 1821
Understandably, the tendency to be married increases with age.
Analyzing married artisans by age cohorts it is evident that a correlation exists
between marital status and age. In 1821, inside the youngest age cohort, the
proportion of single artisans is bigger (74 %). Conversely, the percentage of
married artisans is larger in the older age groups. Between 21 to 40 years, a little
more than 80 percent of the artisans were married in each group of age. In age
cohort of 41 and older, the proportion of married artisans increases while the
92
percentage of widowed artisans double in relation with the group of age (13.6 %,
Figure 4.1).
Age at Marriage
It is well known that postponing marriage among upper classes was a strategy to preserve the familial patrimony.198 In Spanish America “the inheritance system, by forcing parents to divide their belongings among all their children, tended to discourage matrimony in difficult economic times.”199
Guadalajara elite were not an exception. Except for unskilled workers and servants, the elite married in less proportion (53.9%, table 4.1).
However, as we have seen, marriage constituted an almost universal experience for the vast majority of urban workers. The exception were servants who had the higher age at marriage (27.3 years) and were the individuals who were less likely to be married (32.9%, table 4.3 and 4.4). Apparently, the extreme impoverish and dependency of this group deprived them of having a family on their own. Nonetheless, the relative low age at first marriage among the other occupational groups, corroborates the strong tendency to be married among artisans as well as other urban workers. Guilds artisans got married in average at
21.6 years.200 Among elite and merchants the mean age is pretty similar (22.1
198 David Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico 1763‐1810 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971): 102.
199 Silvia Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, 1790‐1857 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985): 143.
200 The general average of age at first marriage in Guadalajara was 21.9 years for males and 20 for females. These calculations follow the method developed by
93
years and 22 years respectively). Landowners had the lowest mean age at first marriage, 20.7, and also were the individuals with the highest likelihood to be married (78.5 %, Table 4.1).
Table 4.4 Male Workers by Occupation and Age at Marriage, 1821
Mean Age at First Occupation Marriage Servants 27.3 Master Artisans 23.1 No guild workers 22.2 Elite 22.1 Merchants 22.0 Journeymen 21.7 Guild artisans 21.6 Landowners 20.7
Looking closely at the marriage patterns among crafts, it is obvious that there were differences among them. First, if we look at all guild artisans (table
4.5), we find that among the guild artisans, the five craftsmen more likely to be
married were, in order: hat makers, bakers, weavers, leather tanners/saddlers, and blacksmiths, ranging from 81.6 percent to 69.6 percent. The most likely to be single were, in order of their likelihood: carpenters/ coach makers, tailors, and barber ranging from the low of 31.1 perce nt to 36.1 percent.
John Hajnal, “Age at Marriage and Propo rtion s Marryi ng ,” Population St udies 7 (1953): 129‐130. This calculation includes individuals betw een 13 to 52 y e ars old.
94
Table 4.5 Male Artis an s by Craft and Mar ital Status, 1821
Sing le Marri ed Widow er Tot al Occupations N % N % N % N % Hat makers 23 15.6 120 81.6 4 2.7 147 100.0 Bakers 30 17.2 134 77.0 10 5.7 174 100.0 Weavers 295 22.4 948 72.1 72 5.5 1,315 100.0 Carpenters/Wheel Wrights 53 28.2 133 70.7 2 1.1 188 100.0 Blacksmiths 32 27.8 80 69.6 3 2.6 115 100.0 Silversmiths 32 26.783 69.2 5 4.2 120 100.0 Shoemakers 123 24.1352 69.0 35 6.9 510 100.0 Wax Makers 1 16.7 4 66.7 1 16.7 6 100.0 Tailors 112 32.5 218 63.2 154.3 345 100.0 Barbers 23 31.146 62.2 5 6.8 74 100.0 Carpenters/Coach makers 82 36.1126 55.5 19 8.4 227 100.0 Total 806 25.0 2,244 69.7 1715.3 3,221 100.0
Also, tailors and carpenters/coach makers were the artisans who delayed more in getting married, 24.9 years and 23.5 years respectively.
Table 4.6 Male Artisans by Craft and Age at Marriage , 1821
Mean Age at Occupation First Marriage
Tailors 24.9 Carpenters/Coach makers 23.5 Silversmiths 22.8 Blacksmiths 21.7 Leather tanners/Saddlers 21.3 Bakers 21.3 Hat makers 20.6 Weavers 20.5 Shoemakers 20.3 Barbers 19.2 Wax makers ‐
95
Conversely, leather tanners/saddlers, hat makers, bakers, and weavers
married in larger proportions and had a lower mean age at first marriage (from
21.3 to 20.3 years). Even though blacksmiths were married in large proportions, their average age to get married is significantly higher, 21.7 years. Among barbers, this is the opposite case, they were more likely to be single; nonetheless they married relatively young (19.2 years, table 4.6).
What does all this signify? Except for the blacksmiths, the craftsmen most likely to be married were also those that were in an occupation least likely to merit the don (Table 4.7), indicating a low status, low wage craft. Their estimated ratio of journeymen to master were also among the highest, using either journeymen to master ratio or the don to no don ratio as a rough journeymen to master ratio surrogate (Table 3.6), mea ning that they were less likely to become a shop‐owning master. For those men, mar riage would likely have been an advantage by bringing into the household a spouse with her own kin and social networks. Also, spouses (and children) represe nte d ano ther source of labor, critical for journeymen who worked out of their own ho m e in lieu of a shop.201
For example, two of the three crafts most likely to be ma rried were craf ts most commonly conducted in the home with the aid of the en tire fami ly (hat makers and weavers).
201 Jay Kinsbrunner’s general survey of Spanish colonial cities suggests that the “rich were likely to marry than the poor.” The Spanish‐American Colonial City. Urban Life in the Age of Atlantic Capitalism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), p. 117. While his example of Argentine silversmiths agrees with my data, his interpretation must surely be incorrect. He suggests that masons, for example, had a high rate of marriage due to their affluence [my emphasis], yet we know that the masons were a “casualized” craft in Guadalajara, with few earning the don. Overall, the dons and doña were less likely to be married according to our data, and also supported by the work of Sylvia Arrom on Mexico City, The Women of Mexico City, 98‐153.
96
Table 4.7 Male Artisans by Soci al Stat us, 1821
Craft Don No don Total
N % N % N % Wax makers 5 83.3 1 16.7 6 100.0 Silversmiths 77 61.6 48 38.4 125 100.0 Barbers 45 54.9 37 45.1 82 100.0 Tailors 109 34.3 209 65.7 318 100.0 Blacksmiths 25 23.8 80 76.2 105 100.0 Carpenters/Coach makers 52 22.9 175 77.1 227 100.0 Bakers 28 16.1 146 83.9 174 100.0 Leather tanners/Saddlers 14 12.3 100 87.7 114 100.0 Hat makers 13 7.9 152 92.1 165 100.0 Weavers 80 6.1 1,231 93.9 1,311 100.0 Shoemakers 16 3.3 475 96.7 491 100.0 Total 464 14.9 2,654 85.1 3,118 100.0
Position in Household and Family
In the same way that marital status and age had a direct connection, position inside the household and family were strongly related too. In the group between 15 to 20 years old, 86.7 percent of the artisans held subordinated positions inside the household such as son, other relative, boarder or servant
(Chart 4.2). As the age increase, the percentage of subordinated positions among artisans diminished proportionally. Between the oldest age cohorts, more than half of all artisans headed their own household, increasing this proportion to three quarters by the age group of 41 years and older and only 25 percent of artisans held subordinated positions. In general, after the age 21 and older, the likelihood of any artisan to head their own household increased considerably.
If one analyzes this same relationship between marital status and position in family (i.e., including all families including those in multiple family
97
households and boarder or employee families) the numbers become more striking. The 73.2 percent of the artisans between 15 to 20 years old were sons or kin living in a family. However, after age twenty, the likelihood of the artisan marrying and establishing an independent family increases dramatically.
100.0
90.0 86.7
80.0 74.7 69.4 70.0
60.0 53.0 Head of Household Artisans
of 47.0 50.0 Sons, other relatives, borders and 40.0 servants. 30.6
Percentage 30.0 25.3
20.0 13.3 10.0
0.0 15 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 and older
Cohort of Age
Figure 4.2 Male Artisans by Position in Household and Age Cohorts, 1821
The age data shows clearly that young married artisans between the ages
of 21 and 30 were likely to continue to live with their parents, or move into
another household headed by kin, or reside as boarders in a multiple family
household. Only after age thirty, when he presumably has established himself in
the craft, does he likely head his own household. In other words, young married
artisans do not immediately strike out on their own, but remain in a subordinate
position in someone else’s household. This residential pattern is what one would
98
expect in a craft culture in which the traditional patterns were still strong, and traditional norms adhered to.
Moreover, the data suggests that once married, the artisan would at least head their own family, from the age 21 years to older more than 80 percent of the artisans headed their own family (Figure 4.3). The 95.5 percent of the artisans
between 31 to 40 years were head of their family. In the other hand, the
proportion of artisans in subordinated positions inside the family decreased
substantially to an insignificantly 4.5 percent and 5.2 percent in the older age
cohorts.
100.0 95.5 94.8
90.0 82.8 80.0 73.2 70.0
r60.0 s Head of Family A tisan
of 50.0 Sons, other relatives, borders and 40.0 servants. c 26.8 Per entage 30.0
20.0 17.2
10.0 4.5 5.2
0.0 15 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 and older
Cohort of Age
Figure 4.3 Male Artisans by Position in Family and Age Cohorts, 1821
99
Individual Guil d Crafts and Positio n in the Household
Analyzing the differ en t occupational categories by posit ion in household,
one can realized that merchants, landowners, and guilds artisans were more
likely to head their own household. (61.6%, 58.2% and 53.6% respectively). In
contrast, only 44.1 percent of the rest of urban workers and 22.2 percent of
unskilled workers headed a household (Table 4.8). As the likelihood to head
their household was th e lowest among unskil led work er s, (22.2 %), their
probability to have a subor d ina t ed pos ition inside the house ho ld inc rease d . For them the likelih ood to remain as a child insi de of the hou seh o ld was strong
(29%). Also, a little more than a third of them lived as a non kin (34.2 %). Only
12.6 percent of guild artisans were children living with their parents, and 6.7
percent lived as a kin, that is 19.3 percent of artisans had a direct relation to the
head of the household. In contrast, 26.3 percent lived as a non kin.
Table 4.8 Occupations by Position in Household, 1821
Occupations Head Spouse Child Kin Non‐kin Servants Total N % N % N % N % N % N % N Merchants 659 61.6 11 1.0 94 8.8 47 4.4 255 23.8 4 0.4 1,070 Landowners 417 58.2 5 0.7 69 9.6 55 7.7 169 23.6 1 0.1 716 Guild Artisans 1,818 53.6 18 0.5 428 12.6 227 6.7 891 26.3 8 0.2 3,390 Other Skilled Artisans 366 51.8 5 0.7 90 12.7 45 6.4 197 27.9 3 0.4 706 Other Workers 1,093 44.1 19 0.8 23 8 9.6 12 8 5.2 51 8 20.9 482 19 .5 2, 478 Unskilled Workers 453 22.9 381 .9 57 4 29 . 0 22 3 11 .3 6 76 34.2 13 0.7 1, 977 Total 4,806 46.5 96 0.9 1,493 14.4 725 7.0 2,706 26.2 511 4.9 10,337
100
In comparing the ind ivid ua l crafts and position in the hou sehold (tab le
4.9), hat makers, silversmi t hs, shoe m a ker s, leath er tan ner s, and weav e rs wer e more likely to head their ow n ho u seh old . One surprisin g finding is th at shoemakers and weavers, two of the most popular and low status occupations, had a high likelihood to be head of th eir ho use h old (55 .3 % and 52.6 %
respectively). In co n trast, tailors and carpenter s/coa c h ma k ers, considered high
status occupations, were less likely to head their own household (50.8 % and
47.5% respectively).
Table 4.9 Male Artisans by Position in Household, 1821
Head Spouse Child Kin Non‐kin Servants Total Occupation
N % N % N % N % N % N % N Hat makers 102 61.4 0.0 14 8.4 12 7.2 38 22.9 0.0 166 Silversmiths 75 55.6 0.0 25 18.5 9 6.7 25 18.5 1 0.7 135 Shoemakers 302 55.3 5 0.9 77 14.1 34 6.2 125 22.9 3 0.5 546 Leather tanners/Saddlers 107 54.0 1 0.5 27 13.6 11 5.6 52 26.3 0.0 198 Weavers 737 52.6 8 0.6 155 11.1 97 6.9 404 28.8 0.0 1,401 Blacksmiths 64 51.6 1 0.8 17 13.7 11 8.9 30 24.2 1 0.8 124 Tailors 187 50.8 1 0.3 61 16.6 24 6.5 94 25.5 1 0.3 368 Barbers 42 50.6 0.0 16 19.3 5 6.0 20 24.1 0.0 83 Wax makers 4 50.0 0.0 0.0 2 25.0 2 25.0 0.0 8 Carpenters/Coach makers 116 47.5 2 0.8 50 20.5 14 5.7 62 25.4 0.0 244 Bakers 88 46.8 0.0 19 10.1 17 9.0 62 33.0 2 1.1 188 Total 1,824 52.7 18 0.5 461 13.3 236 6.8 914 26.4 8 0.2 3,461
Carpenters/coach makers, barbers, silversmiths, and tailors were more
frequently children living with their parents ranging from 20.5 percent to 16.6 percent. Among artisans, living as a boarder in a household was quiet common.
For instance, bakers had the larger likelihood to be non kin inside a household
101
(33 %), this probably is thanks to the fact that a bakery’s work began in the wee hours of the morning. As we see, probably bakers preferred to stay in their work places. Weavers were more likely to be boarders (28.8%), perhaps due to the fact that as a low status craft the sharing residential pattern was common.
Silversmiths and hat makers were less likely to have subordinated position inside the household as their likelihood to head their own household was higher. Also, both constituted a high status craft. In general, being a servant among artisans
was a very infrequent experience. Of course, during the apprenticeship many of
the regular activities as an apprentice consisted of performing domestic services,
but in the source it was impossible to distinguish them.
Household and Family Composition
If marriage was the normal condition of the craft community, the question still remains as to the role that marriage as an institution, and the family in general, played in Guadalajara’s artisan community. Josef Ehmer has written that, for the European artisan, “the handicraft mod e of life was strongly shaped by the guild system, which regulated not only econom ic relations, but also social, legal, religious and other affairs. The indiv idu al artis an’s family had only limited
autonomy within this system of control.”202 If this were t ru e for Europe, and the
issue is still far from decided, was it true for Guadalajara?
As I have mentioned, the historiography of the family is long and
contentious. Although now largely discredited, Peter Laslett’s view that most
202 Ehmer, “The Artisan Family,” 196.
102
pre‐industrial families were nuclear in comp ositio n is a go od place to star t.203
What did the household composition of Guadalajara’s artisan families look like, and how did they compare with the city’s other occupational groups? Looking at
the family and household organization of Guadalajara artisans, one finds
significant patterns that do not conform to Laslett’s assumptions. First, of all can
one generalize about the entire city’s household patterns?
Table 4.10 Household Structure in Guadalajara, 1821
All Other Guild Type of Household Structure Inhabitants Artisans Difference N % N % Solitary Head 2,710 7.9 231 6.7 ‐1.2 No Family 2,123 6.2 150 4.3 ‐1.9 Nuclear Family 14,329 41.6 1,443 41.7 0.1 Extended Family 3,856 11.2 390 11.3 0.1 Multiple Family Related 2,936 8.5 330 9.5 0.0 Multiple Family Unrelated 8,461 24.6 917 26.5 1.9 Total 34,415 100.0 3,461 100.0 0.0
Comparing as a whole the nuclear fam ily (Table 4.10, 41.6% of all
individuals) was the most frequent form of housing for Guadalajara residents.
This percentage increases to 51.6% when one focuses on heads of the households.
Slightly more than a half of the heads of the households led nuclear families.
However, for my purp ose , it is methodologically more impo rt ant to look at th e
experience of individuals than it is to meas u re the por ti on of households. Pete r
Laslett’s methodology consisted of counting the frequency of each household
203 Laslett as icon of the fami ly hi stor io grap h y still i s use d in many Latin American family stud ies. For ex amp le, B.J. Barickman, “Revisiting the Cas a‐ grande: Plantation and Cane‐Farming Household in Early Nineteenth‐Century Bahia,” Hispanic American Historical Review 84 (2004): 619‐ 659.
103
arrangement. Curre n tly, family histor ians are inter est ed in the indi vidu a l leve l changing Laslett ’s per spec ti ve by mea surin g the porti o n of in divid u als living in each household arrangement. 204 This methodology allows a better
understanding of indi vidu al s’ historical exp erien ce .
Tab le 4.1 1 Ma le Ar tisa n s by Househ old Struc tu re, 182 1
y
Head
Famil mily
Related tiple
Fa
Occupation Total Family Family Mul Multiple Extended Unrelated No Solitary Family Nuclear N % N % N % N % N % N % N Barbers 8 9.6 7 8.4 41 49.4 6 7.2 6 7.2 15 18.1 83 Silversmiths 8 5.9 9 6.7 63 46.7 12 8.9 15 11.1 28 20.7 135 Hat makers 7 4.2 10 6.0 77 46.4 23 13.9 19 11.4 30 18.1 166 Carpenters/ Coach makers 23 9.4 14 5.7 107 43.9 19 7.8 25 10.2 56 23.0 244 Shoemakers 39 7.1 27 4.9 232 42.5 61 11.2 47 8.6 140 25.6 546 Blacksmiths 12 9.7 6 4.8 52 41.9 11 8.9 13 10.5 30 24.2 124 Tailors 30 8.2 20 5.4 154 41.8 31 8.4 26 7.1 107 29.1 368 Weavers 81 5.8 44 3.1 576 41.1 166 11.8 135 9.6 399 28.5 1,401 Leather tanners/ Saddlers 12 6.1 3 1.5 72 36.4 35 17.7 25 12.6 51 25.8 198 Bakers 10 5.3 10 5.3 68 36.2 22 11.7 19 10.1 59 31.4 188 Wax makers 1 12.5 0.0 1 12.5 4 50.0 0.0 2 25.0 8 Total 231 6.7 150 4.3 1443 41.7 390 11.3 330 9.5 917 26.5 3,461
Merchants 69 7.6 71 7.8 419 46.1 89 9.8 67 7.4 193 21.3 908 Landowners 45 6.8 16 2.4 268 40.8 78 11.9 73 11.1 177 26.9 657
204 Miriam King and Samuel H. Preston, “Who Lives with Whom? Individual Versus Household Measures,” Journal of Family History 15 (1990).
104
If we break down these general percentages into the different categories of occupation, one can appreciate more striking variations (Table 4.11). For instance, only 41.7 % of the individuals who worked in guild jobs lived in nuclear families. This is almost the same as the city wide average (41.6%). Merchants are more likely to live in a nuclear family (46.1%) and landowners about the same as craftsmen (40.8). Among all guilds the percentage varies, for instance, bakers a slightly more than one third experience such a household composition on the average. In comparison to the average of the city, the guild artisans were a little more likely to live in an extended family, or with other related families, and in more proportion with families to whom they were not obviously related.
In other words, the city’s guilds lived in family structures that were more complex than the city average. Although the data does not and indeed cannot, provide answers as to why, it does provide clues that the household as well as the family are important factors in the city’s craft community. It should be noted that this conclusion differs from Ehmer’ revisionist interpretation that “the traditional master artisans’ mode of life was not as family oriented as is usually assumed.”205 The following is a description and analysis of the guild craft household.
The Craft Household
Table 4.12 includes all persons, not just heads of households. Therefore, it
shows the type of household in which all artisans lived. In analyzing the role of
the household in the craft community, one should note that social status and economic position affected age of the household head, household size, number of
205 Ehmer, “The Artisan Family,” 196.
105
kin, borders, children, and servants. In general, guilds artisans had an average of
.61 relatives living with them. Landowners and unskilled workers show the higher average of kin living inside the household (.65 and .64 respectively).
Guilds artisans show a high average of boarders living in the household, in contrast to the regular artisans that show the lowest average of boarders (.94 and
.77 respectively). Unskilled workers show a high average of boarders living in the household (1.1). What this means is that unskilled workers tended to live as boarders, as well as kin and with kin. One could say that the economic advantage of merchants and landowners allowed them to have larger households, based on a large average of children, kin, and boarders. The nature of their economic activity made necessary this household arrangement.
Table 4.12 Occupations by Means, 1821
Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean Number Number Number Number Mean Number Occupations of of of of Age of Kin in Members Boarders Servants Children HH in HH in HH in HH in HH Guild Artisans 33.0 6.7 7 0.61 0.9 4 0.08 2.19 Other Skilled Artisans 34.7 6.4 5 0.60 0.7 7 0.14 2.23 Merchants 35.5 7.2 1 0.57 1.0 1 0.77 2.52 Landowners 37.3 7.14 0.65 0.9 9 0.20 2.34 Other Workers 32.3 7.1 7 0.54 0.9 0 1.06 2.24 Unskilled Workers 30.5 7.170 .64 1.10 0.26 2.37 Total 31.8 7.08 0.62 1.02 0.39 2.32
106
This broad picture changes when one examines economic status among the guild heads of households. Using hidalguía, the honorific title of don or doña as a surrogate of social position the distinctions become evident (Table 4.13).
Table 4.13 Occupations by Means and Social Status, 1821
Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean Number of Number of Number of Number of Mean Age Number of Members Boarders Servants in Children Occupations Kin in HH in HH in HH HH in HH No No No No No No Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Guild Artisans 35.1 33.03 6.50 6.77 0.57 0.60 0.77 0.96 0.27 0.06 2.55 2.13 Other Skilled Artisans 33.0 34.91 6.75 6.46 0.53 0.62 0.54 0.83 0.50 0.09 2.22 2.24 Merchants 36.0 35.26 7.48 6.82 0.60 0.51 1.06 0.89 1.12 0.17 2.61 2.37 Landowners 42.0 37.46 8.36 6.77 0.71 0.61 1.28 0.88 1.21 0.07 2.39 2.29 Other Workers 34.9 31.6 7.11 7.30 0.68 0.51 0.88 0.90 1.02 1.16 2.52 2.12 Unskilled Workers 31.4 30.28 7.36 7.13 0.71 0.60 1.09 1.10 0.70 0.09 2.61 2.25 Total 32.9 31.55 7.28 7.05 0.68 0.58 1.03 1.01 0.77 0.30 2.58 2.21
In general, individuals who were head of the household and carried the
don/doña led larger households, 6.2 average size in contrast to 5 average size of individuals without the don/doña. In all the occupational categories the impact is the same‐‐the hidalguía drew a clear division between individuals with and without don/doña.206 In relation with age, the heads of households who held the
hidalguía were three years older than those heads that did not have it (41.6 years
versus 38.6 years old). Importantly, the households headed by individuals with
the hidalguía were generally larger, containing more kin, boarders, and servants
206 One should note that both gender and age also affects household size. If one looks at households headed by females without the doña, the average size of the household is smaller than male‐headed households.
107
than those headed by non‐dons. The number of children among high status household is also larger (except for the artisans), testifying to their financial ability to retain their children. The fact that the don guild artisans retained more children certainly reflects the role such children would play in the workshop, or the work process.
Traditionally, scholars have assumed that the productive unit was closely related to household, sometimes so intrinsically related that one of the main changes brought by industrialization was assumed to be the rupture between the artisan’s living space and their work space. Ehmer’s revisionist works found,
instead, that by mid‐nineteenth century only in non‐guild crafts or in the homes
of prosperous masters, or in the textile trades where the family was a work unit,
were artisan children over the age of twelve common. In crafts that maintained
the traditional patterns of sons leaving home by age of twelve (in Vienna,
woodworking, metalworking and clothing trades), households containing
juvenile and adult sons were uncommon.207
In apparent contrast to my earlier disagreement with Ehmer over the importance of the family, my work finds that Guadalajara’s artisans followed the traditional pattern (Table 4.13). Guild artisan households had fewer sons living in the household (0.24) than the general average for merchants and landowner
(0.30 and 0.28 respectively). This is somewhat a surprise because of the assumption that artisanal family was the economic basis of artisan productive
activity. Also, if the artisan family was important in the strength of the craft community in Guadalajara, would not the artisan’s keep their own children in the household to work at the family trade? In other words, where were the children who follow their father’s craft? Yet, paradoxically, but in conformity
207 Ehmer, “The Artisan Family,” 208.
108
with Ehmer and other studies, the tradition of sending their children out of the
home is likely linked to artisan family “strategies” to strengthen the family.208
Romero‐Marin found, for example, that in Barcelona in the first half of the nineteenth century, the children of artisan masters did not serve their
apprenticeship in their father’s workshops, but were often apprenticed out to
non‐family masters households, as a “chain in their vital and professional links
arriving at places where family ties did not reach.”209 While, I have no specific
evidence to confirm where artisan children go, the large numbers of guild
craftsmen who were living in non‐family households is clue that a similar process
characterized Guadalajara’s artisan community.
Among artisans, one can see two different residential pattern based on
artisans’ status, those artisans who worked in occupations regulated by guilds
and those artisans that even though skilled workers were not part of the guilds.
Guilds artisans have larger households, probably showing their higher social
status and a larger average of boarders . In contrast regular artisans have smaller
household but with a larger average of children and kin living in the household.
In the European tradition, guild artisans sent their children to other artisan
households and Guadalajara appea red to confo rm to that tradition.
Beyond the differences between guild artisans and regular artisans, there
were differences amon g guild artisa ns acc ordi ng to so cial st atus (don). Beca u se
the identification of masters and journeymen is scarce in the documents, we will assume that the artisans who hold the title don were in fact the ma ster artisa n s while the artisans witho ut don were consi dere d journ eyme n .
208 Ehmer, “The artisan family,” 203‐ 208; David Sven Reher, Town and Country in Pre‐Industrial Spain. Cue nca, 1550‐1 8 70 (Ca mbr id ge: Camb ri dge Unive rs ity Pr ess, 1990), 200‐201.
209 Romero‐Marin, “Familial Strategies,” 216.
109
In the table 4.14, one appreciates these dissimilarities amon g masters and journeymen. In genera l , mast ers we re old er tha n the journeymen, had a large r number of servants, and had a larger number of children (define as less than or eighteen years old child).
Table 4.14 Male Artisans by Means and Social Status, 1821
Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean Number of Number of Number of Number of Mean Age Number of Members Boarders Servants Children Occupations Kin in HH in HH in HH in HH in HH210 No No No No No No Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Barbers 31.7 28.0 7.12 6.19 0.47 0.78 1.07 0.73 0.19 0.05 2.48 2.59 Carpenters/ Coach makers 30.0 31.4 6.16 6.83 0.73 0.62 1.12 0.72 0.33 0.09 2.52 2.49 Wax makers 35.0 22.0 8.00 5.00 1.20 0.00 2.00 2.00 0.40 0.00 2.50 Leather tanners/Saddlers 39.6 31.8 6.57 7.47 0.57 0.95 0.79 1.32 0.00 0.03 2.88 2.09 Blacksmiths 40.3 30.6 5.48 6.54 0.52 0.70 0.12 0.80 0.24 0.03 2.09 2.45 Weavers 36.1 33.6 6.94 7.03 0.61 0.67 0.57 1.05 0.08 0.03 2.75 2.13 Bakers 37.0 33.3 6.44 7.34 0.15 0.76 0.74 0.94 0.56 0.20 2.07 1.91 Silversmiths 33.3 31.2 6.28 7.100 .49 0 .6 0 0.79 0.92 0.39 0.04 2 .8 2 2.35 Tailors 34.6 32.6 6.75 6.490.6 0 0.4 7 0.88 1.00 0.30 0.16 2.3 9 2.4 5 Hat makers 38.5 35.3 7.095 .84 0 .09 0. 47 0 .91 0.72 0 .09 0.05 4 .00 2 .37 Shoemakers 35.9 31.6 5.14 6.350. 43 0.47 0.36 0.69 0.14 0.07 2.0 0 1.98
Merchants 36.2 35.0 7.49 6 .61 0.61 0 .50 1.0 4 0 .94 1.08 0.112 .64 2.3 1 Landowners 41.9 37.7 8.39 6 .77 0.71 0 .63 1.2 8 0.86 1.20 0.052 .39 2.2 6
Journeymen lived, in average, in larger house hold s and for that reaso n the mean of boarders and kin livin g insid e the househ ol d is greate r than that of masters. Of course, there were variations among crafts but these are the general trends. The older age among mast er s is somet hin g expected as the opportun ity to take the exams increased with time , while journey men had to save the money
210 Including male and female children.
110
to pay for the exam. The greater number of children living in masters’ households could be caused by the fact that masters received youn g males as apprentices. The presence of a larg er number of ser vants is sign of the high
status of the master as they had the capability to pay other i ndiv id uals for their
labor.
Table 4.15 Sons in the Households by Craft and Age Groups, 1821
Male Ratio Sons Ratio Ratio Sons Ratio Sons Sons Household Sons 12 Sons Sons 20 Sons 2 to 12 to Occupations Head to years to to years to 11 19 (Married/ Head and Head Head or Head years years Widowed) HH Older HH HH Older HH Silversmiths 63 25 0.40 22 0.35 16 0.25 6 0.10 Wax makers 3 3 1.00 1 0.33 0.00 1 0.33 Barbers 37 17 0.46 11 0.30 7 0.19 4 0.11 Tailors 163 92 0.56 47 0.29 26 0.16 21 0.13 Hat makers 94 43 0.46 26 0.28 24 0.26 2 0.02 Blacksmiths 59 21 0.36 16 0.27 9 0.15 7 0.12 Leather tanners/ Saddlers 99 49 0.49 23 0.23 12 0.12 11 0.11 Shoemakers 266 92 0.35 61 0.23 45 0.17 16 0.06 Weavers 679 276 0.41 155 0.23 109 0.16 46 0.07 Bakers 83 44 0.53 15 0.18 9 0.11 6 0.07 Carpenters/ Coach makers 103 38 0.37 15 0.15 10 0.10 5 0.05 Total 1,649 700 0.42 392 0.24 267 0.16 125 0.08
Merchants 506 253 0.50 154 0.30 108 0.21 46 0.09 Landowners 356 120 0.34 98 0.28 60 0.17 38 0.11
In a close analysis of the children presence in artisans’ households one can
see that the ratio of male sons inside of the household decreased as the age of the sons increased. It is reasonable to think that from age twelve onwards the
111
probability of leaving the paternal home among the artisans’ offspring increased
considerably. As mentioned earlier, the traditional tendency was to send out the male sons to learn an oficio with a master. This can be deducted from following table 4.15. In the group of age 12 to 19, the ratio of son to the head of the
household is less than half that of the sons two to eleven years of age (0.16
compared to 0.42).
The ratio among the group 20 years and older followed the same
tendency. However, one should also notice differences between crafts. In
general, the pattern appears to be that the higher status trades were more likely
to have a greater than average ratio of sons twelve to nineteen years of age, and
the lower status lower than average. The meaning is probably that better‐off
artisans were in a financial position to maintain their children in their household
longer than those less better off artisans. (As will be seen in table 4.16, however, it did not usually mean that those sons followed in their father’s trade.)
The exceptions were the low status hat makers, having a greater than
average ratio, and the higher status carpenters and coach makers, having a lower
than average ratio. Hat makers normally employed the entire family to make
their products. It may be that carpenters and coach makers followed the more
traditional pattern of apprenticing their children out to fellow masters, or to
masters in other trades. Table 4.16 trace s the spe cifi c job of children who remain
in the household. Hat maker’s chil dre n were the most likely to follow in their
father’s footsteps; children from carpe n ter‐coac h maker ho useh old s amo n g the
least to do so.
In general, table 4.16 shows that , of the guild artisan son s livin g in their
father’s household, 45 percent followed the same occupation of their fathe rs, as
compared to 39 percent that did not. Unfort un ate ly , I was not able to trac e the
sons of artisans who followed their fath ers’ trade but did not live in the sa me
112
household. In the same table, notice th at one finds that merc h ants and landowners’ male sons followed their fathers’ occu pation in greater porti ons
(56.8 percent and 51.6 percent) than did artisan s’ sons. Amo n g specif ic cr afts, which sons followed more frequently their father’s occupations?
Table 4.16 Male Children Who Had the Same Job as the Head of the Household, 1821 Same job as Not the some in Occupations Same Job Total Same Job hh, but not the head. N % N % N % N %
Hat makers 8 72.7 3 27.3 0.0 11 100.0 Blacksmiths 11 68.8 5 31.3 0.0 16 100.0 Weavers 77 60.2 26 20.3 25 19.5 128 100.0 Shoemakers 38 53.5 23 32.4 10 14.1 71 100.0 Leather tanners/Saddlers 10 43.5 12 52.2 1 4.3 23 100.0 Barbers 3 33.3 4 44.4 2 22.2 9 100.0 Silversmiths 4 22.2 9 50.0 5 27.8 18 100.0 Bakers 3 21.4 10 71.4 1 7.1 14 100.0 Carpenters/Coach makers 9 20.9 24 55.8 10 23.3 43 100.0 Tailors 7 15.6 30 66.7 8 17.8 45 100.0 Total 170 45.0 146 38.6 62 16.4 378 100.0 Merchants 42 56.8 21 28.4 11 14.9 74 100.0 Landowners 33 51.6 20 31.3 11 17.2 64 100.0
Here the tendency is essentially the reverse from that found in table 4.14.
In general, the lower‐status trades (hat makers, weavers, shoemakers, tanners)
maintained sons in the same profession, while sons of fathers in the higher status
trades (barbers, silversmiths, carpenters‐coach makers, tailors) had different
trades. The exceptions were the higher status blacksmiths with more sons in the same trade and the lower status bakers who did not. Although this is
113
speculation, one might interpret the general pattern to mean that poorer trades needed the help of their sons to help the family survive economically, and that
the better off trades were able to diversify their children’s occupations, as a
family hedge against changes in the economy.
The conclusion that I would draw from the statistical evidence is that the
city’s artisan culture was based on a strong, independent family structure. I do not interpret this to mean that commercial capitalism had “destroyed” the artisan traditions, but that Guadalajara’s artisan community, and perhaps that of Mexico, or elsewhere in colonial Latin America, for as far back as we have good evidence,
was based solidly on the family, the household and the social networks that these two different institutions implied.
Calidad and Family
The issue of calidad during colonial Mexico is an unavo ida ble topic. The analysis of calidad has been based on the in terac ti on bet wee n calidad and occupation, as we discussed in chapte r thre e. The other trend of ana lysis is based on the correlation among calidad and marriage. One of the elements of study is the rate of interracial marriage to indicate whether inter‐racial marriage was increasing, and if calidad had lost its predominance.211 In colonial society,
211 Some examples of the marriage patterns in Nueva España are: Robert McCaa, “Marriageways in Mexico and Spain, 1500‐1900,” Continuity and Change 9:1, (1994): 11‐43; also his work “Calidad, Clase, and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral, 1788‐1790, ”Hispanic American Historical Review 64:3, (1984), 477‐502; Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof, “Raza, clase y matrimonio en la Nueva España: estado actual del debate,” in Familias Novohispanas. Siglos XVI al XIX, ed. Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru (Mexico: Colegio de México, 1991), 373‐387; Asunción Lavrin, ed. Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989); and Cecilia Rabell, “Matrimonio y raza en una parroquia
114
marriage had multiple dimensions. Especially within the well‐off classes, a good
union implied the balance among ho nor, calidad, and social status for the preservation of their superior position in the social hierarchy. For this reason, royal authorities condemned unions between persons that did not share the same social conditions. However, it was not exceptional that unions of individuals with different socio‐ethnic background took place. These “illicit” unions meant the growth of a mixed population who had an irregular status within the legal system.
Table 4. 17 Artisans by Marital Status and Calidad, 1821
Single Married Widower Total Calidad N % N % N % N % Spaniards 2046 57.1 1415 39.5 120 3.4 3581 100.0 Indians 1310 46.9 1382 49.4 104 3.7 2796 100.0 Mestizos 451 57.5 309 39.4 25 3.2 785 100.0 Mulattos 93 52.5 76 42.9 8 4.5 177 100.0 Other Castes 40 48.8 39 47.6 3 3.7 82 100.0 Total 3,940 53.1 3,221 43.4 260 3.5 7,421 100.0
I will focus only on the issue of marriage patterns and household structure
according to calidad and how these patterns were influenced by social status
among artisans. A well‐known assumption is that Indians had a larger proclivity
to marry while Spaniards remained single in greater proportions.212 In table 4.17,
one can appreciate the same pattern, 57.1 percent of Spaniards were single in
rural: San Luis de la Paz, Guana juato , 1715‐1 8 10,” in Histo ria Mexicana 165 (1992): 3‐44; also her work “Trayectoria de la vida familiar, raza y género en Oaxaca colonial,” in Familia y vida privada en la historia de Iberoamérica: seminario de historia de la familia, ed. Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru (Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, 1996). 212 Arrom, The Women of Mexico, 134‐153.
115
contrast to less than half of all Indians. This proportion reverses in relation to
married status. Indians were lik ely to be mar ried than Sp ania r ds (49.4 % and
39.5% respectively).
When the category calidad is divided by social status (don/non don)
another pattern emerges among Spaniards. We have seen that Spaniards were
more likely to be single; however, the difference among don Spaniards and non
don Spaniards is clear. Don Spaniards remained single in larger proportion than
non don Spaniards (59.6 % compared to 54.9 %, table 4.18). The tendency of non
don Spaniards to be married is greater than don Spaniards (42.3 % compared to
36.3 %). Indian patterns remains the same since there was not a significant
number of Indians with the title don. In other words, when a class/status factor is
introduced calidad is no longer dominant.
Table 4.18 Artisans by Marital Status, Social Status, and Calidad, 1821
Single Married Widowe r Total N % N % N % N % Don Spaniard 1,047 59.6 63 8 36.3 7 1 4.0 1,756 100. 0 No don Spaniard 7405 4.9 57 1 42.3 3 8 2. 8 1,3 49 100.0 No don Indian 1,12 4 4 6 .0 1 ,2 25 50 .1 96 3 .9 2 ,445 100 .0 No don Castas 573 5 5 .7 4 20 40 .8 36 3. 5 1,0 29 100.0 Total 3,484 53.0 2,854 43.4 241 3.7 6,579 100.0
Does calidad appear to impact household arra ngem en t s? The divis io n of
occupations by guild crafts and no n gui ld occu pati o ns prov id es some indi cation s.
Among guild artisans, Spaniards tended to live in greater proportion in nuclear
family arrangements, while Indians preferred to live in extended family, multiple
116
related and non related households.213 These differences among Spaniards and
Indians change when one look s at non guild occ up atio ns; the proportions of
nuclear family arrange men ts is fai rly sim ilar among both racial groups (44.2 %
and 42.4% respectively , table 4. 19).
Table 4.19 Guild Crafts and Non ‐guild Occu pa tion s by Calidad, 18 2 1
Ot her Spaniard Indian Mestizo Mulatto Caste Total N % N % N % N % N % N Guild Crafts Solitary Head 34 5.0 52 6.3 17 8.9 1 2.3 5 17.2 109 No Family 14 2.1 19 2.3 6 3.1 3 7.0 1 3.4 43 Nuclear Family 321 47.3 326 39.6 71 37.0 28 65.1 10 34.5 756 Extended Family 80 11.8 111 13.5 22 11.5 1 2.3 1 3.4 215 Multiple Family Related 59 8.7 84 10.2 28 14.6 2 4.7 7 24.1 180 Multiple Family Unrelated 170 25.1 232 28.2 48 25.0 8 18.6 5 17.2 463 Total 678 100.0 824 100.0 192 100.0 43 100.0 29 100.0 1,766 Non‐guilds occupations Solitary Head 129 9.2 66 7.0 23 9.7 12 16.9 0.0 230 No Family 63 4.5 33 3.5 4 1.7 4 5.6 0.0 104 Nuclear Family 623 44.2 399 42.4 99 41.8 28 39.4 9 50.0 1,158 Extended Family 162 11.5 99 10.5 15 6.3 9 12.7 4 22.2 289 Multiple Family Related 110 7.8 899.5 26 11.0 1 1.4 1 5.6 227 Multiple Family Unrelated 321 22.8 254 27.0 70 29.5 17 23.9 4 22.2 666 Total 1408 100.0 940 100.0 237 100.0 71 100.0 18 100.0 2,674
213 This is in contrast to Cecilia Rabell’s work on Antequera, Oaxaca, in 1777. She found that Indians were for less likely than Spaniards to live in extended households. “Trayectoria de vida familiar, raza y género en Oaxaca colonial,” in Familia y vida privada en la historia de Iberoamérica: seminario de historia de la familia, ed. Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru (Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico/UNAM, 1996), 103.
117
However, Indians who worked in non guild occupations were more likely
to live in multiple family arrangements (related and unrelated) in contrast to the
Spaniards in non‐guild occupations.
When ethnical categories are divided by social status, a significant difference appears between Spaniards with the dons and Spaniards without the title (table 4.20). Among guild artisans, the proportion of don Spaniards living in
nuclear family arrangements increased to 55%, compared to 48 % for non‐dons.
Also the proportion of non‐don Spaniards that lived in multiple family
arrangements increased measurably compared to don Spaniards. In other words,
what is important to notice is that when Spaniards were divided by the
hidalguía, the non‐don household arrangements were as close to Indian pattern s
as they were to the don Spa niard patterns.214 Again, class does not triumph but
it does appear to even the game .
In the case of non‐guild occup atio ns , we found that In dian s conse rve d
more or less the same proportions of household arrangements as guild
occupations. The difference, again, is betwe en do n Spa niard s and non don
Spaniards. Non‐guild Spania rd s who held the hi dalg uí a were far more like ly to
live in nuclear arrangements than no n‐don Spaniards (49.4% comp ared to 36.7%
of the non‐dons). And the lat ter were far more likely to live in ext ende d family,
and particularly, multiple famil y hou seh old s. In other words, bet te r off
Spaniards in both guild and non‐gui ld occu pati o ns cou ld “af ford” to live
independently, compared to less well off Spaniards and Indian s, who needed to
live with kin and/or other famil ies to share expe ns es (one pres um es) . In general,
Caste households follow ed Ind ian an d non‐don Spania rd’s patter ns .
214 Anderson, Race and Social Stratification, 225.
118
Table 4.20 Guild Crafts and Non‐guild Occupations by Household Structure, Calidad, and Social Status, 1821 Don No don No don No don Spaniard Spaniard Indian Castas Total N % N % N % N % N Guild Crafts Solitary Head 11 5.8 18 4.9 43 6.0 23 8.8 95 No Family 4 2.1 8 2.2 17 2.4 10 3.8 39 Nuclear Family 105 55.0 177 48.0 286 40.2 108 41.4 676 Extended Family 19 9.9 39 10.6 84 11.8 23 8.8 165 Multiple Family Related 15 7.9 36 9.8 71 10.0 37 14.2 159 Multiple Family Unrelated 37 19.4 91 24.7 210 29.5 60 23.0 398 Total 191 100.0 369 100.0 711 100.0 261 100.0 1,532 Non‐guilds occupations Solitary Head 80 9.8 34 8.4 56 6.8 35 11.0 205 No Family 44 5.4 15 3.7 32 3.9 8 2.5 99 Nuclear Family 403 49.4 149 36.7 360 43.7 130 40.8 1,042 Extended Family 82 10.0 52 12.8 78 9.5 28 8.8 240 Multiple Family Related 73 8.9 24 5.9 82 10.0 28 8.8 207 Multiple Family Unrelated 134 16.4 132 32.5 216 26.2 90 28.2 572 Total 816 100.0 406 100.0 824 100.0 319 100.0 2,365
In conclusion, for Guadalajara’s artisans, marriage constituted a common experience, and, contrary to European artisan tradition, marriage could have been an opportunity to improve artisans’ economic situation and not a signal of deterioration of the artisan mode of production. Distinguishing pattern among
trades, it is sure to say that artisans dedicated to a low status craft were more likely to marry, probably a sign that for artisans with low economic resources the family represented a chance to expand their social networks and use spouses and children’s labor to reduce the cost of production. In relation to young male children living at artisans households, Guadalajara’s guild artisans had less sons
119
than the rest of the social groups, showing with this that the tradition to send the male children out of the household to learn a “oficio” was still part of the artisan practice. The family, in other words, was a strong form of organization that allowed artisans to cope with the economic transformations.
120
CHAPTER FIVE
ARTISAN RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS
This chapter will describe the residential patterns of artisans. Beginning
with a description of the city, my purpose is to answer the various questions of
urban space—where do artisans live, do they create their own neighborhood
space and residence patterns, do masters still live in the same neighborhoods as
their journeymen, or have they moved to more affluent barrios away from their
own workers and apprentices?
The City
Guadalajara, as most the urban settlements established by the Spaniards,
followed a grid pattern. These regular layout was a military design that allowed
a better defense if it were necessary. 215 In the heart of the city, there was the
central plaza (plaza mayor), currently known as Plaza de Armas since the
Independence movement. Surrounding this plaza were the major public, civil
and religious buildings. In the east was the Palacio de la Audiencia Real
(Government Palace), to the north was the Cathedral, to the south and the west
the most distinguished citizens lived, usually in two stories buildings. In
addition, this area was known as the Portales. The portales were “open‐air”
arches in which merchants lived on the second floor and had their businesses on
215 This same model was adopted during the Middle Ages in Europe. María Ángeles Gálvez Ruiz, La conciencia regional en Guadalajara y el gobierno de los intendentes (1786‐1800) (Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1996): 125‐126.
121
the ground floor. In some cases they rented portions of it to artisans or smaller merchants. All around the city, there were smaller plazas with the same layout which functioned as the center of the religious and public life of every
neighborhood.
In 1790, Guadalajara underwent a spatial reorganization based on
cuarteles.216 This system divided the city in sections to allow better control over the population. The ultimate reason for this division was to put into practice new police regulations. One of the basic steps in the new regulations was to name officially the streets and plazas, and to number the houses on each street. Also, for each cuartel, the authorities named a juez mayor (judge of peace) and a alcalde menor de barrio (selectman of neighborhood) for each neighborhood to “ease the administration of justice.”217 Among their functions was to patrol their portion of the city, intervening in public disturbances such as drunkenness, out of control family fights, etc. Other responsibilities were related to the welfare of the community such as to guarantee “the presence of a least one physician, one barber, one midwife, and one pharmacist” in their jurisdiction. Also, they were responsible for the orphans, widows, and beggars, having specific procedures to alleviate the problems related to those social groups. Sometimes, male orphans of working age were assigned to a master to learn an oficio (skill). In the case of beggars, some were sent to jail for two days to work on public works.218
216 AHMG, CS 1/1791, Paquete 11, legajo 6. There is not an exact translation into English of the word cuartel. It was unit of the administrative division of the city. The word cuartel also has a military connotation, meaning center of operations.
217 AHMG, CS 1/1791, Paquete 11, legajo 6, and Gálvez Ruiz, La conciencia regional, 129.
218 Ibid., 130.
122
In 1809, the Spanish authorities modified the cuartel division system, subdividing the original fourteen cuarteles into twenty four. The reason for this was to have even closer control over the population by breaking down the cuarteles into smaller sections and in this way increasing the number of judges of peace and selectmen (alcalde de barrio). Driving this change was the French invasion of Spain in 1808 which increased the fear among the Nueva España authorities of a Creole rebellion.219 The new cuartel system kept the same basic distribution –the Avenida Aduana (Aduana Avenues) and Río de San Juan de Dios
(River San Juan de Dios) divided the city from east to west.220 The urban expansion of Guadalajara was limited in the north and northeast by the ravine of the Río Grande de Santiago; thus the city grew naturally towards the other cardinal points. Eventually, the indigenous villages of Mexicalzingo and Analco
–located in the southwest and south respectively— became part of the city and in
1821 they were declared neighborhoods (barrios).221
The water supply has been a constant problem for Guadalajara since its foundation. In 1821, the thirteen public fountains (six located in plazas and six in religious property), the public springs placed in the indigenous barrios, and the private water concessions proved many times to be insufficient, especially during the drought season. Of course, this situation was worse within the poor sectors
219 Rodney Anderson, “Guadalajara in 1821: Origins of the Cuartel System,” in Guadalajara Censuses Project, ed. Rodney Anderson < http://www.fsu.edu/~guadalaj> (17 July 2005).
220 Ibid.
221 Eric Van Young, Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth‐century Mexico. The Rural Economy of the Guadalajara Region, 1675‐1821 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 32.
123
of the city where their residents needed to walk large distances to get water for the basic necessities.222 The project of paving the city’s streets began in 1791 with the purpose to facilitate the internal traffic and for sanitary reasons. By 1802, three quarter parts of the city’s streets were paved with cobblestones, a total of
170 square kilometers, including extensive areas of the indigenous neighborhoods.223 The vast majority of the houses were one story buildings, including the wealthiest ones, many with internal patios, gardens, and orchards.
In 1821, Guadalajara counted fourteen plazas, most of them identified with a barrio (neighborhood). The experience of living in a barrio was more than a geographical occurrence; it also implied a social dimension.224 Around each plaza, Guadalajara’s residents carried out their social and economic life. Usually adjacent to the plaza were a Catholic parish or church and a market. Social relations among families and neighbors marked cultural patterns that sometimes were expressed by mutual cooperation and support, allowing the development of an urban identity related to a specific barrio.
Since there are no academic studies that define exactly the location of the barrios, I will describe them by following the model that Rodney Anderson used to make a tentative identification creating seven hypothetical districts. Even though we will lose a more local sense of identity, the identification of areas inside the city that share similar features is crucial for understanding
Guadalajara’s social dynamics.
222 Rodney Anderson, “Guadalajara in 1821.”
223 Gálvez Ruiz, La conciencia regional, 134‐137. The Merchant Consulate of Guadalajara and the Church paid for the pavement of the poorest barrios.
224 Geneviève Massard‐Guilbaud, “The Genesis of an Urban Identity. The Quartier de la Gare in Clermont‐Ferrand, 1850‐1914,” Journal of Urban History 25 (1999): 779‐808.
124
Map 5.1 Guadalajara by District Division, 1821225
The formerly indigenous pueblos of Mexicalzingo and Analco constituted two natural neighborhoods by themselves. Mexicalzingo included the cuarteles
ten, eleven, and twenty four (District 6). While Analco embraced cuarteles eight
and nine (District 7). For the rest of the districts, Anderson used the parish
division to isolate portions of the city. Sagrario was the largest parish which
extended its jurisdiction to a big area of the city. Thus, Anderson broke it down
225 Rodney Anderson, Guadalajara a la consumación de la Independencia: estudio de su población según los padrones de 1821‐22 (Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno del Estado, 1983): 25. Santiago Guzmán drew this map in 1813, there is a copy in the US Library Congress. The original is in the British Museum, London, UK.
125
into three districts with a more or less equal population, creating district one, two, and five. The parish of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of
Guadalupe) forms the district three. The parish of Jesús formed district 4 (See
table 5.1).
Table 5.1 City Districts by Cuartel Composition District Embraced Cuarteles District 1: Las Armas 1 and 23 District 2: El Sagrario 2, 3, 4, and 5 District 3: Guadalupe 6, 7, 19, 20, 21, and 22 District 4: Jesus 16, 17, and 18 District 5: El Carmen 15, 14, 13,and 12 District 6: Mexicalzingo 10, 11 and 24 District 7: Analco 8 and 9
District one, comprised the core of the city, Plaza de Armas was the center
of the activities of this district. This plaza was where gente decente (“decent people”) walked around every Sunday after they attended to mass. The tapatía elite enjoyed this activity with their family as one of the few public entertainments of the era.226 Guadalajara housed a significant number of
religious institutions. Besides the Cathedral, there were parishes, churches,
chapels, monasteries, convents, and religious schools. As did many preindustrial
societies, Guadalajara’s inhabitants mixed the sacred world and civic activities
during public events; a vast majority of popular festivities were related to
Catholic liturgy.
El Sagrario, district two, enclosed the Episcopal Palace, the Seminary
College, and the convent of Santa María de Gracia. In the main street of this
226 Tapatío/tapatía is an expression which refers to a native from Guadalajara.
126
barrio many priest and bishops lived, giving it the name of “calle de los obispos”
(bishop’s street).227 In this district, a high number of professional and
administrative employees lived. It was less commercial than the downtown but
at the same it was the most stable barrio with the lowest percentage of immigrants. Also, there were the Royal Tobacco Factory which employed high level administrators as well as laborers, and the Royal Merchant Consulate,
established in 1795 diminishing Mexico City’s commercial monopoly.
Guadalupe, district three, was a low status barrio having the highest percentage of immigrants and the highest concentration of multiple family household arrangements, suggesting that new immigrants arrived to live with
relatives or friends who served as a social network. The marginal aspect of this
barrio is confirmed by the fact that the most common occupations of its residents were either weaving or food related jobs, both the easiest jobs to perform without corporative guild control. In contrast, it was the district with few merchants and professionals.228 In this same district, Bishop Friar Antonio Alcalde constructed
the Royal Hospital of San Miguel (Belén) to serve the urban poor who in general
went there to pass away. The remote location of the hospital was not a
coincidence; hospitals in that time were very unsanitary places that did little to
improve people’s health.229
District four, Jesús, housed at least eight religious buildings among them
they were the Colegio de San Diego, the church of Santa Monica, the Capuchín
227 Rodney Anderson, “Guadalajara in 1821: A “Tour” of the City,” in Guadalajara Censuses Project, ed. Rodney Anderson,
228 Anderson, “Guadalajara in 1821: A “Tour” of the City.”
229 Ibid.
127
Convent, the monastery of Our Lady of Mercy (La Merced), and the Convent of
Jesús María (Dominican). As in other barrios, its residents had their social and
economic lives around the plaza. Close to the plaza, the wealthiest inhabitants
lived, holding the title of don or doña. But as one goes further from the plaza the
number of individuals with hidalguía decreased and the number of individuals with mechanical occupations increased such as shoemakers and blacksmiths.230
Even though Jesús district had a significant number of clergy and professionals
living near the barrio principal plaza, the rest of the district housed an extensive
number of common people.
El Carmen, district five, was a more homogenous barrio in comparison to
Jesus district. Almost two thirds of the head of the households deserved the
don/doña. Also, it was the district with the least Indian population. The important buildings that this district encompassed were the Royal and Literary
University of Guadalajara, Santa Teresa church and Nuestra Señora del Pilar church. One thing that made this district attractive to the rich was the availability of water; here private springs were common. This district had the highest concentration of individuals occupied in administrative positions, professional jobs and commerce. This was the favorite place to live among tapatía elite.
Mexicalzingo, district six, constituted the original indigenous village formed by Mexicas and Tarascans Indians. The Arenal Arroyo ravine separated
Mexicalzingo from the rest of the city. As paradoxical it could see, 43 percent of the inhabitants were declared being Spaniards. However, only a few portion of
these Spaniards deserved the title of don/doña and the occupational structure
was constituted by small farmers, day laborers and semi‐skilled artisans. Half of
230 Ibid.
128
the leather tanners lived in this area of the city. In general terms, this was a poor district and the calidad (racial and social status affiliation) did not make a distinction among Indians and Spaniards.
Finally district seven, Analco, the other indigenous village that became part of the city during the mid‐seventeenth century.231 The bridge San Juan de
Dios connected it to the rest of the city since the river with the same name separated it. They had their own parish, San Sebastián de Analco, a monastery
San Juan de Dios, and the church San José de Analco. Tecuexes and Cocas
Indians were the original residents of this village. Similar to the other indigenous village, Analco housed an important number of Spaniards (27 %), even though it was much lower than Mexicalzingo. However, Analco had one of the largest
Indian and Casta populations. As in Guadalupe district, Analco had a high
proportion of immigrants among its residents with the same residential pattern
of multiple family household arrangements. The most common occupations
were weaving, farming, and shoemaking while the administrative, professional
and skilled jobs were infrequent. Completed a broad description of the city, let
us focus in the residential patterns among the artisans. According to their craft
artisans have a sense of community attach to a specific barrio or area within the
city?
231 Hélène Rivière D’Arc, “Las fases del crecimiento y del desarrollo de Guadalajara y de su región durante la colonización,” in Lecturas históricas de Jalisco. Antes de la Independencia, ed. José María Muriá, Jaime Olveda, and Alma Dorantes (Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Estado de Jalisco, 1981), 162.
129
The Barrio
While work on the artisan family is abundant and well known, scarcer is our knowledge of where the artisan lived within the city. To what extent was the neighborhood (the barrio) a significant aspect of artisan culture? First of all, did artisans tend to congregate in the same neighborhoods? If so, was the location chosen more for nearness to their customers or their workshop, or for some social aspect of the craft community, or for neither of these reasons? Within the city, which crafts tended to concentrate in which districts and barrios? And within the trades, did journeymen live in any proximity to their masters? Research on Latin
American urban space is relatively sparse.232 I believe that a close analysis of the distribution and use of urban space can disclose a pattern of craft community.
The historiography tends to be divided into several “schools” based on particular issues. Particularly influential is Gideon Sjoberg’s theory on the nature of pre‐industrial cities. Through the dichotomy pre‐industrial/industrial, Sjoberg developed a “constructed type” of the preindustrial city to measure the change
232 Lyman Johnson, “The Artisans of Buenos Aires during the Viceroyalty 1776‐ 1810” (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1974). Also, he works on housing costs in “The Price History of Buenos Aires during the Viceregal Period,” in Essays on the Price History of Eighteenth‐century Latin America, eds. Lyman Johnson and Enrique Tandeter (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990). He finds in the latter evidence that 25.7% of all masters owned their own homes, but also 23.8%of journeymen were home owners, surprising. Also, for issue of race and residence, see Celia Wu, “The Population of the City of Querétaro in 1791,” Journal of Latin American Studies 16(1984): 277‐307; John K. Chance, “The Ecology of Race and Class in Late Colonial Oaxaca,” in Studies in Spanish American Population History, ed. David Robinson (Boulder, Westview Press, 1981); and Jay Kinsbruner, “Caste and Capitalism in the Caribbean: Residential Patterns and House Ownership among the Free People of Color of San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1823‐ 46,” Hispanic American Historical Review 70 (1990): 433‐461.
130
that cities underwent during the transition from a traditional/feudal mode of
production to a modern/capitalist mode of production.233 Related to the spatial arrangement within the city, Sjoberg said:
“…the city’s center is the hub of the governmental and religious activity more than of commercial ventures. It is, besides, the prime focus of elite residence, while the lower class and outcaste groups are scattered centrifugally toward the city’s periphery.”234
Applying this model to Guadalajara, we found that indeed all the
administrative and religious function were located around the city’s core.
However, many of the productive activities and more lucrative commercial
activities were performed in the same central space. In the table 5.2, through the
location quotient, I analyzed the distribution of the crafts within the city. At first
glance, one perceived that in the richest district the concentration of artisans was
low (Las Armas 0.61 y El Carmen 0.77). While in the more popular and
peripheral districts the concentration of artisans is heavier (Guadalupe,
Mexicalzingo, and Analco). Merchants were remarkable concentrated in the Las
Armas district (2.44). El Sagrario and El Carmen also showed a high
concentration of merchants in contrast to the rest of the city, corroborating their
high social status of this portion of the city.235
233 Gideon Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City. Past and Present (New York: The Free Press, 1960): 321. Richard M. Morse criticized this “fictional model” as reductionistic in “Prolegomenon to Latin American Urban History,” Hispanic American Historical Review 52 (1972): 329‐394. Morse’s criticism is based on the philosophical origins of Spanish American cities as part of the western civilization.
234 Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City, 323.
235 For the absolute numbers from where location quotients were calculated see table 5.3.
131
If one looks closer, trying to make distinctions among the crafts, one is able to find distribution patterns around the city. For instance, barbers who relied on the gente bien (well‐off residents) as their principal customers. Thus, it is not surprising had found them in higher numbers on Las Armas, El Sagrario, and El
Carmen (2.25, 1.29, and 1.35 respectively) and in relatively low numbers in the rest of the city. This same distributive pattern is followed by blacksmiths, silversmiths, and tailors (Table 5.2). In other words, these crafts tended to be located close to the richest patrons, including the large number of churches and clergy in those districts.236 All these trades were occupations that directly sold a good or service to the customers and were considered high status activities. As stated before, tanning was a lmost restricted to Analco and principally to
Mexicalzingo; the location quotien t confirms this pattern (1.37 and 3.97 respectively). The reason of this was attributable to the inherent strong odor of this activity and also the proxi mity to the river that provid ed enou gh water for the chemical process of curing the hides. Weavers were more con centr ated in
Analco, Guadalupe, and Mexica lzi ngo wh er e more migran ts lived and there was the cheapest housing in the cit y (1.98 , 1.69 , and 0.88 respec tively ). Shoema king was a low status occupation which concen tr ated in the pop ular neighb orho ods:
Analco, Mexicalzingo, Guadalupe, and Jesus . Hatti ng was concen trate d in Jesus district (2.14), Analco (1.83), and El Sagrario (1.45), showin g a low number in the rest of the city. Finally, bakers were almost fairly distributed around the city except for La Armas. This feature, without doubt, was due to bread’s direct
consumption feature.
236 González Angulo, Artesanado y Ciudad, 69.
132
Table 5.2 Location of Quotie nts of the D is tricts by Crafts , 1821237
N
Armas
Jesús Carmen Sagrario
Analco Total El Las El Guadalupe
Occupation Mexicalzingo Barbers 2.25 1.29 0.50 0.70 1.35 0.43 0.57 85 Carpenters/ Coach makers 0.98 1.40 0.86 0.66 1.55 0.89 0.68 247 Wax makers 1.77 ‐‐‐‐1.07 2.40 1.84 0.00 8 Leather tanners/ Saddlers 0.57 0.38 0.12 0.30 0.32 3.97 1.37 198 Blacksmiths 0.97 1.36 1.08 0.76 0.83 1.48 0.63 124 Weavers 0.22 0.71 1.69 0.69 0.50 0.88 1.98 1,408 Bakers 0.66 1.10 1.26 1.34 0.80 1.07 0.85 192 Silversmiths 1.20 1.67 0.76 1.07 1.46 0.76 0.31 136 Tailors 0.93 1.47 0.69 0.69 1.57 1.36 0.42 372 Hat makers 0.51 1.45 0.54 2.14 0.42 0.35 1.83 168 Shoemakers 0.72 1.12 1.08 1.13 0.56 1.23 1.21 551 Total Guilds 0.61 1.02 1.17 0.86 0.77 1.16 1.34 3,489
Merchants 2.44 1.02 0.35 0.76 1.00 0.71 0.82 995 Landowners 0.41 0.40 1.47 0.66 0.32 2.35 1.24 660 Total Percentage of Male Working Population 14.1 11.9 16.5 11.7 15.6 13.6 16.6 9,469
The general pattern that stands out is that high status crafts lived side by side with the elite since they were their patrons. Low status occupation s were
237 I followed the location quotient calculation used by Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London. A Study in the Relatio nship betwee n Classes in Victoria n Society (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1971): 370. The calculation is as follow: percentage of a specific trade in a district divide d by the total percen tag e of the working population in the same distric t . The meaning is that location q u otient equals 1 the distributi on of that occupation is coincident to the distribution of the working population in the city. If the value is greater than 1, signi fie s that there was a concentration of that occupation in that particu lar district. If the value is less than 1, means that that occupa tio n was less concen tra ted in that particu l ar district in relation to the city as a whole.
133
relegated to the peripheral are as of the city where housing was cheaper and migration a constant event. El Sagra rio district was the only nei ghb orh oo d in the city that did not follow this same model of high/lo w status. With the exce ptio n of tannin g and a little bit of weaving, all the others occupations in this district were significantly rep resented. As we saw before, this was a distri ct preferred by clergymen but also by common people (Table 5.2).
Table 5.3 Distribution of Male Workers by District, 1821 N
N N N N
N
N N
Armas
Jesús Total Carmen Sagrario
Analco Las El El Occupation Guadalupe Mexicalzingo Barbers 27 13 7 7 18 5 8 85 Carpenters/Coach makers 34 41 35 19 60 30 28 247 Wax makers 2 1 3 2 8 Leather tanners/Saddlers 16 9 4 7 10 107 45 198 Blacksmiths 17 20 22 11 16 25 13 124 Weavers 44 119 391 113 110 169 462 1,408 Bakers 18 25 40 30 24 28 27 192 Silversmiths 23 27 17 17 31 14 7 136 Tailors 49 65 42 30 91 69 26 372 Hat makers 12 29 15 42 11 8 51 168 Shoemakers 56 73 98 73 48 92 111 551 Total Guilds 298 421 671 350 422 549 778 3,489
Merchants 342 120 58 88 156 96 135 995 Landowners 38 31 160 51 33 211 136 660 Total Male Working Population 1,336 1,125 1,560 1,108 1,480 1,288 1,572 9,469
134
A further issue is the location of “productive space” and the tendency of commercial capitalism to “push” the artisans out of the central part of the city to the margins. From the location quotients, one can deduct that a definitive specialization of the urban space did not exist. Although one can find patterns related with specific activities such as merchants and leather tanners, all around
the city there were productive units that supplied commodities and services to
Guadalajara’s inhabitants. There was neither a residential area nor a
manufacturing area that divided the urban space as in the modern cities.
According to González Angulo, this quite regular distribution of workshops
around the city was a feature that guild system imposed “mixing all kind of
activities and usages: commerce, manufacture, and housing.”238 Two of the most
important guild rules that influenced this situation were the almost universal
attachment between workshop and residential place, for a better supervision and
control of each master by the overseer, and the equitable distribution of the
market, avoiding competition among artisans of the same craft.239 Finally, work
done on European crafts indicate that masters moving out of the neighborhoods
of their journeymen is one characteristic of a craft undergoing the transformation
from independent craftsmen to control by merchant capitalists. Did this happen
in Guadalajara?
In order to examine the residential patterns of the urban crafts, I have used
the censuses of 1791, 1821 and 1842. Because the 1791 census did not register
Indians or Mulattoes, residential proximity can only be determined for
Spaniards, Mestizos and Castizos. The shoemakers, for example, were primarily
238 González Angulo, Artesanado y Ciudad, 69.
239 Manuel Carrera Stampa, Los gremios mexicanos. La organización gremial en Nueva España 1521‐1861 (Mexico: EDIAPSA, 1954), 192.
135
Indians and Castas, and therefore do not appear at all in the 1791 data.
Moreover, we do not know the exact location of the 1791 barrios. Therefore, 1791 is useful only for comparison within the guilds, and only very tentatively across time. The 1821 data is complete, and the exact location of each district is known.
However, because neither 1791 nor 1842 contain the entire city’s population, any comparison across time must be treated with extreme caution. The 1842 census contained only three of the city’s nine districts (five, six and seven). On the other hand, because the 1842 districts were created by simply consolidating the existing
1821 districts, comparison tables can be created by utilizing only those barrios from 1821 which corresponded to cuarteles five, six and seven of 1842. Hence, we can compare across time for each craft.
Also problematic is the fact that none of the data can account for persons who lived just across the street, for example, but are not recorded as living nearby because the censuses were usually taken by the block rather than by the street. Therefore, any proximity measurements underestimate the actual rate of proximity.
The guild by tradition attempted to regulate the residences of the crafts in order to prevent competition between masters over customers in specific neighborhoods. In particular one would expect to find that those crafts that depended on very specific neighborhood customers—barbers in particular, but also blacksmiths, tailors and bakers—to be dispersed among the district’s households. By 1821, the guild system had been abolished, of course, but one assumes that earlier patterns would still prevail. On the other hand, as the guild itself disappears, one wonders if the institution might not be replaced by a common craft community. If so, might this be reflected in increased proximity?
French scholarship emphasizes the role of “sociability” in the quarter (in Spanish, the barrio, or the neighborhood in English) revolving around the informal
136
gathering places in the cafes, bars, and workshops of the neighborhood, and the impact on reducing class differences. Even there, however, the issue remains as
to the relative importance of the family compared to the neighborhood; in other words, is the public sphere more important than the private sphere of artisan
culture?240 Obviously, using only statistical data will not answer these questions,
but perhaps certain clues will emerge suggesting the direction of further
research.
In order to determine how close or how distant the various heads of
households of the guild crafts lived in relationship to one another, I have created
four categories:
1. Lived next door to someone of the same craft.
2. Lived within five residences.
3. Lived within ten residences.
4. Lived beyond ten residences.
Because living next door was relatively rare, I have used living within five
houses (or residences) to indicate close pr oximity, a nd living outside ten to
indicate a tendency to live beyond the infl uences of proximity. Obviously , these
measurements are arbitrary, but they seem reasonable as a rough estimate of
proximity.
240 Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz Haupt, “Shopkeepers, Master Artisans and the Historian: the Petite Bourgeoisie in Comparative Focus,” in Crossick and Haupt editors, Shopkeepers and Master Artisans in Nineteenth‐Century Europe (London: Metheun & Co. Ltd., 1984), 19. Most of the articles in this very useful edited work deal in some fashion with the issue of place. See especially David Blackbourn, “Between Resignaton and Volatility: the German Petite Bourgeoisie in the Nineteenth Century,” pp. 35‐61, esp. 48.
137
Table 5.4 Residential Proximity Living Within Five Households, 1791 and 1821241 1791 1821 Craft % Craft %
Weavers 44.4 Weavers 82.2 Bakers 39.4 Leather tanners/Saddlers 40.7 Leather tanners/Saddlers 35.7 Shoemakers 39.7 Silversmiths 28.3 Hat makers 31.5 Blacksmiths 20.0 Bakers 22.1 Carpenters/Coach makers 17.2 Tailors 19.8 Barbers 16.7 Blacksmiths 13.5 Tailors 13.2 Carpenters/Coach makers 13.5 Silversmiths 12.0 Barbers 8.7
Table 5.4 and 5.5 include only one measurement—within five households
and beyond ten household —in order to simplify the analysis. As an overview, it would seem that the guild regulations governing proximity were largely adhered to. A majority of all crafts except the weavers lived outside ten households (and many, of course, lived much further than ten households from each other). The fact that the weavers lived so close to each other in 1791 (and 1821) perhaps is as much a factor of their great numbers, as it is the result of any economic or
cultural factor. However, one should also note that in 1842 (table 5.6) they were not where as near as numerous, yet they still led all crafts in the percent closest.
Also, in 1821 nearly half (44.4%) lived next door to each other, which is not just a function of the great numbers of weavers. I would think that the reason for their
proximity might well have to do with the need for cheap housing, and that the
241 Shoemakers and hat makers were left out in 1791 because of their small number. Wax makers were left out for both years for the same reason.
138
weavers congregated where they found ch eap housing. The districts with the
highest concentration of weavers were als o the two poorest, lowest status districts in the entire city (El Santuario and Analco; see table 5.2, “Location
Quotients”). The weavers were among the poorest of the guilds (with only
shoemakers earning fewer dons proportionately). Also, the weavers were the
most likely to be migrants from elsewhere (Table 3.2), and the tendency was for
migrants to congregate in areas already inhabited by earlier migrants.
Table 5.5 Residential Proximity Living Outside Ten Households, 1791 and 1821 1791 1821 Craft % Craft % Barbers 83.3 Barbers 91.3 Tailors 71.4 Blacksmiths 78.3 Bakers 70.6 Silversmiths 78.0 Blacksmiths 70.0 Carpenters/Coach makers 75.7 Silversmiths 67.3 Bakers 69.5 Carpenters/Coach makers 62.1 Tailors 65.9 Leather tanners/Saddlers 60.7 Hat makers 60.2 Weavers 29.6 Leather tanners/Saddlers 55.6 Shoemakers 42.5 Weavers 9.1
In general, as anticipated, the crafts with the highest portion living away
from each other were “neighborhood” crafts, that is, depended on local
customers—barbers, tailors, bakers and blacksmiths. If anything, 1821 finds the
crafts in general still substantially residing away from each other, although the
ordering of the crafts shifted somewhat. The shift, however, may well reflect the
fact that 1821 included all individuals and more accurately reflected the
proximity pattern than 1791.
139
The other most consistent crafts to keep their distance from each other were the carpenters and blacksmiths, whose customers were the least likely to be local residents, and most likely to be well off. Note that the heaviest concentration of both crafts were in district two (El Sagrario), although the carpentry and the wheelwright shops were also concentrated in district five (El
Carmen). Both districts included the wealthiest barrios in the city, but also included space for the lumber yards and corrals that formed an important part of their shops.
Residential Proximity for 1821 and 1842: A Comparison
The following tables (5.6 and 5.7) are comparable because they are made up of the same barrios for 1821 and 1842.242 Several things stand out. For one thing, the hand weavers have been decimated by competition from contraband, from Querétaro’s new‐found cotton textile industry and, particular ly, from foreign imports. While Jalisco was still ex porting cotton manta in the 1840s, mainly to markets further west and in the north, overall production of manta had declined significantly from an estimated 7,684,000 yards in 1802.243 Also, conservative tastes supported the ex tensi v e rebozo (shawl) market. Banda lists 54
242 The 1821 data includes cuartel 16 from 1822, as no data exists for 1821 for that district.
243 Guy P.C. Thomson, Puebla de los Angeles. Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700‐1850 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), p. 257, note 55. However, note that Jalisco yarn production had increased, reducing its dependence on foreign imports.
140
cotton rebocerías (shawl workshops) in 1844.244 The portion of “guild” crafts increased over twenty percent, lead by a more than doubling of the barbers,
carpenters and, particularly, the shoemakers.
Table 5.6 Residential Proximity Liv ing Within Five Household s, 1821 and 18 42
1821 1842 Total Total Craft N Artisans % Craft N Artisans % Leather Weavers 143 199 71.9 tanners/Saddlers 40 59 67.8 Shoemakers 47 111 42.3 Weavers 18 32 56.3 Hat makers 14 41 34.2 Shoemakers 127 274 46.4 Bakers 14 46 30.4 Barbers 13 34 38.2 Leather tanners/Saddlers 13 45 28.9 Tailors 52 137 38.0 Carpenters/Coach Barbers 4 15 26.7 makers 46 130 35.4 Tailors 20 100 20.0 Bakers 9 48 18.8 Silversmiths 6 39 15.4 Hat makers 5 38 13.2 Carpenters/Coach makers 8 551 4.6 Blacksmiths 3 36 8 .3 Blacksmiths 0 26 0.0 Silversmiths 0 27 0 . 0
Since the 1842 is a partial cens us, it i s not known if the shift is the result of
a movement from other parts of the city to the west and south, or caused by
changes in the economic environment. Certainly, the decline in the weavers,
244 Longinos Banda, Estadísticas de Jalisco: formada con los mejores datos oficiales y noticias ministradas por sujetos idóneos en los años 1854‐1863 (1865; reprint, Mexico: Gobierno del Estado de Jalisco, 1982), 136‐37.
141
hatters and silversmiths does not bode well for the city, although the increase in barbers, tailors and carpenters—all substa n tial crafts tied to economic well bein g if not precisely economic growt h—was sub stantial and appear to represent a counter trend.245
Table 5.7 Residential Proximity Living Outside Ten Households, 1821 and 1842
1821 1842 Total Total Craft N Artisans % Craft N Artisans % Blacksmiths 22 26 84.6 Blacksmiths 29 36 80.6 Silversmiths 30 39 76.9 Bakers 31 48 64.6 Barbers 11 15 73.3 Barbers 19 34 55.9 Leather tanners/Saddlers 32 45 71.1 Silversmiths 15 27 55.6 Carpenters/Coach Bakers 31 46 67.4 makers 66 130 50.8 Carpenters/Coach makers 36 55 65.5 Hat makers 18 38 47.4 Tailors 62 100 62.0 Tailors 64 137 46.7 Shoemakers 53 111 47.8 Shoemakers 127 274 46.4 Leather Weavers 29 199 14.6 tanners/Saddlers 16 59 27.1
Finally, if we discount the weavers and hatters (both victims of the liberal
trade policy), every craft but the bakers saw an increase in living closer together,
and every craft but the blacksmiths underwent a substantial decline in the portion of their craft living outside ten households. Although a portion of the
245 While traditional historiography generally held that the post Independence economy went into decline, recent work by Margaret Chowning on Michoacán suggests otherwise, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico: Michoacan from the Late Colony to the Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). Also, Thomson noted that for Puebla, “This traditional artisan structure then could serve as a basis for growth over the period of economic recovery during the late 1830s and 1840s.” Thomson, Puebla de los Angeles, 178.
142
change can be accounted for by the simple increase in the number of craft households, but the portion of the increase is far greater than the twenty percent increase in numbers. Carpenters, for example, were three times more likely to live within five households as in 1821 while tailors were almost twice as likely and tanners over twice as likely to live within five households of another practitioner of the craft. Only weavers, hatters and bakers fell, and sheer drop off in numbers account for the first two.
Guadalajara in the twentieth century developed a reputation for neighborhood specialization in particular crafts.246 It may well be that, as the guild system declined, a barrio‐based craft community, founded on social and kinship networks and developed both out of craft solidarity and the very real professional needs of each craft, grew up to take its place. This interpretation is, of course, mere speculation at this time, and additional research in other sources is needed before it can be called even a thesis.
Urban Space and the Artisans
If artisans appear to be living nearer each other, what about how they utilized urban space? Were they being driven out of the center of the city to its margins, as several studies have found for Mexico City? González Angulo
Aguirre noted that in the census of 1811 that artisan shops represented only 28
246 See Patricia Arias, ed., Guadalajara, la gran ciudad de la pequeña empresa (Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1985). This book contains articles related to the establishment of small workshops and the development of putting out system throughout the city during the process of industrialization in Mexico since 1910. The implicit idea is that these forms of production were easily welcomed among popular classes because of the pre‐existence of a traditional organization that shared similar productive principles.
143
percent of the total, down from 64 percent in the census of 1753. Merchant shops had increased from 8.8 percent to 33 percent during the same period.247 In other
words, production had been superseded by commerce in the allocation of
valuable urban space.
The question is not easily resolved, however. First, our data rarely tells us
if the artisan’s residence is also his shop, although we may be fairly confident
that this is the case in 1821. In 1842, it is not as clear. Still, in both cases we can
be sure that the census has listed the residence of the artisan, and that will at least
show shifts in living patterns. The data for 1842 includes the west and southern districts of the city, but not the eastern barrios, so I must confine my analysis to the data for which there is comparable 1821 information.
In Guadalajara, it appears that no such drastic reallocation of urban space as that of Mexico City took place between 1821 and 1842, at least not in the barrios being compared.248 The total population of these barrios increased from
16,217 in 1821 to 19,317 in 1842. The guild occupations plus painters and rebozo
(shawl) weavers were added for both years, making a total of thirteen
occupations in all, plus merchants. The total guild artisans declined from 1,910 in
1821 to 1,399 in 1842, or from 11.8 percent of the total population to 7.2 percent in
1842. The decline is more apparent than real, however. The crafts of 1842 were
more diverse than in 1821. Had I counted all artisan occupations in both years,
for example, I would speculate that there would have been no decline at all. For
example, 40 persons in 1842 were simply labeled as “artisans,” so were not
247 González Angulo Aguirre, Artesanado y Ciudad, 122.
248 The cuarteles of 10, 11, 12, and 24 in 1821 was cuartel 7 in 1842. The cuarteles of 13, 14, 15 in 1821 was cuartel 6 in 1842. The cuarteles of 16, 17, and 18 in 1821 was cuartel 5 in 1842. Note that since cuartel 16 is missing for 1821, I used the 1822 totals cuartel 16.
144
included. Moreover, more specialized crafts appeared in 1842, such as armeros
(gunsmiths), cobreros (coppersmiths), talabarteros (saddlers) and the like.
In addition, the merchants as a portion of the total population actually declined, from 3.3 percent (1821) to 2.7 percent in 1842. The ratio of artisan to merchant declined, it is true, from 3.3 artisans per merchant to 2.7 in 1842.
But again, had all crafts been counted, the ratio would likely have changed little.
Interestingly, the overall social status of those persons labeled “merchants” declined. In 1821, 76.6 percent of all merchants earned the don or doña. In 1842, less than half (44.1 percent) were so addressed. So, what may be called the
“proletarianization” of the merchant class took place in the several decades since
1821.
It is true that the statistics prove nothing, except that in comparison to
Mexico City, a different process was taking place. What it was and how to prove it is not within the objective of this study. But the data does raise some interesting questions. Another related and more complex question is the relationship between journeymen artisans and the master artisans. Does residence have anything to say about that issue?
Where Did the Masters Live?
Probably most indicative of a strong craft community would be the residential patterns of the Master artisans. Would they tend to live in the same neighborhoods as their journeymen? In the traditional European pattern, journeymen often lived with the Master while they learned the trade and before they obtained a shop of their own. If that pattern ever held true for Guadalajara, and no evidence suggests it did, it certainly did not describe the artisans of the
145
era under study. Most were married and lived on their own, not with a master.
The residential patterns described so far are those of all guild artisans. To
separate the masters from the journeymen, however, is no a simple task. The census data rarely differentiated a master from a journeyman. In order to identify the masters of the era, a list has been compiled of all masters whose names have appeared in public documents in which they are identified as a master of the craft. These documents include probated wills (masters were usually asked to provide an estimate of the value of any goods in their craft), letters and petitions to the city government and, particularly, the lists of elected officials of each guild that the city ordinances required be sent to the city offices once a year. The names of the candidates (usually three names for each of the three offices—alcalde, mayordomo and veedor) along with their vote totals are available for nearly every year from the 1790s. Only the silversmiths are missing from the years after 1800 and reappeared in 1820.249
Those documents rarely contained addresses, and so therefore efforts have been made to link the list of masters with the censuses of 1821 and 1822, which did contain many addresses and all cuarteles. The list contains over a thousand names. Many were duplicates, since a master would appear on more than one document, and many ran for guild office more than once. In order to simplify matters, only names from 1800 through 1820 were considered. This narrowed the list to 479 names. Further, a “search and sort” procedure then eliminated 190
249 This was caused by the fact that in 1804, new ordinances were issued to regulate silversmiths. The central changes consisted on naming the ensayador (assayer) as the perpetual inspector of the guild; also the annual election for officers had to be observed in assayer’s office which it was his home as well. I think this caused silversmiths’ election to be registered in a different book. The rest of the guilds had their elections in the council office, sharing the same book designated to the use of all the guilds. AHMG, Actas de Cabildo, 1804, página 19, legajo 41, fojas 8‐18.
146
duplicate names, leaving a list of 289 known master artisans who practiced their
trade between 1800 and 1821. They were then compared to the artisans listed in
the census of 1821‐22. Of the 289, 171 were found as still residing in the city in
1821 or 1822, or 59.2 percent of the total. Of course, a number would have died; others moved away or retired from the business and no longer identified with the trade.
Several interesting facts emerged from this search for master craftsmen.
First, the major source of names were the list of candidates for the three offices which were voted on each year—alcalde, veedor and mayordomo. By guild regulations, three candidates (there were always three, no more and no less) were voted on each year. Each candidates vote total was marked on nearly all the forms, so that at least the number of voting masters could be determined. No doubt, the total number of masters in the trade was larger than that, but that figure gives a conservative estimate of the ratio of journeymen to masters. That
ratio was given in chapter three.
A second use of this list is to deconstruct the masters who ran for election.
First, all elected officers (alcalde, veedor, mayordomo) were required to pay their
título or fee to the city office once elected. The fee amounted to 2.2 pesos for each office. We know that because in 1817, after the guilds were formally abolished, the city government, nonetheless, sent a list to the guilds officers of those that had not yet paid their título. And it appears that nearly all officers owed the 2.2
pesos. Evidently, they assumed that since the guilds were officially abolished
that they no longer owed the city government their fee. And of course, the city
government wanted to maintain this source of revenue.250
250 See the list in AMHG, GS 23/1817, paquete 32, legajo 42.
147
Table 5.8 Guilds by Running Master Ratio 1800‐1820251 Known Unable Duplicates Guild Found Masters Ratio Find N N N N
Weavers 19 31 8 50 6.3 Shoemakers 21 49 17 70 4.1 Carpenters/ Coach makers 19 30 17 49 2.9 Hat makers 19 23 15 42 2.8 Blacksmiths 14 21 15 35 2.3 Bakers 11 50 30 61 2.0 Tailors 16 41 39 57 1.5 Barbers 15 19 22 34 1.5 Wax makers 3 19 19 22 1.2
The point that I would like to make, however, is that in years past, when
the masters knew that the fee was to be paid, many still ran for guild office, and a good many ran more than once. A ratio of the number of duplicated names among the candidates provide an interesting sense of the dynamics of guild
elections and therefore, some sense of the willingness to participate in guild affairs. The ratio is that of the number of duplicate names on the voting list by the total known masters, for each guild. The interpretation is that the higher the ratio, the less willing were individuals to run for office and serve, and, of course, pay their título. The lower the ratio, the more often the same individual ran for guild office relative to the number of known masters. To a certain extent, the high ratio for the weavers and shoemakers is a likely function of their greater
numbers. The leather tanners had no such excuse. But the majority of the guilds were under three, with apparently a strong circle of activists. Masters had a good reason to be active, of course, for it was in their self‐interest to present a strong
251 AHMG, Actas de Cabildo, 1791‐1829.
148
front, and to maintain an active guild. Other evidence supports the same conclusion, of course. The voting masters were just one more evidence of an
active artisan community (Table 5.8).
Finally, to what extent did the masters live in the same barrio, and
participate in an artisan community culture? Again, very little evidence has
survived that would give us a view of the culture. Therefore, we need to strongly interpret what evidence we do have. Common residence does not always mean common bonds of sociability or even common interests. Indeed, the presence of
the poor living among the rich in Latin American early Republican cities to a certain extent reflected the social inequality of pre‐industrial cities. For example,
there was a clear pattern of vertical discrimination. The wealthy tended to live in
the healthier (and safer) second floors, while the poor lived below on the ground floor, sometimes literally sleeping on the floor, perhaps protecting the masters business. Further, poor tradesmen living in the vicinity of better off patrons is for the convenience of the latter, and for the livelihood of the former, and not per se a
factor of common culture. 252
Nonetheless, the relationship between a craft’s journeymen and masters is
not precisely the same as that of the craftsmen and their customers. While one
cannot deduce a common culture from residential proximity, the movement of
masters from the neighborhoods where once they had lived in close proximity
with their journeymen is a common characteristic of a craft undergoing
proletarianization. To what extent, then, did Guadalajara’s master craftsmen live
in the same barrios as their journeymen?
In order to obtain a view of where the journeymen lived compared to the
masters, I have first obtained a table in which all 171 masters identified from our
252 Anderson, “Race and Social Stratification,” 228.
149
masters list as living in the city in 1821 and/or 1822 are located in one of the city’s twenty‐four cuarteles. To that list are added all craftsmen who were given the
don by the census takers but who were not identified as masters. Many would
have been masters, but others were well‐off journeymen. The purpose is to identify the residence of masters (and well‐off journeymen) relative to the living quarters of the journeymen. In order to provide a standard of measurement, I have developed a ratio of journeymen to masters and don craftsmen for each district in the city. The results were as follows.
First, of all, clearly our known and assumed masters in 1821 were not confined to one particular area of the city. They lived in every part of the city, and in every barrio. Having said that, one sees that there was a certain tendency for the masters (and better off journeymen) to concentrate in the traditional downtown posh residential areas of cuarteles one and two, and probably
(although I am not able to measure it) along the Aduana Avenue that divided the city east and west. The ratio for cuarteles one and two show fewer journeymen than masters/dons, primarily (one assumes) because the rents would have been relatively higher there than elsewhere (0.39 and 0.68 respectively).
There were also far fewer masters in the traditional “Indian” barrios east and south of the city (Analco and Mexicalzingo), and in the newer areas of the city in the far northwest, than elsewhere in the city. Having said that, the ratio of journeymen to masters/dons is under ten to one in a majority of the cuarteles
(fourteen of twenty‐four), and under five to one in eleven of the twenty‐four.
Indeed, if the notoriously poorer crafts of weavers and shoemakers are extracted from the figures, only the impoverished small cuartel 22 on the northern fringes of the city, and equally poor cuartel eleven on the southern flank, are over the ratio of ten to one. Fourteen of the twenty‐four are actually under a four to one ratio, which is usually considered the traditional ratio of journeymen to masters
150
that define a healthy, pre‐industrial craft economy.253 In fact, the city‐wide ratio is just 2.9 journeymen for every master, if weavers and shoemakers are exempt from the calculation (Map 5.2). The ratio is only 6.3 when they are included.
Map 5.2 Ratio Journeymen to Master by Cuartel, 1821254
253 Michael B. Katz, Michael J. Doucet, and Mark J. Stern, The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 46. Torcuato S. Di Tella found a four to one or better ratio of journeymen to masters for “most trades” in Orizaba, Veracruz; “The Dangerous Classes in Early Nineteenth‐Century Mexico,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 5 (1973), 98.
151
None of these figures prove that masters and journeymen were living in peace and harmony, of course. And because the cuarteles are administrative districts, actual neighborhoods are not identified. Moreover, it would take far more time than is available to examine how close to each other the two groups
lived. Nor does proximity indicate social closeness, or even whether the public life of the crafts was more important than their private, family life. That which does seems clear from the data, however, is that masters and journeymen were not separated by significant urban space. The patterns that emerge from the data seem to confirm the influence of traditional factors in residential patterns—the very wealthy concentrate in the downtown areas and the very poor and the migrants find cheap lodgings on the city’s fringes and in the traditional “Indian” pueblos of Analco and Mexicalzingo. However, at least in 1821, the average guild artisan and the average guild master resided in the same urban space. Whether proximity of residence implied closeness of interest, sociability or common culture is an additional question, one that the numbers do not and cannot answer. That question must await further investigation.
254 The numbers inside the parenthesis are the ratio of journeymen to one master and the numbers outside are the cuartel number. For this ratio, the weavers and shoemakers were removed.
152
CONCLUSION
During the period of transition in Guadalajara in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the artisan system of production remained the dominant means of production. Even though authorities “abolished” the guild system since they regarded it as an impediment to economic development, artisans
continued to practice traditional forms of production. It is certainly true that the
guilds’ economic position was weakened by the economic reforms of the
Bourbon’s administration; however, not all crafts shared the same fate. Some trades suffered or were about to suffer from import competition (e.g. hand weaving), but others prospered or held their own depending on the craft, the
region, or the integration with the needs of the expanding commercial and
industrial process. Although often dependent on the capital controlled by
merchants, the small producers were surprisingly resilient, and survived in
Mexico (as in many other countries) until well into the twentieth century.
The majority of crafts maintained a constant number of voting masters
through the period 1790 to 1820, indicating stability in the craft. Also, many masters ran for guild office more than once, suggesting a core of guild activists competing for a position inside the guild. By analyzing age structure among the crafts, I found in Guadalajara for almost all crafts a relatively small “youth” age
cohort (ages nine to eighteen) and a far larger “older” age group. The importance of this finding is that a significant characteristic of the proletarianization of the artisans was accompanied by an enlarged group of younger workers. In other words, the guild system appeared to be working as it had traditionally, with relatively few young and therefore cheap apprentice‐age workers competing with the journeymen for positions in the masters’ shops.
153
It is true that often (at least in the European experience) that a high rate of marriage among the journeymen is considered as a sign of the guild’s decline, and Guadalajara’s journeymen were by and large married. However, the high portion of artisan marriage can be seen not as a negative result of the decline in the guild system but as a “strategy”, or better yet, a traditional pattern in which the family (and family networks) serve as a crucial element in the artisanal system—expanding the artisan’s social networks, the potential for customers, perhaps even the opportunity to own one’s own shop if one married into a master’s family, and certainly providing the potential for wives (and children) to work in the production process. In this issue, my interpretations coincide with the work of Jorge González Angulo on Mexico City and Juanjo Romero‐Marin on
Barcelona, and differ from the revisionist work of Josef Ehmer on Austrian artisans.
From the household analysis, I suggested that statistical evidence indicates that the city’s artisan culture was based on a strong, independent family structure. In other words, Guadalajara’s artisan community, and perhaps that of
Mexico, or elsewhere in colonial Latin America, for as far back as we have good evidence, was based solidly on the family, the household and the social networks that these two different institutions implied.
Also, the residential patterns that emerge from the data seem to confirm the influence of traditional factors in residential patterns—the very wealthy concentrate in the downtown areas and the very poor and the migrants find cheap lodgings on the city’s fringes and in the traditional “Indian” pueblos of Analco and Mexicalzingo. However, at least in 1821 and even more so in 1842, most guild artisans and masters lived in the same neighborhoods, often in clusters of other artisans. Statistical proximity does not necessarily mean that both groups considered themselves part of the same community. That question must await
154
further investigation. However, residential proximity does mean that the movement of masters from the artisan neighborhoods that seem so prevalent in
European history with the advent of the industrial system did not take place in
Guadalajara, at least in the era under investigation.
Therefore, in conclusion, while some scholars have argued that the artisan mode of production was declining because of competition from commercial capitalism, I believe that decline to have been exaggerated. Rodney D. Anderson argued that “the subjugation of the craft economy” to merchants can be seen in the increase in journeymen artisans relative to the number of masters. As suggested, my work does not find a substantial increase in journeymen relative to masters. My thesis is that, though commercial capitalism brought changes to the established forms of production, the artisan system adapted to those changes, in part because of a strong artisan community, as outlined above. Artisans persisted in traditional behaviors creating a sense of community among them which, I believe, represented the roots of modern Guadalajara’s system of small producers. The guild system may have lost its formal monopoly during and after
Independence; nonetheless, it maintained and even strengthened certain traditional social and cultural customs and behaviors—marriage patterns, family organization, residence patterns, etc.—that enabled artisans to better cope with the economic changes accompanying commercial capitalism.
155
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aguirre, Susana and Marta Petit. “La contratación de aprendices en la actividad artesanal en la ciudad de Buenos Aires durante el Virreinato. Su análisis a través de los Registros Notariales.” Temas de Historia Argentina 1 (1994): 7‐ 15.
Anderson, Rodney D. Guadalajara a la consumación de la Independencia: estudio de su población según los censos de 1821‐1822. Mexico, Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1983.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working‐Class Spaniards, Indians, and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico In 1821.” Hispanic American Historical Review 68 (1988): 209‐243.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Guadalajara’s Artisans and Shopkeepers, 1842‐1907: The Origins of a Mexican Petite Bourgeoisie.” In Five Centuries of Mexican History. Cinco siglos de historia de Mexico, edited by Virginia Guedea and Jaime E. Rodríguez. Mexico: Instituto José María Luis Mora, 1992.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Guadalajara in 1821: Origins of the Cuartel System.” In Guadalajara Censuses Project, edited by Rodney Anderson.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Guadalajara in 1821: A “Tour” of the City.” In Guadalajara Censuses Project, edited by Rodney Anderson.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “A History of the Censuses of 1821 and 1822.” In Guadalajara Censuses Project, edited by Rodney Anderson.
Abascal y Sousa, José Fernando. “Provincia de Guadalajara. Estado que muestra los frutos y efectos de agricultura, industria y Comercio, 1803.” In Descripciones económicas regionales de Nueva España. Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública/ Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1976.
Amaro Peñaflores, René. Los gremios acostumbrados. Los artesanos de Zacatecas 1780‐1870. Mexico: Unidad Pedagógica Nacional/Unidad Zacatecas, 2002.
156
Arias, Patricia, ed. Guadalajara, la gran ciudad de la pequeña empresa. Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1985.
Arrom, Silvia. The Women of Mexico City, 1790‐1857. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985.
Banda, Longinos. Estadísticas de Jalisco: formado con los mejores datos oficiales y noticias ministradas por sujetos idóneos en los años 1854‐1863. 1865. Reprint, Mexico: Gobierno del Estado de Jalisco, 1982.
Barickman, J. “Revisiting the Casa‐grande: Plantation and Cane‐Farming Household in Early Nineteenth‐Century Bahia.” Hispanic American Historical Review 84 (2004): 619‐ 659.
Berlín, Heinrich. “Artistas y artesanos coloniales de Guatemala. Notas para un catálogo.” Cuadernos de Antropología 5 (1965): 5‐37.
Bernstein, Harry. “The artisan workers of Brazil (1640‐1940).” Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brazileiro 337 (1982): 61‐66.
Blackbourn, David. “Between Resignation and Volatility: the German Petite Bourgeoisie in the Nineteenth Century.” In Shopkeepers and Master Artisans in Nineteenth‐Century Europe, edited by Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz Haupt. London: Metheun, 1984.
Brading, David A. Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763‐1810. Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 1971.
Bronner, Fred. “Urban Society in Colonial Spanish America: Research Trends.” Latin American Research Review 21 (1986): 7‐72.
Brun Martínez, Gabriel. “La organización del trabajo y la estructura de da unidad doméstica de los zapateros y cigarreros de la ciudad de México En 1811.” In Organización de la producción y relaciones de trabajos en el siglo XIX en México. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1979.
Castilleja, Aída. “Asignación del espacio urbano: el gremio de los panaderos, 1770‐1793.” Colección Científica 61 (1978): 37‐46.
157
Carrera Stampa, Manuel. Los gremios mexicanos. La organización gremial en la Nueva España. México: EDIAPSA, 1954.
Castañeda, Carmen. “Guadalajara hace 200 años: el Reglamento de Cuarteles de 1790 y el Padrón de 1791.” In Vivir en Guadalajara. La ciudad y sus funciones, edited by Carmen Castañeda. Mexico: Ayuntamiento de Guadalajara, 1992.
Castro Gutiérrez, Felipe. La extinción de la artesanía gremial. México: Universidad Autónoma de México, 1986.
Cornejo Franco, José. Guadalajara. Mexico: n.p., 1946.
Cortes de Cádiz. Diario de las discusiones y actas de las Cortes, 1810‐1813. España, Cádiz: Imprenta Real, 1810‐1834, vol. 1.
Chance, John K. Race and Class in Colonial Oaxaca. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978.
Chowning, Margaret. Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico: Michoacan from the Late Colony to the Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Cook, Sherburne F. and Woodrow Borah. Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean, vol. 1. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971.
Crossick, Geoffrey, ed. The artisan and the European town, 1500‐1900. England: Scholar Press, 1997.
Crossick, Geoffrey and Heinz‐Gerhard Haupt, eds. Shopkeepers and master artisans in nineteenth‐century Europe. London ; New York : Methuen, 1984.
Crossick, Geoffrey and Heinz‐Gerhard Haupt. “Shopkeepers, Master Artisans and the Historian: the Petite Bourgeoisie in Comparative Focus.” In Shopkeepers and Master Artisans in Nineteenth‐Century Europe, edited by Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz‐Gerhard Haupt. London: Metheun, 1984.
Curcio‐Nagy, Linda. The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City. Performing Power and Identity. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004.
158
Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. New York: Basic Book: 1984.
Darwiche Rabello, Elizabeth. “Os ofícios mecânicos e artesanais em São Paulo na segunda metade do século XVIII.” Revista de Historia 56, 122 (1977): 575‐ 588.
Di Tella, Torcuato S. “The Dangerous Classes in Early Nineteenth‐Century Mexico.” Journal of Latin American Studies, 5 (1973): 79‐105.
Domínguez Compaña, Francisco. “Regulación municipal del trabajo libre de los oficios mecánicos en Hispanoamérica colonial.” Revista de Historia de América 193 (1987): 75‐106.
Duque, María Fernanda. “Legislación gremial y prácticas sociales: los artesanos de Pasto (1976‐1850).” Historia Crítica 25 (2003): 115‐136.
Edgren, Lars. “Crafts in Transformation?: Masters, Journeyman, and Apprentices in a Swedish Town, 1800‐1850.” Continuity and Change 1 (1986): 363‐383.
Ehmer, Josef. “The Artisan Family in Nineteenth‐century Austria: embourgeiosement of the petite bourgeoisie?.” In Shopkeepers and Master artisans in Nineteenth‐century Europe, edited by Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz‐Gerhard Haupt. New York: Methuen, 1984.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Family and Business among Master Artisans and Entrepreneurs: The Case of 19th‐century Vienna.” History of the Family 6 (2001): 187‐202.
Ericson, Tom. Kinship and Sociability: Urban Shopkeepers in Nineteenth‐ Century Sweden.” Journal of Family History 14, 3 (1989): 229‐239.
Florescano, Enrique. “La formación de los trabajadores en la época colonial, 1521‐ 1750.” In La clase obrera en la historia de México. México: Siglo XII/Universidad Autónoma de México, 1980.
Florescano, Enrique, and Isabel Gil, comps. Descripciones económicas generales de Nueva España, 1784‐1817. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1973.
159
Franch Benavent, Ricardo. “Artesanado sedero y capital comercial en la Valencia del siglo XVIII.” Hispania LVII, 1, no. 195 (1997): 93‐114.
Frey, Jr., Dennis A. “Industrious Households: Survival Strategies of Artisans in a Southwest German Town during the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” International Review of Social History 45 (2000): 115‐135.
Gálvez Ruiz, María Ángeles. La conciencia regional en Guadalajara y el gobierno de los intendentes (1786‐1800). Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1996.
Gies, Gerald A. “Artisan Culture in Guadalajara, Mexico, 1780‐1830: Guildsʹ Response to the Economic Challenges of Commercial Capitalism. Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 1995.
González Angulo Aguirre, Jorge. Artesanado y ciudad a finales del siglo XVIII. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica/Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1983.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Los gremios de artesanos y el régimen de castas.” In Organización de la producción y relaciones de trabajos en el siglo XIX en México. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1979.
Grayson, Ruth and Alan White. “More Myth than Reality: the Independent Artisan in Nineteenth Century Sheffield.” Journal of Historical Sociology 9 (1996): 335‐353.
Grigor Suny, Ronald. “Back and Beyond: Reversing the Cultural Turn?” American Historical Review 107 (2002): 1476‐1499.
Greenow, Linda. Credit and Socioeconomic Change in Colonial Mexico. Loans and Mortgages in Guadalajara, 1720‐1820. Boulder: Westview Press. 1983.
Gutiérrez, Ramón. “Notas sobre la organización artesanal en el Cuzco durante la colonia.” Histórica 3 (1979): 1‐15.
Hajnal, John. “Age at Marriage and Proportions Marrying.” Population Studies 7 (1953): 111‐136.
160
Hareven, Tamara. “The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change, American Historical Review 96 (1991): 95‐125.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. The Family Time and Industrial Time. The Relationship Between the Family and Work in a New England Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Hirsch, Susan E. Roots of the American Working Class. The industrialization of Crafts in Newark, 1800‐1860. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1978.
Hobsbawm, Eric. Age of Revolution 1789‐1848. London: Phoenix, 1962.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Artisan or Labour Aristocrat?,” The Economic History Review 37 (1984): 355‐372.
Humboldt, Alejandro de. “Tablas geográficas políticas del reino de Nueva España, que manifiestan la superficie, población, agricultura, fábricas, comercio, minas, rentas y fuerza militar (enero de 1804).” In Descripciones económicas generales de Nueva España, 1784‐1816,” compilated by Enrique Florescano. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1973.
Ibarra, Antonio. La organización regional del mercado interno novohispano. La economía colonial de Guadalajara, 1770‐1804. Mexico: Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2000.
Ibarra, Antonio, and Bernd Hausberger, eds. Comercio y poder en América colonial: los consulados de comerciantes, siglos XVII‐XIX. Mexico: Instituto Mora, 2003.
Íllades, Carlos. Hacia la república del trabajo. La organización artesanal en la ciudad de México, 1853‐1876. México: El Colegio de México/Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa, 1996.
Janssens, Angelique. “Industrialization without Family Change? The Extended Family and the Life Cycle in a Dutch Industrial Town, 1880‐1920. Journal of Family History 11 (1986): 25‐42.
Jelin, Elizabeth. “Family and Household: Outside World and Private Life.” In Family, Household and Gender Relations in Latin America, edited by Elizabeth Jelin. United Kingdom: Kegan Paul Int., 1991.
161
Jiménez‐Pelayo, Agueda. “El impacto del crédito en la economía rural del norte de la Nueva Galicia.” Hispanic American Historical Review 71 (1991): 501‐ 529.
Johnson, Christopher H. Artisans Vs. Fabricants Urban Protoindustrialization and the Evolution of Work Culture in Lodeve and Bedariuex, 1740‐1830. Florence: European University Institute, 1985.
Johnson, Lyman L. “The Role of Apprenticeship in Colonial Buenos Aires.” Revista de Historia de America 103 (1987): 7‐30.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Artisans.” in Cities and Society in Colonial Latin America. Eds. Louisa Schell Hoberman and Susan M. Socolow. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986: 227‐250.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “The Racial Limits of Guild Solidarity: an Example from Colonial Buenos Aires.” Revista de Historia de America 99 (1985): 7‐26.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “The Impact of Racial Discrimination on Black Artisan in Colonial Buenos Aires.” Social History 6 (1981): 301‐316.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “The Entrepreneurial Reorganization of an Artisan Trade: The Bakers of Buenos Aires, 1700‐1820.” The Americas 37 (1980): 139‐160.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “The Silversmiths of Buenos Aires: A Case Study in the Failure of Corporate Social Organization.” Journal of Latin American Studies 8 (1976): 181‐213.
Katz, Michael B., Michael J. Doucet, and Mark J. Stern. The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Kicza, John. Colonial Entrepreneurs, Families and Business in Bourbon Mexico City. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1983.
King, Miriam and Samuel H. Preston. “Who Lives With Whom? Individual Versus Household Measures.” Journal of Family History 15 (1990): 117‐132.
Kinsbrunner, Jay. The Spanish‐American Colonial City. Urban Life in the Age of Atlantic Capitalism. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.
162
Konetzke, Richard. “Las ordenanzas de gremios como documentos para la historia social de Hispanoamérica durante la época colonial.” In Estudios de historia social de España I, 481‐524. Madrid: Instituto Balmes de Sociología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1949.
Kuznesof, Elizabeth. “Household, Family and Community Studies, 1976‐1986: a Bibliographical Essay,” Latin American Population History Bulletin 14 (1988).
Lavrin, Asunción. “The Execution of the Law of Consolidation in Nueva España: Economic Aims and Results.” Hispanic American Historical Review 53, no.1 (Feb. 1973): 27‐49.
Lindley, Richard B. Haciendas and Development. Guadalajara, Mexico, at Independence. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983.
Martínez‐Alier, Verena. Marriage, Class and Color in Nineteenth‐Century Cuba: a Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989.
Massard‐Guilbaud, Geneviève. “The Genesis of an Urban Identity. The Quartier de la Gare in Clermont‐Ferrand, 1850‐1914.” Journal of Urban History 25 (1999): 779‐808.
Matsumara, Takao. The Labour Aristocracy Revisited. The VictorianFlint Glass Makers 1850‐80. Oxford: Machester University Press, 1983.
McCaa, Robert. “Calidad, Clase, and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral, 1788‐90.” Hispanic American Historical Review 64 (1984): 477‐501.
McCaa, Robert and Stuart B. Schwartz. “Measuring Marriage Patterns: Percentages, Cohen’s Kappa, and Log‐Linear Models.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 25 (1983): 711‐724.
Medick, Hans. “The Proto‐Industrial Family economy: The Structural Function of Household and Family during The Transition from Peasant Society to Industrial Capitalism.” Social History 3 (1976): 291‐315.
163
Menéndez Valdés, José. Descripción y Censo General de la Intendencia de Guadalajara1789‐1793. Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1980.
Molas Ribalta, Pedro. Los gremios barceloneses del siglo XVIII. La estructura corporativa ante el comienza de la Revolución Industrial. Madrid: Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros, 1970.
Muriá, José María. Sumario histórico de Jalisco. México: Editorial Gráfica Nueva, 1996.
Navarro, Luis René . “La abolición de la esclavitud.” In Lecturas Históricas e Jalisco, edited by José María Muriá, Jaime Olveda and Alma Dorantes. Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1981.
Olmedo, José. Los zapateros de Guadalajara Nueva Galicia, 1751‐1824. México: Universidad de Guadalajara/ Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1997.
Ouweneel, Arij. Shadows over Anáhuac: An Ecological Interpretation of Crisis and Develpment in Central Mexico, 1730‐1800. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Pérez Toledo, Sonia. “Una organización alternativa de artesanos: la Sociedad Mexicana Protectora de Artes y Oficios, 1834‐1844.” Signos Históricos 9, (2003): 73‐100.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Artesanos y gremios de la Ciudad de México, 1780‐1842.” Historia y Grafía 6 (1996): 55‐85.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. Los hijos del trabajo. Los artesanos de la ciudad de México, 1780‐1853. México: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa/El Colegio de México, 1996.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Artesanos y gremios de la ciudad de México: una desaparición formal y una continuidad real, 1780‐1842.” In Ciudad de México: Instituciones, actores sociales y conflicto político, 1774‐1931, edited by Carlos Íllades and Ariel Rodríguez Kuri. México: Colegio de Michoacán/Universidad Autonóma Metropolitana, 1996.
164
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “De cambios y continuidades: notas sobre la estructura del ayuntamiento de la ciudad de México después de la Independencia.” Iztapalapa 32 (1994): 151‐164.
Pérez Vila, Manuel. El artesanado. La formación de una clase media propiamente americana (1500‐1800).” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia 69, 274 (1986): 325‐344. (Venezuela)
Perusse, Madeleine. “La legislación laboral y las mujeres en el México colonial.” Fem 15, 97 (1991): 12‐14.
Pescador del Hoyo, María del Carmen. “Los gremios artesanos de Zamora.” Revista de archivos, bibiliotecas y museos 77, 2 (1974): 67‐99.
Platt, Lyman D. Census Records for Latin America and the Hispanic United States Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1998.
Rabell, Cecilia. “Trayectoria de vida familiar, raza y género en Oaxaca colonial.” In Familia y vida privada en la historia de Iberoamérica: seminario de historia de la familia, edited by Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru. Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico/UNAM, 1996.
Ramos Baquero, Angeles. “Ordenanzas, cofradía y gremio de plateros en Panamá durante el periodo colonial.” Revista lotería 413 (1997): 25‐48.
Raspi, Emma Teresita. “El mundo artesanal de dos ciudades del norte argentino. Salta y Jujuy, primera mitad del siglo XIX.” Anuario de Estudios Americanos LVIII, 1 (2001): 161‐183.
Reher, David Sven. Town and Country in Pre‐Industrial Spain. Cuenca, 1550‐1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Rivera, Luis M. ed. Documentos Tapatíos. Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1989.
Rivière D’Arc, Hélène. “Las fases del crecimiento y del desarrollo de Guadalajara y de su región durante la colonización.” In Lecturas históricas de Jalisco. Antes de la Independencia, edited by José María Muriá, Jaime Olveda, and Alma Dorantes. Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1981.
165
Romero‐Marin, Juanjo. “Familial strategies of artisans during the modernization process: Barcelona, 1814‐1860.” History of the Family 6 (2001): 203‐224.
Rock, Howard B. Artisans of the New Republic. The tradesmen of New York City in the age of Jefferson. New York: New York University Press, 1984.
Rosal, Miguel Angel. “Artesanos de color en Buenos Aires (1750‐1810).” Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana 17, 27 (1982): 331‐354.
Rudé, George F. E. The crowd in history: a study of popular disturbances in France England, 1730‐1848. New York: Wiley, 1964.
Rule, John. “Artisan Attitudes: a Comparative Survey of Skilled Labour and Proletarianization before 1848.” Bulletin‐Society for the Study of Labour History 50 (1985): 22‐31.
Sandoval Zaraus, Roberto. “Artesanos y capital comercial en Nueva España: El callejón sin salida del capitalismo embrionario.” Investigación Económica 162 (1982): 101‐128.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Los obrajes de Querétaro y sus trabajadores 1790‐1820.” In Organización de la producción y relaciones de trabajos en el siglo XIX en México. Mexico: Instituto Nacional De Antropología E Historia, 1979.
Samayoa Guevara, Héctor Humberto. Los gremios de artesanos en la Ciudad de Guatemala, 1524‐1821. Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, 1962.
Samudio A., Edda O. El trabajo y los trabajadores en Mérida colonial: Fuentes para su estudio. Caracas, Venezuela: Universidad Católica del Tachira, 1984.
Seed, Patricia. “Social Dimensions of Race: Mexico City, 1753.” Hispanic American Historical Review 64 (1982): 569‐606.
Serrera Contreras, Ramón María. “Estado económico de la Intendencia de Guadalajara a principios del siglo XIX.” In Lecturas Históricas de Jalisco. Antes de la Independencia, vol. II, edited by José María Muriá. Mexico: Unidad Editorial del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1982.
Sewell, William H. Jr., Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
166
Stedman Jones, Gareth. Languages of Class. Studies in English Working Class History 1832‐1982. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Steinberg, Marc W. “‘A way of struggle’: reformations and affirmations of E.P. Thompson’s class analysis in the light of postmodern theories of language.” The British Journal of Sociology 48 (September, 1997): 471‐492.
Strumingher, Laura S. “The Artisan Family: Traditions and Transition in Nineteenthh‐Century Lyon.” Journal of Family History 2 (1977): 211‐222.
Taylor, William B. Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Indians Pueblos of Central Jalisco on the Eve of Independence.” In Iberian Colonies, New World Societies: Essays in Memory of Charles Gibson, edited by Richard L. Garner and William Taylor. Private Printer, 1985.
Tanck, Dorothy. “La abolición de los gremios.” In El trabajo y los trabajadores en la historia de México, edited by Elsa Frost and Josefina Vázquez. México: Tucson: El Colegio de México/University of Arizona Press, 1979.
Thompson, E.P. “Eighteen‐century English society: class struggle without class?,” Social History 3:2 (1978): 133‐165.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Time, Work‐Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” Past and Present 38(1967): 56‐97.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. The Making of the English Working Class. 1963. Reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1966.
Thomson, Guy P. C. Puebla de los Angeles. Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700‐1850. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989.
Triana y Antorveza, Humberto. “Los artesanos en las ciudades neogranadinas.” Boletín cultural y bibliográfico 10, 2 (1967): 326‐336.
167
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. “Exámenes, licencias, fianzas y elecciones artesanales.” Boletín cultural y bibliográfico 9, 1 (1966): 65‐73.
Van Young, Eric. “Urban Market and Hinterland: Guadalajara and Its Region in the Eighteenth Century.” Hispanic American Historical Review 24, no.4 (1979): 593‐633.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth‐Century Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. The Other Rebellion. Popular Violence, Ideology, and Mexican Struggle for Independence, 1810‐1821. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic. New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788‐1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
168
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Claudia Patricia Rivas Jiménez was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. She received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of Guadalajara. While completing her M.A., she has been employed at the Guadalajara Census Project, funded in part through a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities. She plans to complete her Ph.D. in Latin American History at
Florida State University.
169