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THE DAVID ROCKEFELLER CENTER

FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

WORKING PAPER SERIES

Mexicos Revolutions and the Indians of the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca (1800-1910)

by Ethelia Ruiz Medrano

No. 10/11-2


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DAVIDROCKEFELLERCENTER FORLATINAMERICANSTUDIES

Working Papers on Latin America SeriesDRCLAS introduces its latest working paper:

Mexicos Revolutions and the Indians of the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca (1800-1910)by Ethelia Ruiz Medrano (Paper No. 10/11-2)

Previously Published Working Papers:Canada, the United States and Cuba between 1959 and 1962: The

Triangular Relation as seen in Cuban Diplomatic Historyby RalRodrguez Rodrguez (10/11-1)

La vivienda en Cuba desde la perspectiva de la movilidad

socialby Lilia Nez Moreno(07/08-4)

Poltica social en Cuba. Equidad y movilidadby Mayra PaulaEspina Prieto (07/08-3)

Equidad y movilidad social en el contexto de las

transformaciones agrarias de los aos noventa en CubabyLucy Martin Posada (07/08-2)

Public Research Universities in Latin America and Their

Relation to Economic Developmentby Juan CarlosMoreno-Brid and Pablo Ruiz Npoles (07/08-1)

La poltica espaola ante la Cuba del futuroby JorgeDomnguez and Susanne Gratius (06/07-2)

Mining-Led Growth in Bourbon Mexico, the Role of the State,

and the Economic Cost of Independenceby Rafael Dobado andGustavo A.. Marrero (06/07-1)

The Problem of Money in Electoral Politics: A Latin American

Perspective by Alejandro Poir (05/06-1)

Understanding Slums: The Case of Havana, Cubaby MarioCoyula and Jill Hamberg (04/05-4)

The Case of the Missing Letter in Foreign Affairs:Kissinger,Pinochet and Operation Condorby Kenneth Maxwell(04/05-3)

Giving Voice to a Nascent Community: Exploring Brazilian

Immigration to the U.S. through Research and Practice, ed. by

Clmence Jout-Pastr, Megwen Loveless, and Leticia Braga(04/05-2)

Beyond Armed Actors: Carving a Stronger Role for Civil

Society in Colombia Proceedings from a conference atDRCLAS (03/04-2)

Venezuela responde a sus retosby Ana Julia Jatar, AlesiaRodrguez, and Reinier Schliesser (03/04-1)

Seminar on Cuban Health System: Its Evolution, Accomplishments

and Challenges; US-Cuba Relations at the Turn of the 21st

Century: 3 Perspectives on Improving Bilateral Ties edited byLorena Barberia, Dan Nemser and Arachu Castro (02/03-4)

Iatrogenic Epidemic: How Health Care Professionals Contribute

to the High Proportion of Cesarean Sections in Mexicoby ArachuCastro, Angela Heimburger, and Ana Langer (02/03-3)

The Politics of Educational Inequality: The Struggle for

Educational Opportunity in Latin Americaby Fernando Reimers(02/03-2)

Institutions and Long-Run Economic Performance in Mexico and

Spain, 1800-2000by John H. Coatsworth and Gabriel TortellaCasares (02/03-1)

Environmental Susta inability of Argentine Agriculture: Patterns,

Gradients and Tendencies 1960-2000by Ernesto T. Viglizzo,Anbal J. Pordomingo, Mnica G. Castro, Fabin A. Lrtora, andOtto T. Solbrig (01/02-2)

Something to Hide? The Politics of Educational Evaluation in

Latin Americaby Fernando Reimers (01/02-1)

La politica de Estados Unidos hacia Cuba durante la segundapresidencia de Clintonby Jorge Domnguez (00/01-3)

Impact of Globalization on the Grasslands in the Southern Cone of

South Americaby Otto T. Solbrig and Ral R. Vera (00/01-2)

The cutoff date on this list is arbitrary, leaving space for

forthcoming papers. All older Working Papers are

available on the DRCLAS website. The papers address

trade, democracy, and violence, as well as many other

topics.


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The Author

Ethelia Ruiz Medrano is currently a researcher at the Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e

Historia in Mexico City. She holds a B.A. in the History of Mexico from the University ofGuanajuato and a Ph.D. in the History of America from the University of Seville. Dr. Ruiz

Medrano was a 2006 Guggenheim fellow in Iberian & Latin American History. Her research

interests are centered on the conditions, mechanisms and negotiations of the colonial system that

appeared and were consolidated during the viceroyalty of New Spain. She is the author of several

books, includingNegotiation Within Domination: New Spain's Indian Pueblos Confront the

Spanish State. As a Santander Visiting Scholar for the fall of 2010, she worked on her

projectMixtec Indian Negotiation with the Colonial and National States in Mexico 1500- 2010.


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DAVID ROCKEFELLER CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

Mission

The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard University

works to increase knowledge of the cultures, histories, environment, and contemporary affairs of

Latin America; foster cooperation and understanding among the people of the Americas; and

contribute to democracy, social progress, and sustainable development throughout the

hemisphere.

Working Papers on Latin America

Harvard affiliates are encouraged to submit papers to the Working Papers on Latin America

series. Copies of published working papers may be purchased at the David Rockefeller Center

for Latin American Studies. Working papers can be found free of charge online athttp://drclas.fas.harvard.edu.

For information about DRCLAS publications, contact:

June Carolyn Erlick, Publications DirectorDavid Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies1730 Cambridge St. Cambridge, MA 02138Tel.: 617-495-5428 e-mail: [email protected]


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2

Mexicos Revolutions and the Indians of the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca (1800-1910)1

Ethelia Ruiz Medrano

Mixtec Indian Communities from the Period of Independence to the Middle of theNineteenth Century.

At the end of the eighteenth century, New Spains indigenous communities found themselves

subject to new pressures and controls that complicated their already fraught relations with

colonial power and its representatives. The impetus given in these years by both Spaniards and

creoles to the development of commercial agriculture, together with a jump in the indigenous

population, created mounting threats against the integrity of land belonging to Indian pueblos.

i

Inaddition, the Bourbon reform program instituted in 1765 demanded a rationalization of the

finances of Indian pueblos, an obligation they were to meetas the new legislation envisioned

by renting out their excess or unoccupied lands.ii

The Bourbon reforms also created a new high-level administrative unit (1786), the

intendancy, under whose jurisdiction the indigenous communities were also placed. The

intendancyssubdelegados, or deputy officials, inserted themselves directly into the supervision

of the pueblos financial affairs. This development meant that Spanish colonial authority now

played a greater role in matters of indigenous governmentiii and, in turn, that the local political

strength of Indian authorities was to some extent diminished. iv

Not surprisingly, the changes occasioned by these reforms caused a growing unease within

the colonys Indian pueblos, a disquiet which by the end of the colonial period expressed itself in

1Thisstudyispartiallybasedonchapterthreeofmybook:MexicosIndigenousCommunities:TheirLandsand

Histories,1500to2010 (Boulder:UniversityPressofColorado,2010).See

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/upc/2010springsummer/


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a series of disturbances and revolts. In the opinion of Eric Van Young, the discontent which

flared into protest in some 150 pueblos at the end of the 18th century and during the first decade

of the 19th stemmed from three principal causes: land issues, the demands made for increased

tribute payments, and problems internal to Indian community governance.v As Van Young has

further emphasized, the majority of indigenous revolts were led by their own authorities,

generally the governors of pueblos, who more often than not launched the protest by confronting

a Spanish administrative official over questions of power and the recognition of (or challenge to)

their own authority.vi It was in this context that the first uprisings for independence occurred in

Mexico between 1810 and 1820.Only a small number of historians, such as Van Young, have drawn attention to the fact

thatcontrary to what is usually claimedmestizos were not the prime movers in the war of

independence, that in reality it was hundreds of thousands of Indians who assumed that burden, a

natural enough phenomenon considering that they formed the majority of the colonys

population.vii The deficiencies of the first Mexican national censuses notwithstanding, it is

important to note that throughout the 19th century the Indian population of Oaxaca, unlike that of

any other state, was calculated to number nearly 90 percent of its total population and that in

1910 the two Indian languages most widely spoken in the state were Zapotec and Mixtec.viii

Although they constituted a majority population, Indian pueblossuch as those of the

Mixteca Altathat were located in areas distant from the centers of Spanish power reacted like

bystanders to the conflict between the insurgent and royalist armies, and while hundreds of

Indians from the Mixteca Alta were recruited, either voluntarily or by force, into the fighting, the

generals in command of the regions armies, which were composed primarily of Indians, looked


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upon the latter with contempt, labeling them la indiada,a bedraggled mob.ix As Rodolfo

Pastor has argued, it is little wonder that the support offered by the Indian communities of the

Mixteca Alta to either the royalists or the insurgents was piecemeal and isolated, not because

they were upholders of the status quo but because the two camps alike used brutal tactics to exact

contributions from them. For example, they extorted money from them in various ways, forced

them to dig trenches and build huts and small fortifications, and bullied them into delivering

provisions for themselves as well as fodder for their animals. Indeed, Pastor cites several

examples of how the insurgents went about torching pueblos, such as San Miguel el Grande, in

the Mixteca Alta.

x

Similarly, for no good reason, the royalists lined up the governor andmagistrate of Yanhuitln and executed them by firing squad in 1812.xi Thus, if the Mixtec

formed themselves into politically autonomous rebel groups, out of which sprang indigenous

guerrilla groups that were perceived by non-Indian sectors to be little more than bandits or gangs

of irregulars, these groups were clearly entering into combat in pursuit of their own political ends.

The most celebrated case of such indigenous insurrectionism is that of Hilario Alonso, or

Hilarin, who fought at the side of the Triqui Indians of Copala, in the Mixteca Alta. As we shall

see, this phenomenon of autonomous rebellion would repeat itself during the time of the

revolution.

Despite the armed conflict of these years, a raft of liberal legislationenacted within the

context of a weakened Spanish monarchyfueled hopes on the part of many Indian pueblos in

Mexico that better, more prosperous days loomed on the horizon. The foundation for the

organization of the future Mexican national state was set in 1812, when the liberal-inspired

Constitution of Cdiz went into effect. This document divided the state, administratively, into


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provincial councils, or deputations, laid the basis for the organization of municipal power, and

established equality of rights among creoles, Spaniards, and Indians (abolishing, for example,

tribute payments, the encomienda, and personal service obligations). The creation of municipal

or town councils in communities having more than a thousand inhabitants was mandated on the

basis of this constitution, as was the requirementsimilar to the practice followed by the

colonial cabildothat its members be elected by those eligible to vote. This situation benefitted

indigenous communities, since their members were familiar with elections (in contrast to the

members of other social groups), and between 1820 and 1830 the participation by Indians in

elections was notable. During the colonial period, the rules that governed the election of posts onIndian cabildos had varied according to local custom. In the post-independence period, however,

this practice changed, so that only males above the age of 25 could participate in electing persons

to municipal offices, for which the vote, furthermore, now had to be indirect.xii

Within the indigenous communities, the notion of citizenship was identified with both the

payment of taxes and the right to vote for municipal officials, who as a function of their office

maintained control over local resources. The ceremonies governing the election ofayuntamiento

officials were in fact very similar to those which had been followed within the Indian cabildos,

sinceas Peter Guardino notesboth had their origin in traditions surrounding Spanish

municipal practice.xiii

Above the town councils in the administrative hierarchy sat the provincial councils. On this

level, the administration of justice lay outside the sphere of the ayuntamientos and in the hands

of the subdelegados. Although the position of the subdelegado had supposedly been annulled

with the creation of provincial councils in New Spain, these individuals nonetheless continued


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to function as judges in the first instance and to hold responsibility over matters of war. By and

large, Indian pueblos greeted the new structure of government with enthusiasm, since it afforded

them a freedom based on the juridical status of their members as citizens and enabled them, via

this novel channel, to maintain an active participation in political life. Their enthusiasm,

however, was not shared either by the colonial and national authorities or by the local white

oligarchies. The subdelegados were particularly unreceptive, sincefrom their vantage

pointthe Indians ayuntamientos undercut their own jurisdiction.xiv

Fernando VIIs failed attempt to reimpose absolute monarchy within Spains kingdoms

caused the Constitution of Cdiz to be suspended in 1814, but in 1820 it again became the law ofthe land in New Spain. These political shifts reverberated within the colonys indigenous

communities. All the same, many small and medium-size Mixtec pueblos in the region of the

Mixteca Alta managed to continue functioning as republics, which, for them, meant keeping the

power that flowed from their traditional political autonomy. For example, despite the

transformation of the political environment, the new municipal authorities of the major mestizo

population centers in the Mixteca Alta, such as Tlaxiaco, continued to preserve the old forms of

official communication with their once-dependent indigenous communities and to treat them in

the traditional manner. For their part, the Indian pueblos conformed to the same pattern,

accepting official correspondence from this formercabecera (or district capital) on the basis of

their dependent condition under the colony, a condition now supposedly defunct. Thus, the

subdelegado Jos Pimentelxv wrote a brief missive at the end of October 1820 to the alcaldes of

each of the Mixtec and Triqui communities formerly dependent on the municipality of Tlaxiaco;

namely, Santa Mara Yucuhiti, Santo Toms Nuy, San Pedro Yosotatu, Santiago Yozatichi, and


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San Juan Copala, informing them that:

The esteemed constitutional municipal council of this town and district capital ofTlaxiaco, which assumed its functions yesterday, has by an action taken today determinedthat the pueblos noted in the margin will necessarily continue as dependent communities

of this same district capital, subject, as they were under the former system of government,to justice administered by those empowered within this same district capital, which factobliges them to have recourse to this esteemed body in all matters pertaining to theresolution of conflicts and other such privileges granted them by the august constitutionto which all the republics, along with us, swore allegiance on the 2nd of July of thecurrent year.xvi

Subsequently, on 30 November 1820, the alcaldes of each of these pueblos replied to Pimentel

and swore obedience to their former cabecera. It is vital to note that each alcalde penned a letter

and signed it, underscoring the fact that a considerable number of Indian authorities in fairlyremote locales knew how to read and write. This knowledge and ability was important to the

Mixtec in enabling them to carry out negotiations with a new set of non-Indian state authorities

in Mexico.

In the view of some scholars, the changes that occurred in the wake of independence

signified the loss to the native population of the limited autonomy which it had enjoyed under

colonial rule. Yet an in-depth study of relations between the Indian pueblos and the national

governments demonstrates that the pueblos possessed a great capacity for negotiation.

Depending on the region and the specific time period involved, this capacity enabled many

pueblos to maintain and even to augment their field of autonomous action and to preserve certain

privileges in the face of a national climate of opinion that was thoroughly hostile to the survival

of the traditional ways and practices of Indian pueblos. Moreover, the Indians capacity for

negotiation in the face of state power was not a recent acquisition, but rather extended back to at

least the early days of the colony. Michael Ducey has pithily summed it up as the notable


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ideological flexibility to claim, within the bounds of the state, a place in the national society,

something which the Indians managed by adopting new political systems at the same time as

they kept alive and maintained practices emerging out of the colony.xvii

As Rodolfo Pastor points out, it was this propensity for pragmatic accommodation and

negotiation that in 1822 allowed 149 Indian pueblos in the Mixteca Alta to swear loyalty, amid

music and fireworks, to both the Sovereign Congress of the Nation and his Imperial Majesty,

Agustn Iturbide. Indeed, a short time later, when his republican opponents sought to induce the

Mixtec communities to rise up against Iturbide, only four pueblos answered the call. When

Iturbide was deposed in 1823, however, numerous Mixtec pueblos again took an oath ofloyaltythis time to upholding a liberal constitution.xviii The reality was that some indigenous

zones situated far from the capital of the new country were free to enjoy a certain autonomy

which the emergent government lacked the means to curtail. Thus, to swear loyalty to a new

emperor or to a new constitution of republican bent could, without any contradiction, be equally

the motive for local celebrations, just as it served to buttress a sense of shared community among

the Mixtec pueblos as much as to signify the implantation of a new political model.

During this period, the Indian pueblos continued to display a notable ideological flexibility,

in which their traditional cultural practices played an important role, and they did so in a newly

complex environment, since, as a result of the legislation enacted by the constitutional assembly

of Cdiz, followed by the actions of successive liberal and conservative governments, they lost

the special protection that the Spanish Crown had given them with respect to their legal-juridical

status. The separate court and judicial system that had been created for them under the colonial

regime no longer existed; henceforth, they had to coexist on an equal legal footing with other


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social groups, absent the protectionthough it had been confined to the realm of legislationof

a paternal monarch. While in theory the Indians enjoyed the very same rights as other groups,

in reality conditions were not so uniform, and the pueblos had rapidly to learn the new rules of

successive governments thatwhatever their ideological differencesshared in common the

belief that the native population was an obstacle to the creation and consolidation of a modern

state.

On this score, it is important to emphasize that, as Peter Guardino notes, the Indians idea of

what it meant to be a citizen represented, at bottom, a new expression of their ingrained sense of

community identity, a vision of the national community as a simple extension of the localcommunity. For them, the notion of citizenship pivoted not on the individualism characteristic of

non-Indian groups but on the possibility of belonging to a wider community that encompassed

the nation, an entity formed out of and constituted by the pueblo, in which everyone had rights

and obligations without distinctions of race or class. xix It was from this perspective, as

recognized Mexicans, that the Indians evolved strategies to preserve the colonial order in

different aspects of their lives,xx and perhaps most powerfully as concerned the governing of

their own pueblos. Thus, the manner in which indigenous communities responded to threats and

changes impinging on them from without during the first half of the nineteenth century contained

core elements of their traditional cultural practices.

Examining events within the Mixteca Alta, then, one observes that its indigenous authorities

maintained close communication with local and state officials even as the two parties clashed on

cultural terms, especially over issues of land and land boundaries. For example, in 1823 the

Mixteca Alta community of Magdalena Peascoxxi was renting some land belonging to Tezoatln,


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located in the Mixteca Baja. The authorities of Tezoatln, a cattle ranching municipality situated

at some distance from Magdalena, xxii carefully compiled a list of all the campesinos in

Magdalena who rented out land, calculating the latter in maquila de semillas, a unit of

agricultural measurement (and area for planting seeds) equivalent to 286 square metres.xxiii (See

Table 1) The total parcel of land used by the Magdalena campesinos amounted to approximately

10 hectares, for which they paid an annual rental fee of 15 pesos.xxiv A portion of what they

planted was given over to Magdalenas religious confraternity, the Cofrada de Nuestra Seora

del Roco. In 1823, however, a neighboring Mixtec pueblo of Tezoatln, San Antonio

Monteverde (likewise belonging to the Mixteca Alta),

xxv

declared that the lands under lease toMagdalena were rightfully its property. Caught in a confusing situation, Magdalena appealed to

the authorities of Tlaxiacoto whose municipal district it belongedto intervene and clarify

matters. Accordingly, Tlaxiacos alcalde wrote to the authorities of Tezoatln, stating in his

letter that in the name of the supreme congress they should suspend the rental of any of their

pueblos land until the matter had been vetted. The response made to this request by Tezoatlns

authorities demonstrates what the Mixtec at this time took to be their rights and how clearly they

saw them:

In virtue of your communication in which you inform me that I cannot exceed theorders of the [Mexican] Supreme Congress now in forceI beg to tell you in whatevermanner you wish that this community has possession of its land, [and] nobody cansuspend its rentals. It seems to me that if San Antonios declarations of legitimateownership of the land are backed up by any documents, they could have gathered themtogether and made them known to us since last year, so that we could come to aharmonious arrangement: for which reason it is well that you bear in mind that each looksto the good of his own. You also inform me that this will later cost money [for thelitigation] and [that] the guilty party will bear the cost. May God be with your m.a. (estmuy bien). Chapter hall of Texoatln, 18 July 1823.xxvi

Without wasting words, the pueblo of Tezoatln dismissed the pertinence of the Supreme


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Congress of Mexico, as well as the authority of Tlaxiaco; norby the same tokenwas it

inclined to jump into the threatened legal fray with San Antonio, seemingly sketched out by

Tlaxiacos official, for which the monetary cost would be very high. As is evident, the letter was

respectful toward Tlaxiacos authorities but firm with respect to its argument. Ultimately, the

pueblos foremost concern was that its rights over its lands be respected.

Indeed, many years later, in 1910, a conflict broke out between Tezoatln and San Antonio

over a question of adjacent land, in which each pueblo accused the other of invading its territory.

The conflict lingered, and in 1934 it apparently escalated to such a degree that the government

dispatched troops to the community of San Antonio in order to pacify both Mixtec pueblos.

xxvii

As can be inferred from this case, Indian pueblos generally opted during the nineteenth

century to negotiate with the authorities, just as they had been doing since the colonial period.

Such negotiation was typically prompted by their apprehension over the legislation that was

being imposed on them. In addition, with the establishment of the ayuntamiento, the Indians

managed to hold on to older, colonial-era political practices, in which the appointment of the

governor of a republic was replaced by the naming of the chiefalcalde.xxviii

As Edgar Mendozas research has shown, the constitution adopted by Oaxaca in 1825 set two

conditions for the creation of an ayuntamiento. The first specified that communities having more

than 3,000 inhabitants would have the right to establish a municipal council. The second, on the

other hand, stipulated that settlements with at least 500 inhabitants would be recognized as

republics. Oaxacas Indian pueblos found favor with this privilege, since these republics had the

same attributes and faculties as those granted the ayuntamientos. Thus, at least in Oaxaca, many

small Indian pueblos were able to operate politically as a republic and enjoy a certain degree of


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autonomy, given that their authoritiesunder this systemwere appointed on the basis of

popular representation, in similar fashion to the practice of the former colonial Indian cabildo.xxix

In 1826, out of the 220 pueblos located in the Mixteca region, 87 had a population, on average,

of slightly more than 500.xxx As of 1825, all 87 were officially Indian republics.

This circumstance meant that on a local level, government in the Mixteca Alta remained in

the hands of the pueblos own inhabitants throughout the nineteenth century, independent of

wider political events, wars, and invasions. With the adoption of the constitution of 1857, the

ayuntamientos were now led by municipal presidents. Furthermore, all that was required to

create a municipality was that a community number at least 500 residents. In this way, thanksboth to the Indians political agility and to the 1825 law, many pueblos in Oaxaca consolidated

themselves as municipalities and retained the land that they had managed to keep since the era of

the colonial composicin (a process through which land lacking private title could be regularized

through the payment of a fee to the colonial treasury).xxxi

If it is true that the pueblos of the Mixteca Alta hewed to a very locally focused agenda, it is

also true that some of them chose to become involved in national political movements. When

federalism was established in Mexico by means of the Constitution of 1824, it followed that the

countrys form of government would be that of a popular federal representative republic.

Between 1829 and 1831, the office of president was occupied by the prominent strongman of the

independence struggle, Vicente Guerrero. Guerrero, who fell to an assassins bullet in 1831,

enjoyed strong support from Indian pueblos, and under his short-lived government and the

federal system in general Indians attained a greater, more visible participation in political life.

Within Mexicos federated regions, the number of municipalities was virtually equal to the


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number of Indian republics which had existed during the colonial period and, moreover, the

practice of universal male suffrage was guaranteed by law. And while the Indians paid taxes to

their municipality, the monies were administered on a purely local basis. For many Indians, the

term federalism signified the diffusion of power onto local levels.xxxii Although there were

certainly municipalities that were controlled by mestizos and whites, who maintained strong

regional interests and wielded power over the pueblos pertaining to their respective municipality,

this does not negate the fact that many municipalities were controlled by Indians. The latter

situation was especially noteworthy in the Mixteca Alta, where the non-Indian population had

been numerically small since the early colonial period.The federal system in Mexico lasted only until 1834, when those favoring centralism came

into power. The power of the centralists (1835-1841) dealt a serious blow to the interests of

indigenous communities. Centralist officials reduced the number of municipalities, leaving

many of them under the control of mestizo and creole elites who subjected the Indian pueblos to

their jurisdiction. Taxes were also increased during these years, producing great unrest among

the Indians, who reacted by rising up against their payment, most notably in the present-day state

of Guerrero. In addition, the centralists imposed a more restrictive form of universal suffrage. A

minimum annual income of more than 100 pesos was established in 1836, and raised to 200

pesos in 1843, a condition which totally eliminated the participation of Indian campesinos in

elections.xxxiii

As a result of these developments, various Indian pueblos in what today forms the state of

Guerrero (both its mountain and coastal regions) rebelled against the centralist government. The

first uprising took place in Chilapa, where after the centralists assumed power the white and


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mestizo elite of the municipality had tried to exert control over a cluster of neighboring Indian

pueblos by manipulating their internal political affairs. This interference quickly became a

central grievance of the campesino population, which engaged in outright rebellion in 1840 and

after.xxxiv

The insurgent Indians around Chilapa were joined by many other pueblos who opposed the

centralist laws. The matter of higher taxes in particular sparked a major movement against the

central government which swept over extensive areas of Guerrero. In addition, the centralist

government was torn by internal factions. This weakness was exploited by non-Indian leaders

who enjoyed strong political backing. Among them was the federalist Juan lvarez, who came tothe aid of the Indians in their demands. lvarez was a key figure in the creation of the state of

Guerrero in 1849. The success of the Guerrero statehood drive owed much to the support it

received from the indigenous community, to whom in turn lvarez pledged his support for the

redress of their grievances. Of course, the North American invasion of Mexico and Mexicos

ensuing loss of national territory also contributed significantly to the weakening of the centralist

government. Employing guerrilla tactics and supported by many Indians from Guerrero, Juan

lvarez himself fought against the U.S. army.xxxv

In the Mixteca Alta, too, various Indian pueblos also embraced the federalist cause and threw

their support behind lvarez, as did other communities of Nahua, Amuzgo, and Tlapaneco

Indians, along with the Mixtec in Guerrero. A case in point was the Mixtec community of

Teposcolula, who took up arms on behalf of the federal government in 1844.xxxvi Their militancy

is not difficult to understand, since the payment of the capitacin (a centralist-inspired personal

tax) served as one of the most important sources of state revenue in Oaxaca during the first half


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of the nineteenth century, and while the amount levied seems to have been modest, it was

nonetheless hiked up during the years of civil strife and war.xxxvii

Similarly, the Triqui of Copala rose up against the Oaxacan state authorities in 1839 and

1843, in protest against Governor Antonio de Len, who had stripped several pueblos, Copala

among them, of their land and was now profiting from renting the land back to the Indians. To

bolster their campaign, the Indians of Copala joined forces with the legendary outlaw Hilaro

Alonso, whowhile intervening to defend the interests of indigenous communities against the

statealso devoted himself to plundering ranches and sugar mills in the region. In payment for

its rebellion, Copalas Triqui community was brutally repressed. Even so pressed, however, theTriqui rebels managed to take Tlaxiaco and to reach Teposcolula. Along the way, they attacked

the property of some of the wealthy and powerful landowners of the region, giving the

authorities reason to view them as bandits, savages, thieves, and murderers. xxxviii

Although some pueblos in the Mixteca Alta were motivated to revolt openly against the state,

as a general rule Indian communities, both in the nineteenth century and after, adhered to a long

tradition of marshalling political and legal resistance in defense of their highest priority: their

land. For them, land was not only an economic resource but also a source of political rights and

of collective freedoms in the face of hegemonic state power.xxxix Thus, while for the Indians the

organization and presentation of a legal defense was an essential recourse and tool, for state

authorities as for much of Mexican society at large such resistance on the part of pueblos was

viewed as the malicious machinations of the Indians own attorneys, who were contemptuously

referred to as tinterillos (pen-pushing shysters).xl

It is important then to recognize that at times during the nineteenth century the Indians were


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able to exercise certain political rights and protect land belonging to their pueblo, and that

legislation and legal proceedings were instrumental in this regard. Nevertheless, successive

governments were not inclined on the whole to guarantee the survival of indigenous

communities in the national period, and they were particularly intent on converting

communal-corporate held land into land that would be owned privately. Unsurprisingly, some

indigenous communities expressed regret for the disappearance of the colonial regime, calling

attention to the fact that under the colony, the Spanish monarchy had provided a protective

umbrella for Indian pueblos. xli

INDIAN PUEBLOS IN THE MEXICA ALTA AND THE ISSUE OF LAND BEGINNINGWITH THE LAWS OF THE REFORM

Broadly speaking, between 1821 and 1850 successive national and state governments tried to

isolate and detach various types of land belonging to the Indian pueblos. xlii Yet a much heavier

blow was delivered to the collective land rights of Indian pueblos through the 1856 Ley de

Desamortizacin, enacted by the liberal government which had taken power in that same year,

and under whose terms church, government, and other corporate properties held in mortmain,

were to be sold, subject to certain exclusions.xliii The legislation allowed pueblo communal lands

to be divided, parceled out, and separated, although such action did not take place immediately

nor did it occur uniformly across the country. Because the law of disentailment made it possible

for a great number of Indian pueblos to lose the usufruct of their communal lands, in the end it

was supported not just by the liberals but by the conservatives and large landowners as well. xliv

It is also the case, as recent studies have shown, that many Indian pueblos managed to preserve

their land, shielding it under special legal injunctions secured by loopholes contained in the

legislation itself. Public service lands, for example, were exempted, and as the law was written,


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these could be interpreted to include both ejidos and the site of the pueblo proper.xlv The pueblos

could also constitute themselves as agrarian societies and adopt the practice of joint

ownership.xlvi On this point, John Monaghan has found that more than 178 instances of joint

ownership existed, collectively, in Guerrero, the Mixteca Baja, and among the Mixtec

communities in the state of Puebla. In the majority of cases, Indians in these Mixtec pueblos

purchased the lands from the descendants of theiriyya, or caciques, frequently doing so on the

basis of credit and private loans. In Monaghans opinion, there were Mixtec pueblos in these

regions which, not having the means to make payment on loans, split up, their members

dispersing and the pueblo itself ceasing to exist.

xlvii

In the Mixteca Alta, however, the practice of joint ownership scarcely took hold; to date,

research in the records indicates there may have been a maximum of five.xlviii Communal land

was preserved and retained through other strategies. In both the Mixteca Alta and in Oaxaca

more generally many Indian pueblo ayuntamientosas a result of the laws of the

Reformmade common cause with their parish priests and curates to defend their properties and

capital by using the funds held by theircofradas to make physical repairs to their churches, and

to set up capillas de viento (church musical groups) and pay for the instruction of their musicians

and singers.xlix That is, before cofrada funds and capital passed into the hands of the state,

pueblo authoritiesin concert with their priest and the community as a wholetook preemptive

action, using the funds to buy expensive wind instruments, which were often complemented by

classical music scores. The popularity enjoyed (and still enjoyed) by musical bands from the

Indian pueblos of Oaxaca derives in part from this initiative of the 1840s. l

In addition, some indigenous communities managed to gain title to their land and maintain it


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under collective control by placing it in the name of all of the campesinos who worked it. In

general, this maneuver succeeded when the land in question was not particularly attractive to

either whites or mestizos.li Such was the case with the Mixteca Alta pueblo of San Pedro Tida,

whose Mixtec inhabitantsas a consequence of the 1856 reform lawstogether amassed the

sum of 1,165 pesos and named a member of their community, Hilario Rodrguez, as their

prestanombre (nominee or legal proxy) following which he purchased a wheat threshing mill

that became the pueblos most important source of income. By means of this crafty scheme, to

which the municipal authorities fully subscribed, the mill generated profits, through its

sub-contracted rental, that were shared collectively; to this day, in fact, San Pedro Tidasfamilies refer to this episode as the mill raffle.lii

This type of response on the part of Indians in the Mixteca Alta evidences their strong

capacity to negotiate and to defend their pueblos land and capital stock by threading their way

through the legal maze. Their success in drawing upon such legal tactics as obtaining injunctions,

oras in the example of Tidamaking a business investment through a single shell owner

that yielded income for the community as a whole, enabled them to retain a significant part of

their communal lands. Furthermore, the Mixteca Alta, though lacking large-scale productive

enterprises, such as haciendas, did have some millsfor example La Concepcinwhose

economic benefits rippled out across the region. In addition, many Mixtec men found

employment as agricultural wage laborers, ranging as far away as Veracruz, and their earnings

from such work allowed them to maintain a certain level of material well-being. Finally, it

should be remembered that the land in the Mixteca Alta was not particularly fertile, yet many

communities preserved their traditional unity and managed to negotiate certain advantages for


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themselves in dealing with the non-Indian population, in both political and social terms.

Once the laws of the Reform were enacted, the Indiansapart from enjoying a slight

breathing space under the imperial regime of Maximilianwere allowed no rest in the defense

of their lands. The situation thus warranted that they use whatever resources and tools they had at

their disposal to cling to their territory.

With the triumph of the liberals over the empire in 1867, however, the legal changes brought

about under Maximilians government were annulled, and the 1856 legislation directed against

the ownership of communal land again entered into force.liii This latter body of legislation served

as an important precedent and springboard for the agrarian policy which Porfirio Daz pursuedduring the more than thirty years that he spent as president of Mexico (1876-1911). For Daz,

the indigenous communities and their various forms of collective ownership of land were a major

impediment to his project of constructing a modern, liberal nation state.

In 1883, the Daz regime unleashed a powerful legal offensive against indigenous land

holdings through its Decreto sobre Colonizacin, a decree concerning land use and settlement.

The decree mandated the separation and division of all the countrys vacant lands, the idea being

that this land would be ceded to both foreign immigrants and Mexicans who wanted to settle on

it. Another element of the decree authorized companies to survey and demarcate the land

andin return for doing soempowered them to take ownership of one third of it.liv These

companies were almost all from the United States, and their central objective in carrying out

surveys was to carve up and exploit the vacant lands.

Dazs next major land-related assault came in 1894, in the form of a law on the occupation

and alienation of vacant lands in the United Mexican States. By means of this law, vacant lands,


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or land not designated for public use, as well as surplus land, odd extensions of land, and federal

land could be assigned and given to anyone who laid claim to it, without any limit set on the

size of parcels awarded.lv This law continued the program of getting rid of small land holdings,

as well as of communal and village-based land assets. In this environment, many Indians lost

their land and were compelled to hire themselves out as laborers on ranches and estates in order

to survive. The legislation thus privileged the concentration of land in medium and large-scale

holdings; it benefited foreign investors and speculators, companies prepared to carry out land and

boundary surveys, large landed estates, and cronies of President Daz, while also facilitating the

liberalization of the labor market.

lvi

By 1889, as a result of this legislation, private companieshad surveyed and demarcated 38 million hectaresa full third of the national territoryand 12.7

million hectares were ceded to them as compensation. On top of this gift, the Porfirian regime

also sold 14 million hectares of land to these companies at an absurdly low cost. Through all of

these channels, the legislative initiatives of 1883 and 1894 strengthened the case of those who

opposed community-held land and facilitated the acquisition of land and legal titles thereto by

the wealthiest segment of the population.lvii

Although in these respects the Porfirian landscape was profoundly adverse to the interests of

indigenous communities, some scholars hold that the notion that Indians and campesinos lost

their lands en bloc during the Daz years needs to be modified. If it is true that many pueblos

suffered such losses, it is also true that cases exist on a regional basis in which they managed to

preserve the communal administration of their land. This counter-trend was especially

noteworthy in the Mixteca Alta, and it reflected three principal factors: the pueblos great

capacity for negotiation, which remained an active element of the indigenous cultural inheritance,


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the distance at which they sat from the center of the regional economy, which meant that large

business and industrial enterprises, such as the railways, would see no reason to covet their land,

and the comparatively poor quality of portions of their land when used for agricultural purposes.

The Mixteca Alta (Oaxaca) municipality of Tepenene illustrates this dynamic. Its common lands

persisted through the end of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth, and the

municipality continued to administer its common agricultural land and the land dedicated to the

support of its community government, generating income by renting parcels to private

individuals. Tepenenes authorities in fact used some of this money to pay part of the costs of a

lawyer whom they kept under contract to litigate the conflicts in which they were embroiled overissues of land.lviii

INDIAN LANDS IN THE MIXTECA ALTA AND THE REVOLUTION

As the year 1910 approached, substantial contingents of both Indians and campesinos in

Mexico found themselves landless. Since the end of the nineteenth century, this situation had

caused many pueblos to engage in open rebellion, despite the repressive measures that Dazs

government employed to clamp down on dissident activity.lix In 1911, Emiliano Zapata and his

followers published the Plan de Ayala, in which they denied recognition to the government led

by President Francisco I. Madero (1911-1913) and took the position that land should be

distributed to the countrys communities. Between 1910 and 1919, Zapata championed and

spearheaded an agrarian movement of transcendent importance. Recent scholarly work

demonstrates that Zapatismoproduced a coherent and radical political blueprint for the global


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22

transformation of a complex society. Moreover, the proposals advanced by the armed movement

behind Zapata were not static; they changed throughout the struggle that was mounted to

distribute land to Mexicos pueblos, although such changes as were made always took their cue

from the political program elaborated in the Plan of Ayala.lx

The Plan of Ayala had injected a call for fundamental agrarian reform into the revolutionary

discourse; the response to this demand took the form of the ejido, or community land grant. For

campesinos, however, a pueblos ejidos were simply the lands which they had always controlled

and cultivated, that is, the full spectrum of the pueblos lands which during the colonial period

and the nineteenth century had included its common cropland (terreno de comnrepartimiento),land set aside for the support of the communitys government (propios), the land that made up

the site of the community itself (fundo legal), and the communitys livestock grounds (ejido).

After 1856, this collection of differentiated lands was given a single nameejidos.lxi

In the case of the Mixteca Alta, a zone of dense Indian population (see Table 2), the situation

both prior to and after the Revolution was and in some respects continues to be exceptionally

complex. For example, during the years 1897 and 1930 (see Table 3), numerous armed

invasions took place between various neighboring pueblos in the region, a condition which

intensified between the years 1910 and 1915. Pueblos in the Mixteca Alta formed small armed

bands which invaded and attacked other pueblos. Many of these conflicts originated in the

colonial period or even pre-dated the Spanish conquest, andin the case of the Mixteca

Altawere bound up with the economic, social, and political power associated with the

yuhuitayu, or Mixtec cacicazgosthe domain of a caciques rule (combiningyuhi/petate, a mat

for sleeping on, with tayu/asiento, the seat of authority). The absence or weakened state of a


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particularyuhuitayu made it an easy target for the regions caciques, who customarily capitalized

on the situation to seize additional land.lxii

To the non-Indian authorities, these invasions were but another instance of the barbarism of

the Indians and a reason for calling them bandits. Yet it should be remembered that in the

thinking of this same community, Emiliano Zapata was nothing but a bandit. This complex

picture strongly suggests that, just as they functioned as bystanders during the independence

period, many pueblos in the Mixteca Alta did not join and fight with one group or another during

the Revolution, at least not in any publicly recognizable way. Furthermore, the revolutionary

ideals of Madero and Zapata found much more fertile ground among the coastal Mixtec, who hadbeen dispossessed of their communal lands and generally mistreated by a strong representation

of ranchers in the region. The ideas behind the Mexican Revolution had been imported into the

Mixtec coastal areas by insurgents from Guerrero, where the revolutionary impulse was strong.

The noted episode of the Mixtec kingdom of Pinotepa Nacional clearly reveals the unalloyed

desire for liberation by a Mixtec population that been systematically oppressed by

non-Indians.lxiii In this episode, the local Mixtec rose up in arms, assassinating some of the

authorities and wealthy men of the pueblo and causing others to flee, following which they

crowned a Mixtec woman as their queen. While Francis Chassen saw this historic event purely as

a metaphor, today we know it to have been otherwise. The Mixtec of this locale have up to the

present preserved a long oral tradition about the ancient Mixtec kingdom of Pinotepa, and not

only were the proclaimed queen and kingdom, which lasted but a few days before being brutally

repressed, real, but in all likelihood the Mixtec woman coronated as queen descended from the

pre-Colombian and colonial iyya of the Pinotepa region.lxiv


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Within the Mixteca Alta, however, things apparently played out differently. There, many

pueblos took advantage of the violence and fighting that accompanied the years of revolution to

invade lands that they considered, historically, as their own, in order to enlarge their territory and

destroy the boundary markers of neighboring pueblos. Numerous assaults and incidents of

stealing cattle by armed groups of Mixtec men took place in the region (see Table 3). We need

to ask ourselves, however, what really lay at the bottom of this aggression.

Conflicts and confrontations over land are common not only across the Mixteca Alta but also

in the state of Oaxaca more widely as well as in many other indigenous and campesino regions

of Mexico. I have tried to shed light on this phenomenon in the Mixteca Alta by examining itfrom the vantage point of two disciplines: history and ethnography.

Six years ago, I began to collaborate with a group of people in Santa Mara Cuquila, a

community belonging to the municipal district of Tlaxiaco in the Mixteca Alta, on a project to

recover its history. This pueblo has had a history of conflicts over land with neighboring pueblos

since the colonial period, but these broke out with greater intensity in the years after the Mexican

Revolution. At present, Cuquila is embroiled in a land conflict with the pueblo of San Miguel

Progreso, which had been a dependent community of Cuquila until 1938. In that year, owing to

political changes, Cuquila lost its status as a municipality and in turn became subordinate to the

administrative jurisdiction of Tlaxiaco, a city of predominately mestizo ethnic-racial composition.

My Cuquila friends have pointed out to me on many occasions that the conflict with San Miguel

Progreso stems from the fact that government civil engineers set the same limits on the final

maps that demarcated the boundaries and territory of both pueblos, thus making each the owner

of the same land. These friends and my Cuquila compadre Emiliano Melchor have also


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emphasized to me many times over the years that this is a quarrel between Mixtec brothers. At

times they even tell me that they and their San Miguel counterparts are the same people. When I

follow up this admission by asking them why people who are so close would persist in conflict

that at times turns violent, they respond by simply shrugging their shoulders. My contention is

that one must resort to ethnology to gain the analytical toehold that will prepare the ground for

advancing some preliminary hypotheses about this problem.

In this context, different specialists note that it is entirely natural that people prefer to be in

the company of those who share the same ethnic background, a proposition which has been

utilized to great effect in discourses pertaining to both nationalism and ethnicity. In keeping withthe logic of this idea, cultural diversity within a discrete society is taken as something abnormal,

a species of social fragmentation. The idea is reasonable, since we dont hear of ethnic conflicts

in which a key factor driving the antagonism is that the affected groups think of themselves as

being overly similar, although such thinking may actually be a key factor. On the contrary, it is

cultural distinction and difference (including the biological) which is underscored in the etiology

of ethnic conflicts. In line with this orientation, ethnic groups can claim that conflicts reflect and

arise from inherent differences between them. The universal view is that powerful ties of social

cohesion are manifested through the existence of common values, a shared past, and expressed

loyalty toward the same symbols.lxv

Nonetheless, a line of thinking exists in the social sciences, whose most outstanding

exponent is the specialist on Melanesia, Simon Harrison, which holds that certain intense

conflicts can occur precisely between groups possessing a common cultural heritage, by reason

of their very similarity. This pattern is seen among groups in Melanesia. The people of Tanna,


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an outer island of Vanuatu, follow the custom that when one group takes the territory of another

in war, the victorious group acquires not just the land but also the rights and personal names of

its erstwhile owners. To make their possession of the new land legitimate, the victors must

assume the social identity of the defeated, whose names and identities are apparently thought of

as inextricably tied to the land itself.lxvi Personal identity thus seems to be conceived of as

something transferable in a way that does not exist for western societies, in which ones identity

can perhaps be imitated but not alienated or reassigned. Such transference, however, is possible

in some Melanesian societies. Clearly, what produces a conflict between these societies is not so

much that they are different from each other but rather that they are fundamentally the same.

lxvii

In the case of Cuquila and of many other pueblos in the Mixteca Alta, it can be posited that

Mixtecs living in close proximity take each others lands as a way of capturing the others

prestige; Mixtec pueblos gathering in and taking over the prestige of other Mixtec pueblos by

taking possession of their territory. This possible dynamic intensified during the years of the

revolution.

It should be added, too, that as members of a single society unified around a calendar of

anniversaries and national commemorations we tend to think that national political and social

movements of overarching importance, such as independence from Spain and the Revolution,

have a common meaning and significance for all of us, Indians and non-Indians alike. Yet the

countrys indigenous communities have a logic of their own which the rest of the Mexican

population quite often fails to acknowledge, much less recognize.

During the time of the Revolution, the pueblo of Santo Toms Ocotepec, Cuquilas neighbor

and bitter enemy under the colony, decidedin keeping with its own political intereststo align


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itself with the Zapatistas. Reflecting the enmity between the two pueblos, the Cuquilans then

decided that the proper course of action was to join the Carrancistas. lxviii

The Santo Toms Ocotepec Mixtec met this decision by attacking Cuquila, and, as a trophy,

carried off the miraculous Virgen of Cuquilita, whose image the Cuquilans venerated. In the

words of the sacristan Don Juan Hernndez:

[Those from Santo Toms Ocotepec] carried off the virgin of Cuquilita so that shewould wed the lord of that place, Ocotepec [that is Santo Toms]. She no longer wantedto exist, did not want to go on living, like you who are women and who wouldnt be ableto live in a house with bad folk where you would feel uncomfortable, well it was like thatwith her, the virgin, and we went to bring her to Tlaxiaco and the first, second, and thirdmass that we have here in August was celebrated. Yes, thats the reason the virgin came

back and ran into the little cave and ran up to the opening and sat down, the virgin ran upto there, and hid herselfthats how it was.lxix

According to some of my other friends in Cuquila, the virgin was recovered thanks to the

intervention of Tlaxiacos priest, who traveled to Santo Toms Ocotepec to prize her away from

the people of Ocotepec, who had hidden her in a cave. Moreover, the virgin was recovered on 8

December, the day on which the pueblo celebrates its most important festival. This festival has

political significance as well, for it marks the day on which the elected officials of Cuquilas

municipal government leave office, to be succeeded by a newly elected slate of officials who

take up their duties on 1 January.lxx

Unquestionably, the life of this community is profoundly influenced by a set of crucial,

interwoven symbols connected to ancient, inter-pueblo struggles over land, struggles which the

social and political upheavals of the Revolution served to intensify. I would conclude by noting

that as historians who focus on the experience of indigenous communities, we clearly broaden

and deepen our knowledge and understanding of their past and their present when we work in a

reciprocal way with them.


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28

iJohnTutino,Globalizaciones,autonomasyrevoluciones:poderyparticipacinpopularenlahistoriadeMxico,

pp.2585inCrisis,ReformayRevolucinMxico:Historiasdefindelsiglo,coord.byLeticiaReinaandElisaServn,

(Mexico:Taurus/ConsejoNacionalparalaCulturayLasArtes/InstitutioNacionaldeAntropologaeHistoria):29;

FelipeCastro, Larebelin delos indiosy lapazde losespaoles (Mexico:CentrodeInvestigacionesyEstudios

SuperioresenAntropologaSocial/InstitutioNacionalIndigenista,1996):40.

iiMargarita Menegus Bornemann, Los bienes de comunidad y las Reformas Borbnicas (17861814), in

EstructurasagrariasyreformismoilustradoenlaEspaadelsigloXVIII (Madrid:MinisteriodeAgriculturaPescay

Alimentacin):383389.

iiiWayneOsbornSmyth,ACommunityStudyofMeztitln,NewSpain,15201810(Ph.D.dissertation,University

ofIowa,1970),19798.

ivWilliamB.Taylor,ConflictandBalanceinDistrictPolitics:TecaliandtheSierraNortedePueblaintheEighteenth

Century,in TheIndianCommunityofColonialMexico.FifteenEssayson LandTenure,CorporateOrganizations,

IdeologyandVillagePolitics ,ed.ArijOweneelandSimonMiller(Amsterdam:CEDLA,1990).

vEric VanYoung,TheOther Rebellion. Popular Violence, Ideology,and theMexicanStrugglefor Independence,

18101821(Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress,2001),40815.

viIbid,423.

viiWilliamB.Taylor,Magistratesofthe Sacred:Priests and Parishioners inEighteenthCenturyMexico(Stanford:

StanfordUniversityPress,1996),29697.

viiiLeticiaReinaAoyama,Caminosdeluzysombra .HistoriaindgenadeOaxacaenelsigloXIX(Mexico:Centrode

InvestigacionesyEstudiosSuperioresenAntropologaSocial/ComisinNacionalparaelDesarrollodelosPueblos

Indios,2004),10205.

ixIbid,95.


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29

xRodolfoPastor,Campesinosyreformas:Lamixteca,17001856(Mexico:ElColegiodeMxico,1987),417420.

xiReinaAoyama,Caminosdeluz,9495.

xiiPeterF.Guardino,Peasants,Politics,andtheFormationofMexicosNationalState[of?]Guerrero,18001857.

xiiiIbid,92.

xivAliciaTecuanhueySandoval,LaresistenciadelsubdelegadodeAtlixcoalosayuntamientosenlospueblosdel

partido,18121814,inMemoriasdelaAcademiaMexicanadelaHistoriacorrespondientedelaRealdeMadrid

(Mexico:AcademiaMexicanadelaHistoria,2002),2627,3536.

xvFormore information about Pimentel, a mestizo who apparently descended from indigenous caciques, see

Pastor,Campesinosyreformas,42223.

xviArchivodeTlaxiaco,Oaxaca.AsuntosdeTlaxiaco.

xviiMichaelT.Ducey,Hijosdelpuebloyciudadanos:identidadespolticasentrelosrebeldesindiosdelsigloXIX,

pp.12751, inConstruccinde lalegitimidadpoltica enMxico(Mexico:ElColegio deMichoacn,Universidad

AuttomaMetropolitana,UniversidadAutnomadeMxico,ElColegiodeMxico,1999),127.

xviiiPastor,Campesinosyreformas,42627.

xixGuardino,Peasants,Politics ,9192.

xx

Seearequest[fromGuadalajara?]toeliminatethewordsmulatos,negros,andindiosandtoreplacethemwith

thewordMexicanos,inAGNGobernacin,40/4expediente67,1822Guadalajara.

xxiInthisperiod,thepresentdaypuebloofMagdalenaPeascowasknownasMagdalenaYutanuyia.

xxii1821. Independence was declared in Tezoatln by General Antonio de Len. Accorded the status of a

municipality,itwasboundedonthenorthbySanAndrsDinicuiti,SantiagoCacaloxtepec,andSanMartnArteaga;

onthesouthbySantoReyesTepejilla;ontheeastbySantoDomingoYodohinoandSanAntonioMonteVerde,and

onthewestbySilacayoapam.Atpresent,itisestimatedthat30percentofitsterritoryisdevotedtoagriculture

and60percenttocattleranching.MixtecaBaja,HuajuapanDistrict.


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xxiii

Themaquiladesemillasisaunitofagriculturalmeasurementthatequalsahalf celemn(indrymeasurement,

approximately4.6liters)or286.5squaremetersoflandonwhichtoplantseeds.Usedfromtheeighteenthtothe

twentieth century, the celemn was the equivalent of some 537 square metres, the amountof land that was

considerednecessaryforplantingonecelemnofwheat.

xxivArchivodeTlaxiaco,1823Juzgadode1 InstanciadeTlaxiaco.DiputacinProvincialdeOaxaca.

xxvThemunicipalityofSanAntonioMonteVerdebelongsto thedistrictofSanPedroandSanPabloTeposcolula,

whichissituatedintheregionoftheMixtecaAlta.

xxviArchivodeTlaxiaco,1823Juzgadode1a.InstanciadeTlaxiaco.DiputacinProvincialdeOaxaca.

xxviihttp://www.elocal.gob.mx/work/templates/enciclo/Oaxaca/municipios/20105a.htm

xxviiiEdgarMendozaGarca,LosbienesdecomunidadyladefensadelastierrasenlaMixtecaoaxaquea.Cohesin

yautonomadelmunicipiodeSantoDomingoTepenene,18561912.(Mexico:SenadodelaRepblica,2004),90.

xxixIbid,9093.

xxxPastor,Campesinosyreformas,420.

xxxiThis development also explains the greatnumber ofmunicipalities whichexist in the presentday state of

Oaxaca,anumberwhichexceedsthatofanyotherMexicanstate.MendozaGarca,Losbienesdecomunidad,93.

xxxii

Guardino,Peasants,Politics ,95.

xxxiiiIbid,101,174.

xxxivChrisKyle,Land,Labor,andtheChilapaMarket:ANewLookatthe1840sPeasantWarsinCentralGuerrero,

Ethnohistory50,no.1(2003),89130.

xxxvGuardino,Peasants,Politics ,14777.

xxxviArchivodelaSecretaradelaDefensaNacional,legajo9.Operacionesmilitares,aode18441845.

xxxviiPastor,Campesinosyreformas,427.

xxxviiiReinaAoyama,Caminosdeluz ,17172,17677;ArchivodelaSecretaradelaDefensaNacional,XI/481.3/2119.

Aode1845.


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31

xxxix

Antonio Escobar Ohmstede, Introduccin..., in Los pueblos indios en los tiempos de Benito Jurez

(18471872),coord.AntonioEscobarOhmstede(Mexico:UniversidadAutnomaMetropolitana,2007),1129.

xlLapresenciaindgenaenlaprensacapitalinadelsigloXIX.Catlogodenoticias1,ed.AntonioEscobarOhmstede

andTeresaRojasRabiela(Mexico:InstitutoNacionalIndigenista/CentrodeInvestigacionesyEstudiosSuperiores

enAntropologaSocial,1992),292.

xliWayneOsborneSmyth,ACommunityStudyofMeztitln,NewSpain,15201810(Ph.DDissertation,University

ofIowa,1970),20608.

xliiRobertJ.Knowlton,ElejidomexicanoenelsigloXIX,HistoriaMexicana48,no.1(1998),7196.

xliiiManuel Fabila, Cinco Siglos de legislacin agraria [14931940] 2 vols. (Mexico: Secretara de la Reforma

Agraria/CentrodeEstudiosHistricosdelagrarismoenMexico,1981):1,book5,109115.

xlivDonaldJ.Fraser,Lapolticadedesamortizacinenlascomunidadesindgenas,18561872,HistoriaMexicana,

21,no.4(84)(1972),615652.

xlvArticle8ofthelawstipulatesatitsend:Thosepropertiesbelongingtothemunicipalcouncils,buildings,ejidos,

andlandsdevotedexclusivelytothepublicserviceofthepopulationstowhomtheybelongwillalsobeexempted,

Leydedesamortizacindebienesdemanosmuertas,Mexico,28June1856.

xlvi

Jointownershipreferredtopropertythatbelongedtomultipleowners,whodidnotenclosetheir individual

parcelsoflandbutinsteadkeptthemasapartoftheoverallunit,eachrecognizingthelandholdingsoftheothers

andsharingtheexpensesarisingfromanylegalconflictswithotherpropertyownersaswellasthepaymentofany

taxes owed. The institution of joint ownership went back into the colonialperiod. Escobar Ohmstede and

GutirrezRivas,ElliberalismoylospueblosindgenasenlasHustecas,18561885,inLospueblosindios ,25397.

xlviiPersonalcommunicationwithJohnMonaghan,whoisintheprocessofwritingabookonthissubject.

xlviiiPersonalcommunicationwithJohnMonaghan.


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xlixSergioNavarretePellicer,LascapillasdemsicadevientoenOaxacaduranteelsigloXIX,Heterofona:Revista

deInvestigacinmusical,CNIDIM (JanuaryJune2001),927. Iam grateful toMaestroAurelioTello forhaving

furnishedmewiththisinterestingarticle.

lIbid,927.

liEscobarOhmstede,Introduccin

liiVicenteMoctezumaMendozaandAndreaCaldernGarca, SanPedroTida .UnavastahistoriaenlaMixteca Alta

(Mexico: Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana/Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e Historia/Proyecto de

Conservacin,IdentidadyDesarrolloComunitario,2009),13638.

liiiFabila,Cincosiglos,15968.

livIbid,18389.

lvIbid,189205.

lviEscobarOhmstedeandGutirrezRivas,Elliberalism,272,286.

lviiDanaMarkiewicz,TheMexicanRevolutionandtheLimitsofAgrarianReform,19151946 (BoulderandLondon:

LynneRiennerPublishers,1993),15.

lviiiMendozaGarcia,Losbienesdecomunidad,21824.

lix

Markiewicz,TheMexicanRevolution,1617.

lxArturoWarman,The PoliticalProjectofZapatismo,[trans.JudithBrister],inRiot,Rebellion,andRevolution :

RuralSocialConflictinMexico(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1988),321337.

lxiSeenote56.

lxiiEthelia Ruiz Medrano, Mexicos Indigenous Communities: Their Lands and Histories, 15002010 (Boulder:

UniversityPressofColorado,2010),chapter4.

lxiiiThisepisodehasbeenstudiedbyFrancieR.ChassenLpezinherbookFromLiberaltoRevolutionaryOaxaca :

TheViewfromtheSouth,Mexico,18671911(UniversityPark,PA:PennStatePress,2004),51822.


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lxivForadetailedrecountingbothofthisepisode,andofthelongoraltraditionregardingtheMixteckingdomasit

survivesamongthePinotepaMixtectoday,seeHermenegildoF.LpezCastroandEtheliaRuizMedrano,Tutuuu

Oko, Libro delpueblo Veinte. Relatos de la tradicinoralde PinotepaNacional,Oaxaca (Mexico: Centro de

InvestigacinyEstudiosSuperioresenAntropologaSocial,2010).

lxvSimon Harrison, The Politics of Resemblance: Ethnicity, Trademarks, HeadHunting, Royal Anthropological

Institute,8,no.2(June2002),21132,322,326.IamgratefultoGuilhemOivierforpointingouttomethisarticle

offundamentalimportance.

lxviIbid,215.

lxviiIbid,21516.

lxviiiInterviewinJuly2008withtheauthoritiesofSantaMaraCuquila.

lxixAugust2005interviewwithHernndez,sacristanofSantaMaraCuquilaschurch.

lxxAlthough Cuquilaceased tobe amunicipalitymore thanseventyyears ago,it stillmaintains thepractice of

electingafunctioningmunicipalgovernment.

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