Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:23:44.211Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Coercion, Culture, and Contracts: Labor and Debt on Henequen Haciendas in Yucatán, Mexico, 1870–1915

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Lee J. Alston ,
Shannan Mattiace  and
Tomas Nonnenmacher
Lee J. Alston*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, University of Colorado at Boulder, 256 USB, Boulder, CO 80309–0256. E-mail: [email protected].
Shannan Mattiace*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Allegheny College, 520 North Main Street, Meadville, PA 16335. E-mail: [email protected].
Tomas Nonnenmacher*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Allegheny College, 520 North Main Street, Meadville, Pa 16335. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The henequen boom coincided with the rule of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911). During the boom, many Maya in Yucatan lost their rights to land and moved to henequen haciendas. As part of the implicit contract with hacendados, peons accumulated large debts at the time of marriage, most of which were never repaid. We argue that the debts bound workers to the hacienda as part of a system of paternalism and that more productive workers incurred more debt. We examine the institutional setting in which debt operated and stress the formal and informal institutional contexts within which hacendados and workers negotiated contracts.

“Debt and contract slavery is the prevailing system of production all over the south of Mexico… Debt, real or imaginary, is the nexus that binds the peon to his master…probably 5,000,000 people, or one-third of the entire population, are today living in a state of helpless peonage.”

John Kenneth Turner1

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 104 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akerlof, George. “Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 97, no. 4 (1982): 543–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, Lee J., and Ferrie, Joseph P.. Paternalism and the American Welfare State: Economics, Politics, and Institutions in the U.S. South, 1865–1965. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Channing, and Tabor Frost, Frederick J.. The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatȥn. New York: Doubleday, 1909.Google Scholar
Baerlein, Henry. Mexico: The Land of Unrest. Philadelphia, PA: Simpkin, 1914.Google Scholar
Baskes, Jeremy. “Colonial Institutions and Cross-Cultural Trade: Repartimiento Credit and Indigenous Production of Cochineal in Eighteenth-Century Oaxaca, Mexico.” This Journal 65, no. 1 (2005): 186–210.Google Scholar
Batt, Rosemary. “The Rise and Fall of the Planter Class in Espita, 1900–1924.” In Land, Labor, and Capital in Modern Yucatȥn: Essays in Regional History and Political Economy, edited by Brannon, Jeffery T. and Joseph, Gilbert M., 197–219. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Betancourt Pȳrez, Antonio. Revoluciones y Crisis en la Economȷa de Yucatȥn. ColecciɃn Historia y Sociedad. 2a ed. (facsimilar). Mȳrida and Yucatȥn: Maldonado Editores, 1986.Google Scholar
Bracamonte, y Sosa, , Pedro, . La Memoria Enclaustrada: Historia Indȷgena de Yucatȥn, 1750–1915. Mexico City: CIESAS, INI, 1994.Google Scholar
Brannon, Jeffery, and Baklanoff, Eric. Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico: The Political Economy of Yucatȥn's Henequen Industry. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Cȥmara Zavala, Gonzalo. ReseɁa HistɃrica de la Industria Henequenera en Yucatȥn. Mȳrida: Imprenta Oriente, 1936.Google Scholar
Chardon, Roland. “Some Geographic Aspects of Plantation Agriculture in Yucatȥn.” Master's Thesis, The University of Minnesota, 1960.Google Scholar
Cross, Harry. “Debt Peonage Reconsidered: A Case Study in Nineteenth-Century Zacatecas, Mexico.” The Business History Review 53, no. 4 (1979): 473–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dye, Alan. Cuban Sugar in the Age of Mass Production: Technology and the Economics of the Sugar Central, 1899–1929. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Eiss, Paul. “El Pueblo Mestizo: Modernity, Tradition and Statecraft in Yucatȥn, 1870–1907.” Ethnohistory (2008): forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farriss, Nancy M.Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, David J. “Henequen in Yucatȥn: A Mexican Fibre Crop.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers) 29 (1961): 215–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, Christopher. “Campesino Patriarchy in the Times of Slavery: The Henequen Plantation Society of Yucatȥn, 1860–1915.” Master's Thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1991.Google Scholar
Gill, Christopher. “The Intimate Life of the Family: Patriarchy and the Liberal Project in Yucatȥn, Mexico, 1860–1915.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2001.Google Scholar
Guerra, Franȱois-Xavier. Mȳxico: Del Antiguo Rȳgimen a la RevoluciɃn. Vol. 1 and 2. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura EconɃmica, 1988.Google Scholar
Haber, Stephen, Razo, Armando, and Mauer, Noel. The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876–1929. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartman, Keith. “The Henequen Empire in Yucatȥn, 1870–1910.” Master's Thesis, University of Iowa, 1966.Google Scholar
Joseph, Gilbert M.Rediscovering the Past at Mexico's Periphery. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Joseph, Gilbert M.Revolution from Without: Yucatȥn, Mexico, and the United States, 1880–1924. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Juȥrez, Ana Marȷa. “Four Generations of Maya Marriages: What's Love Got to do with it?” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 22, no. 2 (2001): 131–53.Google Scholar
Kirk, Carlos R. “San Antonio, Yucatȥn: From Henequen Hacienda to Plantation Ejido.” Master's Thesis, Michigan State University, 1975.Google Scholar
Knight, Alan. “Mexican Peonage: What was it and Why was it?” Journal of Latin American Studies 18, no. 1 (1986): 41–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leslie, Elwin C., and Pradeau, A. F.. Henequen Plantation Tokens of the Yucatȥn Peninsula, Mexico. Alexandria, VA: Organization of International Numismatists, 1972.Google Scholar
Meyers, Allan, and Carlson, David. “Peonage, Power Relations, and the Built Environment at Hacienda Tabi, Yucatȥn, Mexico.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6, no. 4 (2002): 225–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millet Cȥmara, Luis. “The Search for a Defibering Machine.” In Henequȳn: Leyenda, Historia y Cultura [Henequȳn, its Legend, History, and Culture], edited by Instituto de Cultura de Yucatȥn. Bilingual ed., 82–97. Mȳrida: Instituto de Cultura de Yucatȥn; Gobierno del Estado de Yucatȥn, 2006.Google Scholar
Narvȥez Ek, Venancio. San Antonio Too: Historia de una Hacienda Henequenera. Mȳrida: Programa de Apoyo a la Cultura Municipal y Comunitaria: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1992.Google Scholar
Nickel, Herbert J. “Las Deudas de los Sirvientes en las Haciendas Henequeneras de Yucatȥn.” Jahrbuch fɒr Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 33 (1996): 313–61.Google Scholar
Nickel, Herbert J.El Peonaje en las Haciendas Mexicanas: Interpretaciones, Fuentes, Hallazgos. Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1997.Google Scholar
Nickel, Herbert J. “Sklaverei Oder Schuldknechtschaft in Den Henequȳn-Plantagen von Yucatȥn zur Zeit des Porfiriates: Was ein Schuldbuch dazu Anzeigt.” UniversitȨt Bayreuth Forschungsmaterialen, no. 18 (1997): 1–45.Google Scholar
Nickel, Herbert J.Henequen Plantations in Yucatȥn: The End of an Agro-Industrial Monoculture in Mexico. Freiburg: Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, 2006.Google Scholar
Paredes Guerrero, Blanca. Hacienda Itzincab Cȥmara. Mimeo, 1997.Google Scholar
Peniche Rivera, Piedad. “El Impacto de la Formacion del Mercado Internacional del Henequȳn sobre las Relaciones Sociales en dos Regiones: Mȳrida y Campeche, Mȳxico.” Gobierno del Estado Mȳrida, 1993.Google Scholar
Peniche Rivera, Piedad. “Gender, Bridewealth, and Marriage: Social Reproduction of Peons on Henequen Haciendas in Yucatȥn (1870–1901).” In Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850–1900: Creating Spaces, Shaping Transitions, edited by Fowler-Salamini, Heather and Kay Vaughan, Mary, 74–92. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Peniche Rivera, Piedad. “La Demografȷa de la Nohoch Cuenta en las Haciendas Henequeras y Pueblos del Municipio de Umȥn, Yucatȥn, Mȳxico, durante el Porfiriato.” Mexicon 20, no. 2 (1998): 20–36.Google Scholar
Peniche Rivera, Piedad. “La Comunidad Domȳstica de la Hacienda Henequenera de Yucatȥn, Mȳxico, 1870–1915.” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 15, no. 1 (1999): 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Nelson A.The Caste War of Yucatȥn. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964.Google Scholar
RejɃn PatrɃn, Lourdes. Hacienda Tabi: Un Capȷtulo en la Historia de Yucatȥn. Cuadernos de Cultura Yucateca 3. Mȳrida: Gobierno del Estado de Yucatȥn, 1993.Google Scholar
Rugeley, Terry. Yucatȥn's Maya Peasantry and the Origins of the Caste War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Scott, James C.Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Steinfeld, Robert J., and Engerman, Stanley L.. “Labor舒Free or Coerced? A Historical Reassessment of Differences and Similarities.” In Free and Unfree Labor: The Debate Continues, edited by Brass, Tom and van der Linden, Marcel, 107–26. New York: Peter Lang, 1997.Google Scholar
Turner, John Kenneth. Barbarous Mexico. 1910. Reprint, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Wells, Allen. Yucatȥn's Gilded Age: Haciendas, Henequen, and International Harvester, 1860–1915. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Wells, Allen. “All in the Family: Railroads and Henequen Monoculture in Porfirian Yucatȥn.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 72, no. 2 (1992): 159–209.Google Scholar
Wells, Allen, and Joseph, Gilbert M.. Summer of Discontent, Seasons of Upheaval: Elite Politics and Rural Insurgency in Yucatȥn, 1876–1915. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weyl, Walter. “Labor Conditions in Mexico.” Bulletin of the Department of Labor, no. 38 (January 1902).Google Scholar