¹ The Declaration of Soverignty was published in the Periódico Oficial del Gobierno Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca, vol. xxxv, no. 43 (5 June 1915); the amendments to the Political Constitution of the State are included in vol. xxxv, no. 51 (26 June 1915 ).

² José, Inés Dávila, Mensaje leído ante la XXVII Legislatura del Estado, (Oaxaca, Imprenta del Estado, 1915 ), p. 24.Google Scholar

³ I have made calculations on the basis of the number of Juntas Calificadoras del Catastro established by the municipal authorities in Oaxaca in response to the decree of 19 September 1914 issued by Carranza with the purpose of compiling a detailed register of the size and value of all urban properties in Mexico, principally for tax purposes. By May 1920, only 146 Juntas had been established out of the total number of 463 municipalities in Oaxaca, in only 18 of the state's 26 political districts, which is clear evidence of the limitations of the effective jurisdiction of the pre-Constitutional state government.

⁴ Periódico Oficial del Gobierno Provisional del Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca, vol. 1, no. 3 (27 May 1920).

⁵ Ronald, Waterbury, ‘Non-Revolutionary Peasants: Oaxaca Compared to Morelos in the Mexican Revolution’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17, no. 4 (1975), p. 440.Google Scholar

⁶ Iturribarría, J.F, Oaxaca en la Historia, (Mexico, p. 345.Google Scholar

⁷ Valadés, J., Historical General de la Revolución Mexicana, vol. 5, p. 270.Google Scholar

⁸ Documentos Políticos del Diputado Federal por Oaxaca, Rafael Odriozola (Colegio de Mexico), document 4: Douglas, Richmond, ‘The First Chief and Revolutionary Mexico: The Presidency of Venustiano Carranza 1915–20 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1976), p. 196;Google ScholarJorge, Tamayo, Oaxaca en el Siglo XX (Mexico, 1956), p. 6;Google Scholar Waterbury, op cit., p. 433.

⁹ A copy of the pact can be found in Caja 6 of the Fonda Zapata, which is being catalogued by the staff of the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City.

¹⁰ González and Allende Avellanes are quoted in Francisco, Alfonso Ramírez, Historia de la Revolución Mexicana en Oaxaca (Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolucion Mexicana, 1970), pp. 190–5.Google Scholar

¹¹ Leovigildo, Vásquez Cruz, La Soberanía de Oaxaca en la Revolución, (Mexico, 1959), p. 560;Google ScholarGeneral, Isaac Ibarra, Memorias (Mexico, 1975) declared that the pact with Obregón recognised ‘the Justice of our cause’ (p. 268).Google Scholar

¹² See, for example, Isaac, Ibarra, Memorias (1975), p. 101.Google Scholar

¹³ Nettie, Lee Benson, ‘The Plan of Casa Mata’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 25 (1945), pp. 45–56.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Charles, Berry, The Reform in Oaxaca 1856–76, (University of Nebraska Press, 1981) p. 45.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Ibid. p. 125; Falcone, F., ‘Federal–State Relations During Mexico's Restored Republic: Oaxaca, A Case Study 1867–72’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Massachusetts, 1974), pp. 132–8.Google Scholar

¹⁶ For details of the ‘Che’ Gomez rebellion in Juchitán in November 1911, See Bernal, A. Bustillo, La Revolución Mexicana en el Istmo de Tehuantepec (Mexico, 1968);Google ScholarFrancisco, Ramírezop.cit.; and Garner, P., ‘A Provincial Response to the Mexican Revolution: State Sovereignty and Highland Caudillismo in Oaxaca 1910–20’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1983), pp. 81–6.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Hector, Aguilar Camín ‘The Relevant Tradition: Sonoran Leaders in the Revolution’ in Brading, D. (ed.), Caudillo and Peasant in the Mexican Revolution, (C.U.P., 1980), pp. 92–124.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Mecham, J. Lloyd, ‘The Origins of Federalism in Mexico’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 18 (1938), pp. 164–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ Benson, op.cit.; Torruco, J. Gamas, El Federalismo Mexicano (Mexico, 1975);Google ScholarCosteloe, M., La Primera Republica Federal de Mexico 1824–35 (Mexico, 1975).Google Scholar

²⁰ Perry, L. B., Juárez and Díaz: Machine Politics in Mexico (Northern Illinois 1978), pp. 339–53.Google Scholar

²¹ Berry, op.cit., p. 197.

²² Cassidy, T., ‘Haciendas and Pueblos in 19th Century Oaxaca’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1981), p. 96.Google Scholar

²³ Iturribarría, J. F., Oaxaca en La Historia (Mexico, 1955 ), p. 264.Google Scholar

²⁴ Perry, op.cit., p. 5.

²⁵ Alan, Knight, ‘Peasant and Caudillo in Revolutionary Mexico’ in Brading, (ed.), op.cit., 17–59.Google Scholar

²⁶ The Plan de la Invicta Villa de Juárez was proclaimed on 21 January 1876: the full text can be found in García, R. Pérez, La Sierra Juárez (Mexico, 1956), vol. 11, pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

²⁷ Fernando, Díaz y Díaz, Caudillos y Caciques (Mexico, 1972);Google Scholar this view is not shared by Kern, and Dolkein, in The Cáciques (1973), who claim that caudillos are ‘groups of politicians and military men who have seized power abruptly to effect a revolution from above, essentially at the uppermost levels of national politics, without connections in local society’, and that caciquismo is ‘an oligarchical system of politics run by a diffuse and heterogeneous elite whose common denominator is local power used for national purposes’, pp. 1–2. I prefer to use contemporary terminology; in July 1876 the jefe político of Ixtlán (Juan Ramírez) issued a declaration urging Governor Francisco Meixueiro to take action to avenge ‘el agravio inferido a los libres hijos de la Sierra en la personal de su popular y valiente caudillo,Google Scholar el General Fidencio Hernández’, who had been imprisoned in Mexico City; document reproduced in Pérez, García, op.cit., vol. 11, pp. 83–4.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid, vol. 11, pp. 260–73.

²⁹ Berry, op.cit., p. 132; Hernández had also commissioned a detailed topographical survey of the Sierra in 1870; Pérez, García, vol.1., p. 220.Google Scholar

³⁰ Young, C., ‘The Social Setting of Migration’, (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1976), p. 213.Google Scholar

³¹ Pérez, García (vol. 1, pp. 227–31) suggests that the concept of private property in the Sierra Juárez prior to the colonial period was understood only with regard to the land used for ‘cultivos para el fomento de la religion’; that the concept was firmly established during the colonial period, and that there is documentation to prove that by the beginning of the eighteenth century there was a growing market in private property exchange (principally through sale and land inheritance). Nevertheless, the figures he produces indicate that even 20 years after the revolution most land was still held communally: in the 26 municipalities of the Sierra Juárez he calculated that communal land amounted to a total of 473,454 hectares, whereas private property accounted for only 14,365 hectares (divided up into over 6,000 small plots (‘predios menores’) of less than 5 hectares each. This strongly suggests that the property legislation of the Reforma was not implemented in the Sierra Juárez.Google Scholar Berry, op cit., points to the same conclusion (p. 181).

³² Young, op.cit., p. 246.

³³ Pérez, García, vol. 1, p. 241;Google ScholarIbarra, , Memorias, p. 15.Google Scholar

³⁴ Young, , op.cit., p. 248;Google Scholar for the concept of ‘cultural brokerage’ see Wolf, and Hansen, , ‘Caudillo Politics: A Structural Analysis’, Contemporary Studies in Society and History, vol. 9 (1967), pp. 168–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁵ Joseph, Whitecotton in The Zapotecas: Princes, Priests, and Peasants (Oklahoma, 1977) contends that the proclivity of serranos for Liberalism stemmed from the precarious land base of the Sierra Zapotec region, which had forced the inhabitants to engage in commercial enterprises and mining in order to meet their tribute obligations, and which in turn had made them more dependent on the international economy than on the internal marketing system within the state; consequently the local serrano economy was adversely affected by the recession in the cochineal industry in the first decades of the nineteenth century, placing increasing pressure on the land. Thus Liberal serranos (such as Juárez, Perez and Méndez) are seen as articulating this hunger for land into an agrarian policy which was designed to dis-amortise communal property to create a property-owning middle class; however, this interesting analysis fails to explain why the Reforms legislation appears not to have been implemented in the Sierra Juárez or why serranos paradoxically were so keen to defend their communal land: see p. 319.Google Scholar

³⁶ Marcos Pérez was the mentor and benefactor of the young Porfirio Diaz (who was not himself a serrano): Pérez introduced him to Benito Juárez and secured his position as subprefect of the Ixtlán district in 1858. Porfirio Díaz's father had also established strong (commercial) links with the Sierra Juárez as he had worked as a muleteer, transporting ore from the mines of the Sierra to the state capital; Peréz García, op.cit., vol. 1, p. 263, vol. 11, p. 125.

³⁷ Cassidy, op.cit., p. 98.

³⁸ Villegas, D. Cosío, Historia Moderna de México El Porfiriato, Vida Politica, (Mexico, 1972), vol. 1, 174, 309, 539, vol. 11, p. 309–10, 484–5.Google Scholar

³⁹ Wolf, and Hansen, , op.cit.;Google Scholar Peréz García, op.cit., vol. 11, pp. 128–35.

⁴⁰ Ibid., pp. 90–1 (vol. 11): Hernández and Meixueiro apparently used their influence with Díaz to secure exemption for Ixtlán from the provisions of the Ley de Hacienda of 1896 (which introduced a sales tax on basic commodities), which explains the fact that Ixtlán did not participate in the revolts which the law provoked in the Sierra and throughout the state.

⁴¹ In 1859 the seat of the State Government of Oaxaca was transferred to Ixtlán after the occupation of the city of Oaxaca by the Conservative Army. Berry, op.cit., pp. 68–70; Pérez García, op.cit., vol. 11, p. 91.

⁴² Ibid., p. 274.

⁴³ Hernández had long been a business associate of Félix Díaz: in 1905 Díaz persuaded him to join a joint venture to prospect for coal deposits in the isthmus of Tehuantepec; Henderson, , Félix Díaz, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Letter from Ibarra, and Onofre, Jiménez to Carranza, , 8 04 1912: Archivo Histórico de la Defensa Nacional (AHDN), File 212, folios 61–2, which claims that the response was overwhelmingly negative; there were nevertheless rumours circulating in the state capital in June 1911 that Meixueiro had mobilised between 10,000 and 15,000 serranos:Google ScholarBaeza, V.D. to Angel, Barrios, Archivo Particular de Alfredo Robles Domingue, vol. 4, file 18, document 48: there is no evidence to substantiate the rumour.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ibarra, , Memorias, pp. 33–5.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Bernstein, M., The Mexican Mining Industry 1890–1950 (Albany, 1966), p. 31.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The irregular and speculative nature of mining in the Sierra, and throughout Oaxaca, had always made the local industry particularly prone to the effects of a recession: according to Bernstein, Oaxaca was a ‘promoter's paradise’ (p. 71); this same view is clearly expressed in the Mexican Year Book of 1910, which declared that ‘the state is very rich in mineral resources, but, so far, these have not been properly exploited’ (p. 598).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Perez, García, op.cit., vol. 1, pp. 269–70.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibarra, , Memorias, p. 36;Google Scholar the 1st Company was formed of volunteers from Ixtepeji and San Pedro Nexicho, where inhabitants had provided the workforce for both the local mines, and in particular for the cotton mill at Xía: in 1910 the mill was employing only one-third of the workforce of 1898, and production had dropped correspondingly. Esiadísticas Económicas del Porfiriato, (Mexico, 1956), pp. 119–24.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Ibarra, , op.cit., pp. 22–6;Google Scholar for the participation of the Figueroa brothers in the Revolution, see Jacobs, I., Rancbero Revolt: The Mexican Revolution in Guerrero (Austin, 1982).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Pérez Garcia, op.cit., vol. 11, p. 228.

⁵² Honorary vice-consul Constantino Rickards to consult Wiseman, W., 30 08 1912. Public Record Office, London. Foreign Office Papers (FO), series 371, volume 1395, file 40141, claimed that 800 federal troops had been ambushed near Xía by 40 rebels, had lost all their weapons and supplies, and were forced to return to the state capital in disgrace.Google Scholar

⁵³ Meixueiro had been imprisoned by Huerta, apparently with the approval and connivance of Bolaños Cacho: Ramirez op.cit., p. 142.

⁵⁴ Periódico Oficial vol. xxxv, no. 59, 24 July 1915: the fines were not to exceed 100 pesos, and imprisonment not to exceed 20 days. The prices negotiated appear to be very high: in a letter to Carranza in 1917 it was claimed that the price of 120 litres of maize (16 almuds) in Oaxaca in 1910 was only 2.50 pesos. AHDN 212, fo. 114.

⁵⁵ Ibarra, op.cit., p. 125.

⁵⁶ AHDN xi/481.5/211, fos. 78–82: Robles had been sent to Oaxaca by Carranza to assist in the campaign against the soberanistas.

⁵⁷ Letter from Heliodoro Díaz Quintas to Meixueiro, Ibarra and Jiménez, AHDN XI/481.5/212, fos. 49–50.

⁵⁸ Letter from Ibarra and Jiménez to Carranza, AHDN XI/481.5/212, fos. 61–2.

⁵⁹ Anatoli, Shulgovski, Mexico en la Encrucijada de su Historia, (Mexico, 1968), pp. 37–68.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ For a case study of this process in Oaxaca, see Antonio, Ugalde, ‘Contemporary Mexico: From Hacienda to PRI, Political Leadership in a Zapotec Village’, in Kern and Dolkart (eds.), op.cit., pp. 119-34.Google Scholar

⁶¹ It has been demonstrated that by 1970 90% of local taxes in Oaxaca went directly to the Federal Government and only 8% to the state treasury. Young, C., op.cit., p. 270.Google Scholar