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‘The Heart of the Country’: The Primacy of Peasants and Maize in Modern Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 December 2018

David Carey Jr
David Carey Jr*
Affiliation:
Doehler Chair in History at the Department of History, Loyola University
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Much of the agricultural history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America has been dominated by studies of export products and economies. Yet just as important for national development were domestic markets supplied by small-scale farmers. Using Guatemala as a case study for Latin America, this article examines the challenges faced by farmers producing for local, regional and national markets. Over the course of the national period, state authorities’ sporadic concern for domestic agriculture provided indigenous small-scale farmers with opportunities to advance their agendas, which ranged from resisting forced labour to maintaining their traditional agricultural practices. By the 1930s, domestic foodstuff production had increased markedly because in the early twentieth century state authorities had joined small-scale farmers to actively promote domestic-use agriculture.

Spanish abstract

Mucha de la historia de la agricultura latinoamericana de los siglos XIX y XX ha estado dominada por los estudios de productos de exportación y sus economías. Sin embargo, igualmente importante para el desarrollo nacional fueron los mercados domésticos abastecidos por pequeños agricultores. Utilizando a Guatemala como un estudio de caso para Latinoamérica, este artículo examina los retos que enfrentaron campesinos que producían para los mercados locales, regionales y nacionales. Durante el transcurso del periodo nacional, la preocupación esporádica de las autoridades estatales por la agricultura doméstica proveyó de oportunidades a pequeños agricultores indígenas para que avanzaran sus intereses, que iban desde resistir al trabajo forzado hasta mantener sus prácticas agrícolas tradicionales. Para la década de 1930, la producción alimenticia doméstica se había incrementado notablemente debido a que a principios del siglo las autoridades estatales se unieron a los pequeños agricultores para promover la agricultura de consumo doméstico.

Portuguese abstract

Grande parte da história da agricultura dos séculos dezenove e vinte na América Latina tem sido dominada por estudos sobre produtos de exportação e economias. Entretanto mercados domésticos abastecidos por pequenos agricultores foram tão quanto importantes para o desenvolvimento nacional. Utilizando a Guatemala como estudo de caso para a América Latina, este artigo examina os desafios enfrentados por produtores rurais dos mercados local, regional e nacional. Durante o período nacional, a preocupação esporádica das autoridades do Estado para com a agricultura doméstica gerou oportunidades para pequenos agricultores indígenas, que puderam avançar seus objetivos que iam desde a resistir ao trabalho forçado a manter suas práticas tradicionais de agricultura. Em 1930, a produção de comestíveis já haviam crescido significativamente. Isso porque no início do século autoridades do Estado se juntaram aos pequenos agricultores para promover a agricultura de fins domésticos.

Keywords

peasantsmaizeagricultureGuatemalacoffeecampesinosmaízagriculturaGuatemalacafécamponesesmilhoagriculturaGuatemalacafé
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , May 2019 , pp. 273 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

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2 For the purposes of this article, I define small-scale farmers as those who owned fewer than 15 cuerdas (acres) of land.

3 Letter to Ministro de Gobernación (Government Minister), 20 Sept. 1859, Loyola Notre Dame Library, Special Collections (hereafter LNDLSC), Guatemala Collection (hereafter GC), box 4, Agricultura, legajo (hereafter leg.) 28579, expediente (hereafter ex.) 206, folio 4; ‘Estadística agrícola’, 19 Oct. 1894 and ‘Nómina de las fincas de café’, 9 Jan. 1900, LNDLSC, GC, box 9, Agricultura, Ciudad Vieja; ‘Dirección general del Cuerpo de Ingenieros – sección agronomía’, Sept. 1892 and ‘Estadística agrícola de la República de Guatemala, cuadro que demuestra la producción agrícola de Sacatepéquez’, 1 Jan. to 31 Dec. 1898, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura. The Guatemala Collection is comprised of some 17 linear feet of materials photocopied from the Archivo General de Centro América (General Archives of Central America, AGCA). The majority of the documents are from the Jefatura Política de Sacatepéquez bultos. Whatever identifying descriptions from the AGCA survive on the documents are duly noted, though often only provenance, date and office are available; the Guatemalan researchers who photocopied the materials only rarely noted the leg. and ex. numbers.

4 Adolfo Vendrell, ‘Dirección general del Cuerpo de Ingenieros – sección agrícola’, Sept. 1892, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura.

5 David J. McCreery, Rural Guatemala, 1760–1940 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 309.

6 Ben Fallaw, Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001).

7 Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Studies in the Economics of Central America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), pp. 114, 161.

8 Carolyn Hall, Costa Rica: A Geographical Interpretation in Historical Perspective (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), p. 176.

9 Servando Hinojosa, ‘Ritual Effigies and Corporeality in Kaqchikel Maya Soul Healing’, Ethnology, 50: 1 (winter 2011), p. 81.

10 Kaqchikel Chronicles: The Definitive Edition, trans. and exegesis Judith M. Maxwell and Robert M. Hill II (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006), p. 196.

11 Arturo Warman, Corn and Capitalism: How a Botanical Bastard Grew to Global Dominance (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), pp. 15, 23–4, 181.

12 Letter to Ministro de Gobernación, Justicia y Negocios (Minister of Government, Justice and Trade), 14 Jan. 1851, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura, Ministerio de Gobernación, B, leg. 28552, ex. 1094; Lowell Gudmundson and Héctor Lindo-Fuentes, Central America, 1821–1871: Liberalism before Liberal Reform (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1995); Ralph Lee Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera and the Emergence of the Republic of Guatemala, 1821–1871 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1993), pp. 190–1, 430–2; McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 201.

13 René Reeves, Ladinos with Ladinos, Indians with Indians: Land, Labor, and Regional Ethnic Conflict in the Making of Guatemala (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 73–4, 85, 101.

14 Mariano Rosa Blandera, Antigua, to Ministro de Gobernación, 1 Aug. 1849, LNDLSC, GC, box 26, Varios, leg. 28548, ex. 31.

15 Ibid.

16 José López to Corregidor de (Magistrate of) Sacatepéquez, 1 Aug. 1849, LNDLSC, GC, box 26, Varios, leg. 28548, ex. 31. Although Aguascalientes and other villages in rural Sacatepéquez were predominantly indigenous according to census data, determining an individual's ethnicity is difficult because many indígenas had Spanish surnames and neither progenitors nor scribes regularly noted their ethnicity.

17 Ibid.

18 O. Saenz to Corregidor de Sacatepéquez, 1849 (n.d.), LNDLSC, GC, box 26, Varios, leg. 28548, ex. 31.

19 Mariano Rosa Blandera, Antigua, to Ministro de Gobernación, 1 Aug. 1849, LNDLSC, GC, box 26, Varios, leg. 28548, ex. 31.

20 Greg Grandin, The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), p. 179; Reeves, Ladinos with Ladinos.

21 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, pp. 1–3, 148, 294, 308, 326–33; Daniele Pompejano, La crisis del antiguo r é gimen en Guatemala, 1839–1871 (Guatemala City: Editorial Universitaria, 1997), pp. 128–44.

22 Diario de Centro América, 1 Feb. 1933, 18, 20 and 22 July 1933, 19 Aug. 1933 and 3 Sept. 1936; McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 308 (quote); Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, p. 191.

23 Pompejano, La crisis del antiguo r é gimen, p. 123; Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, p. 191.

24 Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, p. 392.

25 Report to Ministro de Gobernación, Justicia y Negocios, 14 Jan. 1851, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura, Ministerio de Gobernación, B, leg. 28552, ex. 1094.

26 Grandin, Blood of Guatemala, p. 136; Pompejano, La crisis del antiguo ré gimen, p. 147.

27 Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, pp. 390–3; Pompejano, La crisis del antiguo r é gimen, p. 123.

28 Letter from Juzgado de (Court of) San Antonio Aguascalientes (henceforth SAAC) to Corregidor y Comandante General de (Magistrate and Commandant of) Sacatepéquez, 20 June 1860, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

29 Letter to Ministro de Gobernación, 20 Sept. 1859, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura, leg. 28579, ex. 206, folio 4.

30 Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, p. 431.

31 Pompejano, La crisis del antiguo r é gimen, pp. 126–7.

32 Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, pp. 431–2; Pompejano, La crisis del antiguo r é gimen, pp. 199–200.

33 Pompejano, La crisis del antiguo r é gimen, p. 200.

34 Ibid., p. 203.

35 Antonio Batres Jáuregui, Los indios, su historia y su civilización (Guatemala City: La Unión, 1894), p. 162.

36 Ibid.

37 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 310.

38 John Early, ‘Population Increase and Family Planning in Guatemala’, Human Organization, 34: 3 (1975), p. 276; James D. Sexton and Clyde M. Woods, ‘Demography, Development, and Modernization in Fourteen Highland Guatemalan Towns’, in Robert Carmack et al. (eds.), The Historical Demography of Highland Guatemala (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1982), p. 199; Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, p. 383; Thomas T. Veblen ‘The Ecological, Cultural, and Historical Bases of Forest Preservation in Totonicapán, Guatemala’, PhD diss., University of California, 1975.

39 Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, pp. 430–1.

40 Ibid., p. 431.

41 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 311.

42 Report from San Andrés Ceballos (henceforth SAC) to Comisionado Político de (Political Commissioner of) SAAC, 23 Sept. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

43 Report from San Lorenzo El Cubo (henceforth SLEC) to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 15 March 1898, LNDLSC, GC, box 29, Agricultura.

44 Secretaria de Gobernación y Justicia (Secretary of Government and Justice), ‘Bando del jefe político de Sacatepéquez sobre café’, 31 Dec. 1887, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura.

45 Ibid.

46 Warman, Corn and Capitalism, pp. 138–9, 145.

47 Letter to Jefe Político de (Governor of) SAAC, 23 June 1895, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agriculture.

48 Report from Dueñas to Comisionado Político de Ciudad Vieja, 18 Feb. 1898, LNDLSC, GC, box 21, Agricultura.

49 Julio Castellanos Cambranes, Café y campesinos en Guatemala, 1853–1897 (Guatemala City: Editorial Universitaria, 1985); Robert Carmack, Rebels of Highland Guatemala: The Quich é -Mayas of Momostenango (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), pp. 148, 379; McCreery, Rural Guatemala; Gudmundson and Lindo-Fuentes, Central America, 1821–1871.

50 Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, p. 383.

51 Ibid., p. 384.

52 Victor Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 39, 113.

53 Recopilación de leyes agrarias (Guatemala City: Tipografía El Progreso, 1881); David McCreery, ‘Coffee and Class: The Structure of Development in Liberal Guatemala’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 56: 3 (1976), p. 457; Jim Handy, Gift of the Devil: A History of Guatemala (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1984), p. 68; Robert Carmack, Historia social de los quich é s (Guatemala City: Editorial José de Pineda Ibarra, Ministerio de Educación, 1979), p. 248; McCreery, Rural Guatemala, pp. 214, 236–54, 301.

54 Reeves, Ladinos with Ladinos, p. 40. A quintal equals 100 pounds.

55 Recopilación de las leyes de la República de Guatemala, vol. 1 (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1881), p. 457; Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920, p. 277.

56 David Carey Jr, Our Elders Teach Us: Maya-Kaqchikel Historical Perspectives. Xkib'ij kan qate’ qatata’ (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2001), p. 67; Reeves, Ladinos with Ladinos.

57 Jim Handy, ‘The Violence of Dispossession: Guatemala in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, in Sebastian Huhn and Hannes Warnecke-Berger (eds.), Politics and History of Violence and Crime in Central America (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p. 287.

58 Woodward Jr, Rafael Carrera, p. 431.

59 Pompejano, La crisis del antiguo r é gimen, pp. 197–9.

60 Reeves, Ladinos with Ladinos, pp. 13, 64–5, 71, 73, 101.

61 José Mariano Ortiz to Jefe Político, Dueñas, 7 March 1889, LNDLSC, GC, box 49, Agricultura, San Miguel Milpas Dueñas.

62 Ibid.

63 Steven Palmer, From Popular Medicine to Medical Populism: Doctors, Healers, and Public Power in Costa Rica, 1800–1940 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 24, 112.

64 Thomas Holloway, Immigrants on the Land: Coffee and Society in São Paulo, 1886–1934 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); William Roseberry, Coffee and Capitalism in the Venezuelan Andes (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1983); Fernando Picó, Amargo café: los pequeños y medianos caficultores de Utuado en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX (Río Piedras: Ediciones Huracán, 1981); Laird W. Bergad, Coffee and the Growth of Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983); Lowell Gudmundson, ‘Peasant, Farmer, Proletarian: Class Formation in a Smallholder Coffee Economy, 1850–1950’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 69: 2 (May 1989), pp. 221–4, 248, 251–2.

65 ‘Estadística agrícola, producción café, Santa Catarina Barahona’ (henceforth SCB), c. 1885–7, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura.

66 ‘Nómina de mozos colonos de la finca San Sebastián’, 5 July 1892, LNDLSC, GC, box 21, Agricultura.

67 Gudmundson, ‘Peasant, Farmer, Proletarian’; McCreery, Rural Guatemala, pp. 332–3.

68 Cambranes, Café y campesinos; McCreery, Rural Guatemala.

69 Report from SAC to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 23 Oct. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura; Report from Dueñas to Comisionado Político de Ciudad Vieja, 25 Oct. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 21, Agricultura; Report from Santiago Zamora to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 26 Oct. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 27, Agricultura.

70 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, pp. 307–8, 310.

71 Letter from Dueñas to Comisionado Político de Ciudad Vieja, 20 Nov. 1894, LNDLSC, GC, box 21, Agricultura.

72 Report from SAAC to Jefe Político de Sacatepéquez, 30 April 1900, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

73 Report from SAC to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 23 Sept. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 28, Agricultura.

74 Allen Wells, Yucatán's Gilded Age: Haciendas, Henequen, and International Harvester, 1860–1915 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1985); Warman, Corn and Capitalism, pp. 139, 143, 145.

75 Report from SLEC to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 15 March 1898, LNDLSC, GC, box 29, Agricultura.

76 Grandin, Blood of Guatemala, p. 179.

77 ‘Nómina de los agricultores del pueblo de Dueñas de Sacatepéquez’, 7 May 1888, LNDLSC, GC, box 21, Agricultura.

78 Letter from Reyes Gonzalez et al. to Jefe Político, 4 Feb. 1903, LNDLSC, GC, box 29, Agricultura.

79 Grandin, Blood of Guatemala, p. 120.

80 Jefe Político de Guatemala to Director del Hospital General (Director of the General Hospital), Guatemala City, 5 May 1904, AGCA, Ministerio de Salud Pública (Ministry of Public Health), leg. 23048.

81 Jefe Político de Guatemala to Director del Hospital General, Guatemala City, 29 Sept. 1904, AGCA, Ministerio de Salud Pública, leg. 23048.

82 Letter from Alberto Gib to Jefe Político, 5 April 1910, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

83 Report from SAAC to Comisionado Político, 14 March 1898, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

84 ‘Lista de vecinos de San Bartolomé Milpas Altas’, 2 Feb. 1903, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura.

85 ‘Cuadro de producción, municipalidad de SCB, Santiago Zamora, y SAC’, 1916, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura; Dirección General de Estadística de la República de Guatemala (Republic of Guatemala's General Directorate of Statistics, henceforth DGERG), ‘Resumen de artículos de primera necesidad, SLEC’, Oct. 1928, LNDLSC, GC, box 29, Agricultura; DGERG, ‘Resumen de artículos de primera necesidad, SCB y Santiago Zamora’, Oct. 1928 and DGERG, ‘Resumen de artículos de primera necesidad, SCB and SLEC’, Dec. 1929, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura; ‘Demarcaciones agrícolas 1904’ and ‘Demarcaciones agrícolas 1909’, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agrícola; ‘Nómina de los agricultores del pueblo de Dueñas de Sacatepéquez’, 7 May 1888, LNDLSC, GC, box 21, Agriculture.

86 Letter from Antigua to Ministro de Fomento (Minister of Development), 27 June 1902, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

87 Letter from SAAC to Coronel Ciudadano (Colonel) J. Benigno Pellecer, 21 April 1917, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

88 ‘Cuadro del distrito que demuestra cultivos en 1916 y 1917’, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

89 Letter from SAAC to Coronel Ciudadano J. Benigno Pellecer, 21 April 1917, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

90 Ibid.

91 Alcalde Primero (Mayor) Juan Ponce to Juzgado Municipal de Ciudad Vieja, 26 Oct. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 37, Agricultura de Ciudad Vieja, 1899–1916.

92 Report from Dueñas to Comisionado Político de Ciudad Vieja, 25 Oct. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 21, Agricultura; Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920, pp. 39, 161.

93 Report from SCB to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 25 Sept. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura.

94 Report from Santiago Zamora to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 29 Oct. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 27, Agricultura.

95 ‘Agriculture report: Ciudad Vieja’, 26 Oct. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 9, Agricultura.

96 Report to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 23 Sept. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura; Report from Dueñas to Comisionado Político de Ciudad Vieja, 25 Oct. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 21, Agricultura; Report from SLEC to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 21 Feb. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 29, Agricultura.

97 Report from SLEC to Comisionado Político de SAAC, 23 Sept. 1899, LNDLSC, GC, box 28, Agricultura.

98 Letter from Alberto Gib to Jefe Político, 5 April 1910, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

99 Carey Jr, Our Elders Teach Us, pp. 195–219; David Carey Jr, I Ask for Justice: Maya Women, Dictators, and Crime in Guatemala, 1898–1944 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2013), pp. 36–40.

100 J. T. Way, The Mayan in the Mall: Globalization, Development, and the Making of Modern Guatemala (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), p. 51.

101 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 311.

102 Memorias de la Dirección General de Agricultura, 1902 (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1902), p. 29.

103 Ibid.

104 Ibid., p. 7.

105 ‘Cuadro del distrito que demuestra cultivos en 1916 y 1917’, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

106 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 214.

107 Letter to Jefe Político de SAAC, 9 Feb. 1924, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

108 Report from SAAC to Coronel Ciudadano J. Benigno Pellecer, 21 April 1917, LNDLSC, GC, box 14, Agricultura.

109 Ibid.

110 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 229; Victor Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 128–38; Studies in the Economics of Central America, pp. 3, 33–5.

111 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 307.

112 Warman, Corn and Capitalism, pp. 139, 143, 145; Wells, Yucatán's Gilded Age.

113 Thomas Holloway, Immigrants on the Land, pp. 70, 87–8; Cliff Welch, The Seed Was Planted: The S ã o Paulo Roots of Brazil's Labor Movement, 1924–1964 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), pp. 28, 127; Mauricio Font, ‘Labor System and Collective Action in a Coffee Export Sector: São Paulo’, in Roseberry et al. (eds.), Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America, pp. 186–91; Verena Stolcke, Coffee Planters, Workers, and Wives: Class Conflict and Gender Relations on São Paulo Plantations, 1850–1980 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), pp. 24–5, 38–42, 63; William Roseberry, ‘Introduction’, in Roseberry et al. (eds.), Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America, pp. 9, 17–18.

114 Verena Stolcke, ‘The Labors of Coffee in Latin America: The Hidden Charm of Family Labor and Self-Provisioning’, in Roseberry et al. (eds.), Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America, p. 81.

115 Augusto Ramos, O café no Brasil e no estrangeiro (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Santa Helena, 1923), p. 306.

116 Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920, pp. 9, 160.

117 Stolcke, Coffee Planters, Workers, and Wives, p. 24.

118 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 311.

119 ‘Cuadro de producción, municipalidad de SCB’, 1916, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura.

120 ‘Producción agrícola de SLEC’, 18 Dec. 1916, LNDLSC, GC, box 57, Agricultura, 1898–1928, SLEC; ‘Cuadro que manifiesta la cantidad de cuerdas sembradas de SLEC’, 10 Aug. 1917, LNDLSC, GC, box 57, Agricultura, 1898–1928, SLEC.

121 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 301.

122 Letter to Director de Agricultura (Director of Agriculture), 2 Aug. 1930, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura; Seis años de progreso, 1931–37 (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1937).

123 Allen Wells, Tropical Zion: General Trujillo, FDR, and the Jews of Sosúa (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), pp. 10–11, 16, 35, 180.

124 Wells, Yucatán's Gilded Age.

125 Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920, pp. 39, 57, 80, 316–19; The Economic History of Latin America since Independence, p. 246; Studies in the Economics of Central America, pp. 174–5, 197, 206–7 (note 45).

126 Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920, pp. 57, 80–1, 316–19.

127 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1937 (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1938), p. 458.

128 Carey Jr, Our Elders Teach Us, p. 67.

129 Diario de Centro América, 17 Feb. 1933; Dirección General de Estadística (General Directorate of Statistics, hereafter DGE), Censo de la poblaci ó n de la Rep ú blica: levantado el 28 de agosto de 1921, 4 ° censo, parte I (Guatemala City: Talleres Gutenberg, c. 1923), pp. 166–8.

130 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1934, p. 707.

131 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1937, p. 458.

132 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1923, p. 28; Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1924, pp. 57–9.

133 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1926, p. 105.

134 Ibid., pp. 11–12, 105; Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1925, p. 12 (quote); Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1924, p. 189; Recopilación de las leyes de la Rep ú plica de Guatemala, Decreto 810, 24 de enero 1923 and Decreto 852, 18 de enero 1924; Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1927, pp. 14–16, 111; Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1929, p. 6. The minister's calculation does not match the 1924 harvest data (see Table 1). That data reveals an 18 per cent drop from 1924 to 1925.

135 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1926, p. 105.

136 Ibid., pp. 11–12, 105; Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1927, pp. 14–16, 111; Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1929, p. 6.

137 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1931, pp. 165–6; DGE, Censo de la poblaci ó n de la República, 1921, pp. 19–20.

138 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1927, p. 230.

139 El Imparcial, 26 June 1920.

140 McCreery, Rural Guatemala, pp. 313–14; Carmack, Rebels of Highland Guatemala, pp. 160–1.

141 Diario de Centro América, 4 Dec. 1936.

142 Carey Jr, Our Elders Teach Us, pp. 203–5.

143 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1939, p. 4.

144 Ibid., p. 28.

145 Diario de Centro América, 4 June 1936.

146 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1936, p. 18.

147 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1934, p. 472.

148 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1935, p. 17.

149 Ibid., p. 34.

150 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1937, p. 460.

151 Diario de Centro América, 31 Aug. 1936.

152 Diario de Centro América, 4 Dec. 1936.

153 Diario de Centro América, 23 Jan. 1933.

154 Diario de Centro América, 30 Dec. 1936.

155 Carey Jr, Our Elders Teach Us, pp. 200–3.

156 Diario de Centro América, 30 Dec. 1936.

157 Diario de Centro América, 25 July 1933; Diario de Centro América, 14 Feb. 1933 (quote).

158 Diario de Centro América, 23 Jan. 1933.

159 Diario de Centro América, 25 July 1933.

160 Diario de Centro América, 14 Feb. 1933.

161 Diario de Centro América, 4 Aug. 1933.

162 Ibid.

163 Diario de Centro América, 3 Sept. 1936.

164 Diario de Centro América, 4 Aug. 1933.

165 Diario de Centro América, 7 and 9 Sept. 1936.

166 Diario de Centro América, 3 Sept. 1936.

167 Diario de Centro América, 9 Sept. 1936.

168 Letter from Francisco Hernandez to Jefe Político de Santiago Zamora, 19 Jan. 1932, LNDLSC, GC, box 27, Agricultura.

169 Carlos Wyld Ospina, ‘Redacción y corresponsalía en Occidente’, Diario de Centro América, 17 Oct. 1936.

170 Diario de Centro América, 17, 22 and 28 Feb. 1933.

171 Telégrafo Nacional (National Telegraph), Comandante de Armas de Casa Presidencial (Presidential Commander of Arms), 12 Oct. 1931, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura.

172 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1931, pp. 3–8, 32.

173 Ibid., pp. 5–6, 44.

174 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1933, p. 50.

175 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1934, p. 472.

176 Diario de Centro América, 28 Feb. 1933.

177 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1939, p. 61.

178 ‘Audiencia del día 11 de diciembre de 1945’, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura; ‘Intendencia municipal: SCB’, 19 Dec. 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura.

179 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1934, p. 628; Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1938, p. 458.

180 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1934, p. 628.

181 Ibid.

182 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1937, p. 458.

183 Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920, p. 114.

184 Juan Sierra, Antigua, to Ministro de Agricultura y Minería (Minister of Agriculture and Mining), 11 April 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 4, Agricultura.

185 Ibid. See also ‘Informe de Dueñas’, 4 June 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 20, Informes.

186 Ibid.

187 Letter from López to Gobernador Departamental, 15 June 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 60, Economía, 1900–1948, SCB; León Corzo to Director General de la Oficina de Estabilización Económica (Office of Economic Stabilisation), 18 June 1946, LNDLSC, GC, box 32, Economía, Antigua.

188 León Corzo, Antigua, to Ministro de Economía y Trabajo (Minister of Finance and Labour), 29 April 1946, LNDLSC, GC, box 4 Agricultura.

189 Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920, p. 115.

190 Williams, Export Agriculture, pp. 69–70.

191 Samper, Mario, Generations of Settlers: Rural Households and Markets on the Costa Rican Frontier, 1850–1935 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 131–3Google Scholar, 194–7, 202–11; Hall, Costa Rica, p. 156–8, 161–2, 177–9; Gudmundson, ‘Peasant, Farmer, Proletarian’, pp. 223, 229, 237.

192 Samper, Generations of Settlers, pp. 100–7, 131–3, 159–60, 195–7, 202–11, 220–1; Stolcke, Coffee Planters, Workers, and Wives, pp. 34, 38–42, 63.

193 Report from Ernesto Ramirez to Ministerio de Agricultura y Minería (Ministry of Agriculture and Mining), 11 Aug. 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura.

194 Welch, The Seed Was Planted, p. 26; Font, ‘Labor System’, pp. 187–91, 195.

195 Juan Sierra, Antigua, to Ministro de Comunicaciones y Obras (Minister of Communications and Works), 11 May 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 6, Fuerza de trabajo.

196 ‘Audiencia del día 11 de diciembre de 1945’, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura.

197 Luis Saqché et al. to Gobernador Civil Departamental, 13 Dec. 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura.

198 ‘Intendencia Municipal: SCB’, 19 Dec. 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 31, Agricultura.

199 Alfonso Arís, Antigua, to Presidente de la República, Ministro de Gobernación, Jefe de Prensa (Press Officer), 11 June 1945, LNDLSC, GC, box 13, Informes.

200 Memoria del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1955, p. 27.

201 Ibid., pp. 27, 118.

202 McCreery, ‘Coffee and Class’; Cambranes, Café y campesinos; Williams, Export Agriculture; McCreery, Rural Guatemala; Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since 1920, pp. 316–19.

203 Tax, Sol, Penny Capitalism: A Guatemalan Indian Economy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wisdom, Charles, The Chorti Indians of Guatemala (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1940)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carey Jr, Our Elders Teach Us, pp. 82–114, 147–51; Carey, David Jr, Engendering Mayan History: Kaqchikel Women as Agents and Conduits of the Past, 1875–1970 (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 97–108Google Scholar.

204 Grandin, Blood of Guatemala, p. 111.