The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's Record

by Paul Alexander Bartlett

Introduction

Gisela von Wobeser

Professor of History, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D.F.

Translated from the Spanish by
Steven J. Bartlett
Senior Research Professor, Oregon State University

The lifework of artist Paul Alexander Bartlett to retrieve the past of the Mexican hacienda has made this book possible. This volume contains a selection of his original pen-and-ink illustrations and photographs, realized over a period of some forty years, of more than three hundred haciendas.

Bartlett began his record during the 1940s. He made a series of visits to Mexico to sketch and photograph the hacienda buildings that had survived the Agrarian Reform. Many haciendas were inaccessibly located, at considerable distances from population centers. He traveled hundreds of miles on foot, on muleback, by train and by boat, climbed hills, and descended into canyons to find them.

The record that Bartlett has made represents an important chapter in Mexican history. Because the majority of hacienda structures have been subjected to severe and progressive deterioration, his study, in many cases, is the only trace that remains of the physical appearance of individual haciendas. His collection of illustrations and photographs is now in the custody of two institutions, the University of Texas at Austin, in the Benson Latin American Collection, and the University of Wyoming in Laramie, in the Western History Research Center [Now the American Heritage Center]. These two archives will be useful to scholars interested in the physical structure of the haciendas, their evolution and history, their economy, as well as in comparative studies. At the same time, this collection of materials makes it possible to study the characteristics of different types of haciendas. Above all, the contents of the two archives form an extremely valuable resource for the history of art and architecture.

When Bartlett began his travels through the Mexican backcountry, the producing haciendas had largely disappeared. What he found were often remnants of an earlier existence during the Porfiriato, the period between 1877 and 1911. Many of the buildings he saw dated from this epoch, along with their interior decorations, water and irrigation systems, machinery, and farming tools. In addition to these haciendas, he also found vestiges of the first half of the nineteenth century and of the colonial era. These were mainly hacienda buildings, some of which had been rebuilt during the Porfiriato.

The disintegration of the haciendas began as a result of the Mexican Revolution, and it ended with the redistribution of their land during the Agrarian Reform. During the 1930s and 1940s, huge rural estates were fragmented and converted into ejidos or minifundios. Ejidos are tracts of land that are granted as communal property to rural towns. They are worked by members of the community, who benefit from the land's yield. Ejidal properties cannot be sold or transferred. The minifundios are small private pieces of property, amounting on the average to 100 hectares but varying according to the region of the country and type of soil. Between 1934 and 1940, approximately 17,900,000 hectares (44,230,900 acres) were redistributed, representing close to half of all tillable land. This repartitioning of the land has continued into the present, though its pace has been much slower.

As hacienda property was broken up, the hacienda owners, the hacendados, were left in possession of the hacienda buildings and the immediate land around them, the size of which was restricted by the limits that were set for these small properties. This meant that immense haciendas were reduced to very tiny ranches. Along with their land, the hacendados lost access to water, they lost their means of irrigation, machinery, and livestock.

Because of these measures, the hacienda system was annihilated. For the majority of the hacendados, the few acres left them turned out to be unproductive land, and their hardships were magnified by the instability and the violence that prevailed in the country. As a result, many hacienda buildings were abandoned or were destined for new purposes.

Only a few of the ex-haciendas remained in production. Some landowners took advantage of the limited property left to them to plant lucrative, high-yielding crops, while others augmented the size of their cultivated land by leasing adjoining land or by purchasing it under assumed names.

When Bartlett began his hacienda visits in the 1940s, he found many of the hacienda buildings in ruins, exposed to the ravages of time and vandalism. Buildings had been converted into chicken coops, pigsties, public apartments, and machine shops. Others served as sources for construction materials, from which were scavenged rocks, bricks, beams, and tiles for the habitations of the local population. In some cases the destruction was total: All the hacienda's structures were removed, and only the name of the place alluded to the fact that an hacienda had ever existed there.

At other haciendas, buildings were adapted to new uses. They were transformed into hotels, resorts, government buildings, barracks, hospitals, restaurants, and schools. The exterior of the buildings were generally left intact; interiors were completely changed.

The best-preserved hacienda buildings were those that continued to function as country properties or vacation homes. In these, Bartlett often found furnishings and utensils from the epoch of Don Porfirio, surrounded by the old traditions of Mexican country life.

As an artist, Bartlett's attention was drawn foremost to the hacienda buildings themselves and to the works of art that they housed. The majority of his illustrations and photographs therefore depict the main group of hacienda buildings or certain buildings—for example, the main residence, the church, the patios, and work buildings. However, among his rich materials, one can also find a testimony to hacienda work and life: machinery, irrigation devices and structures, farm implements, mining equipment, warehouses, barns, corrals, and carriages, among others.

The history of the hacienda spans three centuries. The first haciendas appeared in New Spain toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, when demand for agricultural products increased and the prehispanic supply system crumbled. Farming received an impetus at the hands of Spaniards, and the small farms and livestock ranches, which dated from the sixteenth century, expanded their landholdings. Many new sources of water were tapped, and a resident labor force was developed. These steps encouraged production and supplied the regional as well as the continually growing metropolitan markets.

The increase in hacienda production and in the number of hacienda workers made it necessary to expand the sixteenth-century facilities, which, with the exception of those of the sugar plantations, had been very modest. In this way, a large number of buildings were constructed, buildings that were to be preserved as the core of many haciendas until the Porfiriato.

There were three principal types of haciendas. Grain haciendas were the most important because they were dedicated to the cultivation of the subsistence crops corn and wheat. In addition, beans, barley, lima beans, chiles, and other crops were planted. Grain haciendas were established mainly in the vicinity of the urban centers, which they supplied. The important areas of grain cultivation were Puebla, Atlixco, Toluca, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, and Michoacán. Livestock haciendas occupied a second level of importance. They raised cattle and horses, as well as goats and sheep. This type of hacienda tended to be located in more remote areas, in an attempt to prevent the livestock from invading cultivated fields. Sugar haciendas were located in tropical regions, where they could count on sufficient water for the cultivation of sugarcane. The most important sugar regions were Veracruz, Cuernavaca, Cuautla, and Michoacán.

Throughout the seventeenth century the haciendas grew in significance. They held much of the land and water resources, expanded their labor force, intensified their control over the market, and consolidated their territorial rights in accordance with composiciones de tierras. (The phrase composiciones de tierras belongs to the legal terminology of the time. It relates to a legal mechanism that was instituted by the Spanish Crown during the first half of the sixteenth century but which was applied mainly during the seventeenth century. It made it possible to legalize properties whose titles were not in order.) They sought to make improvements by constructing, for example, buildings, irrigation systems, roads, granaries, and shelters for livestock. Together, these made it possible to increase agricultural yields substantially. It was not an easy process, often involving transfers of hacienda property, severe indebtedness of their owners, and great difficulties in production.

Hacienda expansion proceeded throughout the following two centuries. Huge tracts of uncultivated land were transformed into farmland and impressive water distribution systems opened up new areas to irrigation. The population, constantly growing, demanded an ever greater quantity of food. Much land that had been devoted to the raising of livestock was turned over to cultivation, and the stock were gradually displaced until livestock haciendas came to be located mainly in the north of the country. However, this was not a period of unimpeded progress: there were severe periods of crisis, sharp fluctuations in production, a lack of continuity in the transmission of property, and frequent bankruptcies. Hacienda properties tended to be deeply mortgaged to ecclesiastical institutions and to individual lenders.

When dictator Porfirio Díaz assumed power in 1877, a boom period for the hacienda began. Historical circumstances were favorable, and the government offered all manner of facilities to the livestock and farm impresarios. The substantial increase in the country's population, as well as the strengthening international economy, created a great demand for farm and livestock products. The consumption of goods from the tropics, such as coffee, cacao, sugar, tobacco, and vanilla, grew considerably during this time both in Europe and in the United States. The same thing happened with certain basic materials, among them henequén, rubber, chicle, and ixtle. (Ixtle or istle is the name given to the hard fibers that are extracted from different plants of the genus agave, of which the most important are the maguey and the lechuguilla. They are raised mainly in northern Mexico.)

As a result of laws that secularized communal land and set aside fallow land, huge areas of cultivation and land suitable for farming were placed at the disposition of commercial agriculture. Supporting capital for the most part came from foreign sources—from the United States, France, and England. Labor came from the impoverished peasants, from town workers, and from indigenous groups, among them the Mayas and the Tarahumaras.

Large landed estates appeared and a powerful class of hacienda owners arose. It was during this period that it was possible to overcome some of the endemic problems that had beset the hacienda since its birth: instability, indebtedness, lack of capital, and scarce revenues. During the Porfiriato, the majority of the haciendas were highly productive and provided their owners with plentiful earnings. Yet, at the same time there were haciendas that had to face financial problems and fluctuations in production.

Frequently, hacendados participated in other areas of business, such as finance, commerce, and mining. Their privileged economic position permitted them to furnish their rural properties with great luxury and to sustain a life of affluence. Bartlett found hacienda residences with twenty bedrooms, salons for dancing, Japanese gardens, billiard rooms and music rooms, swimming pools, bullrings, and palisades. Bearing witness to the interior splendor of these mansions, there was fine furniture from Europe, carpeting from Persia, velvet draperies, chandeliers of cut crystal, and valuable oil paintings. There were haciendas that possessed chapels that rivaled the provincial churches in size, architecture, and decor. Of course not all haciendas were this elegant: most had much more rustic appointments; many were in decline, poorly maintained, furnished with the very barest minimum.

Bartlett captured and transmits to us today through his art the grand cultural richness that enfolds the hacienda, its diversity according to its moment in time, its location, and its type of production, and he accompanies these with a portrayal of hacienda life, customs, and its inherent style of thought. He is one of the pioneers in his field of study.

Sonora
1. Hacienda de Endo

Chihuahua
2. Hacienda de Colonia Campo
3. Hacienda Corralitos
4. Hacienda Quinta Carolina

Durango
5. Hacienda de Juana Guerra
6. Hacienda de Canutillo

Nayarit
7. Hacienda San Cayetano

San Luis Potosí
8. Hacienda de Castamay

Guanajuato
9. Hacienda de Valenciana
10. Hacienda de Leoncito
11. Hacienda de Calderón
12. Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto
13. Hacienda de los Ricos
14. Hacienda San Cayetano de Valencia
15. Hacienda de Petaca
16. Hacienda de la Erre

Jalisco
17. Hacienda de Medinero
18. Hacienda de Cedra
19. Hacienda de Ciénega de Mata
20. Hacienda de Cabezón
21. Hacienda de Cuisillos
22. Hacienda de Zapotitán
23. Hacienda de Bellavista
24. Hacienda de Aurora
25. Hacienda de la Venta del Astillero

Hidalgo
26. Hacienda de Santana
27. Hacienda de Xala
28. Hacienda de Pueblilla
29. Hacienda de Tepa-Chica

Michoacán
30. Hacienda de Guarache

Colima
31. Hacienda de San Antonio

State of México
32. Hacienda de San José
33. Hacienda de Altillo
34. Hacienda de los Morales
35. Hacienda de Jajalpa
36. Hacienda la Gavia
37. Hacienda de Esperanza

Morelos
38. Hacienda de Cocoyoc
39. Hacienda de Chinameca

Tlaxcala
40. Hacienda de los Molinos

Puebla
41. Hacienda de Pópulo
42. Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo
43. Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco
44. Hacienda de Arenillas
45. Hacienda de Caleturia

Veracruz
46. Hacienda de Encero
47. Hacienda Manga de Clavo

Oaxaca
48. Hacienda de Águilar

Campeche
49. Hacienda de Castamay

Yucatán
50. Hacienda de Holactún
51. Hacienda de Teya
52. Hacienda de Xcanatun
53. Hacienda de Sodzil
54. Hacienda de Tabi
55. Hacienda San Ignacio
56. Hacienda Pixoy
57. Hacienda Yaxche
58. Hacienda de Tikuch
59. Hacienda de Chichén Itza