Hacienda cattle brand
Life on an hacienda was basically agrarian, revolving around the care of livestock, poultry, planting, harvesting, crop storage, irrigation, and general maintenance. If the estate was located in an area that included tropical low-level land, mountainous terrain, and semi-desert, administration was complex. The thousands of acres had to be supervised on horseback. Weather was a daily concern. Keeping a competent work force was an ever-changing problem.
The personnel of an hacienda consisted of a mayordomo (the administrator), minor supervisors, field workers, cowhands, shepherds, blacksmiths, masons, saddlers, cobblers, carpenters, woodcutters, weavers, a stable boss and assistants, errand boys, a barber, a chandler, gardeners, dairymen, maids, butler, cooks, seamstresses, the manager of the tienda de raya, butchers, a priest, an organist, a teacher, a governess, and sometimes a doctor. The bigger the estate, the bigger the staff. All were responsible to the hacendado who lived on the hacienda or who was an absentee owner-administrator.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the haciendas became increasingly self-sufficient. Isolated as they were, they made every effort to provide for their own needs: water, food, carriages, wagons, carts, saddles, shoes, spurs, harnesses, clothing, linen. Equipment like saws, plows, pumps, pipe, guns, and machetes had to be "imported."
The hacendado, his family, and staff ate an early breakfast. Bells clanged for a Mass at 6:00 or 7:00 A.M. (before or after breakfast), depending on the weather. In most tropical regions, work commenced at dawn to escape the noon heat; during the summer, work was often suspended around midday and resumed late in the afternoon.