At a used book store, I found a great book called, "Land and Society in
Colonial Mexico," by Francois Chevalier, published by UC California Press in
Berkeley in 1970. It is about the "hacienda," its background and how it
continues to play a role in Mexico today. It goes back to the 16th and 17th
centuries in detail. It also has a great map of 16th century Mexico showing
the various communities and what type of community they were, where Spanish,
Creole, etc., points out the great estates, food production, mining, etc..
Well, it just shows a lot and I think this book will be a good sourcebook.

One of the passages in it I would like to share for now is in a chapter
called "Factors Limiting the Great Estates." It reads: "The region of Lagos
and Los Altos de Jalisco presents a peculiar problem. Its small landowners
bear today the same names as the modest stockmen of the early seventeenth
century: Macias, Anda, Padilla, Ornelas, Torres, Isaci, Aranda. Yet the big
haciendas seem to have divided the entire region among themselves. The
small, unencumbered rancho of our day is relatively recent phenomenon,
dating from the end of the eighteenth century at the earliest and usually
from the nineteenth. It is possible that the rancho represents the old
holding, or rented land, which had later split away from the big estate. If
so, the ranchero would have unintentionally avenged his Creole ancestors
who, after having been reduced to the status of sharecroppers and tenant
farmers, thus regained their independence a century or so later."

Anyways, I thought that was particularly interesting. I'm not sure I know
what he's saying exactly, but it's interesting!

Corrine Ardoin