Mexican Peonage: What Was It and Why Was It?

Abstract

Our knowledge of Mexican agrarian history has been greatly enhanced by hacienda studies, based on original hacienda archives. Inter alia , these have finished off for good the old notion of ‘feudal’ hacendados who spurned profit for prestige. But if – thanks to their reliance on hacienda accounts – these studies have shed light on hacienda marketing and profit-maximizing, they have told us less about the hacienda's internal workings. The hacienda's relations of exchange are, therefore, better understood than its relations of production. And, from some theoretical perspectives, it is the latter which are primary (which, in grand terms, determine whether the hacienda is to be termed ‘feudal’, ‘capitalist’ or something else again).