LABOR 



107 



helped him to keep accounts. The Indians, almost 

 always illiterate, were generally suspicious that 

 they were being cheated, but there was little they 

 could do. 



The following account of how the system worked 

 from the peon's point of view, appears in Resales' 

 diary just after the system was abolished. Six 

 strangers, who turned out to be Antoneros, slept 

 in the Rosales portico the night of May IS, 1936. 

 One of them asked Rosales to read him the balance 

 of debt in his httle book. WTien told it was 1,633 

 pesos ($27.22), he said that his employer was a 

 thief, and recounted his story: 



His father, dead 15 years (on the plantation) had once 

 been well-off in his village, but he gave up his properties to 

 support his family while he went to do mandamienlos; he 

 finally took permanent employment on a plantation which 

 was then better than living in his village. His family, 

 together with others from San Andres, Panajachel, Solold, 

 and Chichicastenango thus took root in the plantation. 

 When he died, the contracted debt was on the shoulders of 

 his sons, and the one who was telling the story thought his 

 sons too would have to carry the debt when he died. But 

 "how happy we were when we learned," he continued, 

 "that the President actually had ordered our freedom, and 

 that we would no longer have to pay off these old, old 

 debts!" He went on to say that for every 10 pesos 

 received every month or so, 30 or more were entered in the 

 account book, and they had to work even on Sundays, the 

 debt never decreasing, only rising more and more. When 

 the peons realized this injustice, they resolved not to take 

 any more money. Afterward they learned that the 

 manager received money for them biweekly from the 

 owner, which he had pocketed and (as Rosales could see) 

 not credited to the laborers. Now when the peons heard 

 of the new law, they met with the owner; he told them that 

 henceforth they owed nothing, and should continue to work. 

 A committee of 10 of the laborers instead went to the Jefe 

 Politico to verify the law and to see if the patron could not 

 be made to conceal rather than burn the books, for none of 

 them wanted to stay on the finca; they wished either to 

 find new employers or to go home.*^ 



On May 7, 1934, the system of debt peonage 

 was abolished by National legislation. '^ Effec- 



*' A few days before, Rosales had hoard two Indians discussing the freeing 

 of the laborers on the plantations. One said that the unfortunate owners of 

 the/inca5arelosinp their money; the other replied, "No; it is right that a poor 

 worliraan should be freed after working 20 years only so that his employers 

 might sit smoking and eating well at the expense of the sweat of their work- 

 men." 



" Decreto Legislafiro No. 1995. I am unable to reconcile this fact with the 

 following note, dated October 7, 1936, in Resales' diary: "A representative 

 of the plantation told me that he is looking for a certain Indian here to go to 

 the plantation to work in accordance with an agreement made in the town 

 hall before the fiesta (of October 4) when he advanced money on 30 tareas 

 that the Indian promised to work off. The man said he is authorized to 

 sign up Indians of Panajachel, San Antonio, San Jorgf^, San Andres, Con- 

 cepcion, and Solold (not Santa Catarina "because Catarinecos are poor 

 workers and are dishonest.") He will stay in the Highlands two months to 

 recruit labor .... He says he gets a small salary plus a few cents per man 

 that he hires." 



tive in 2 years, all such debts stOl outstanding 

 were to be canceled and it would henceforth be 

 illegal to advance a laborer more money than 

 sufficient for his journey to the plantation. Since 

 such a law might by itself be expected to make 

 difficult a regular labor supply, it was immediately 

 supplemented with the "Law of Vagrancy,"'* 

 which obliged anj' person not having a trade or 

 profession or not possessing a certain amount of 

 cultivated land to seek employment for 100 or 

 150 days of the year, depending upon the amount 

 of land owned. This law was also to take effect 

 in 2 years. As interpreted by the Secretary of 

 Agriculture in June of 1937 *' (a year after the 

 law of vagrancy went into effect), the land require- 

 ments were set up as follows: 



No laborer shall be considered a vagrant, nor be obliged 

 to seek employment with another if he personally culti- 

 vates at least three manzanas of coffee, sugar cane or 

 tobacco, or three manzanas of maize in the warm country 

 or four in the cold country, or four manzanas of wheat, 

 potatoes, garden-stuffs, or any other crop in whatever zone. 



The laborers who cultivate less than this, but not less 

 than ten cuerdas of twenty brazadas, are obliged to do 100 

 man-days of work on outside plantations. 



And the laborers that have no crops of their own must, 

 in order not to be considered vagrants, do 150 man-days 

 of labor annually in outside plantations. 



Three manzanas are equal to about 5.67 acres, 

 and four manzanas to about 7.56 acres. Ten 

 cuerdas of 20 brazadas (40 varas) are equal to 

 about 2.78 acres. Since the Indians of Panajachel 

 rarely possess such extensions of cultivable land, 

 under the law virtually all of them are obliged to 

 work for outsiders at least 100 days of the year. 

 But since an acre of Panajachel delta land, espe- 

 cially if in truck, requires all of the time at a 

 man's disposal and also earns him a tidy living on 

 local standards, a man who owns even 1 acre can 

 hardly be considered a vagrant. 



To facilitate enforcement, the Vagrancy Law 

 was implemented by a law *° requiring every 

 laborer to purchase (for 2 cents) a libreto (little 

 book) in which his employer could note the num- 

 ber of days of labor done. The local authorities 

 were to enforce the law through the evidence of 

 the little books. The law took effect in May of 

 1936, and the books were available during the 

 next months. When the Indians worked for 

 Ladinos the employers entered their days; when 



•< Decreto Legiilatiro No. 1996, May 8, 1934. 

 » El ImparcM, Guatemala, June 16, 1937, p. 1. 

 '• AcufTilo of September 24, 1935. 



