EMPIRE S CHILDREN: THE PEOPLE OF TZINTZUNTZAN FOSTER 



171 



Its downfall was caused, or at least hastened, 

 by attacks against the Church. 



Financial troubles of the new governments, 

 plus the increasing holdings of the Church, led 

 to attempts to divest the Church of excess prop- 

 erty, culminating in the "Law of Expropriation" 

 of June, 1856, which provided that, 



all real estate held by religious or civil corporations 

 [italics mine. G.M.F\] should be adjudged in severalty 

 to the persons to whom it was rented or leased, at a 

 price corresponding to a sum which, at 6 percent in- 

 terest, would yield an annual income equal to the 

 amount being paid as rent. Property not so leased or 

 rented should be sold at auction. [Simpson, 1937, 

 p. 23.] 



In 1857 the basic principles of this law were 

 incorporated in the constitution of the same 

 year. Article No. 27 of which forbade civil and 

 ecclesiastical corporations to own and adminis- 

 ter real property, with certain exceptions. Thus, 

 the stage was set for the despoiling of thousands 

 of land-owning villages, for 



whatever the Reform may have acconijilished in pav- 

 ing the way for the appearance of a middle class in 

 Mexico was more than offset by the damage done to 

 the landholding pueblos. The deliberate inclusion in 

 the Constitution of 1857 of civil communities in the 

 list of corporate bodies forbidden to hold lands led 

 inevitably to the breakup of hundreds of communal 

 groups and the loss of their property to the ever 

 greedy land monopolists. The idea, well intentioned 

 as it may have been, of forcing the villages out of 

 their communal lethargy, of creating a new class of 

 independent small farmers by substituting personal 

 for collective ownership, simply did not work out 

 in practice. [Simpson, 1937, pp. 24-25.] 



The war of the French intervention delayed 

 action, so that it was not until some years later 

 that the effects of the provisions of the new con- 

 stitution began to be felt. In 1869 Tzintzuntzan 

 had lands valued at $25,000 (Memoria, 1869, 

 p. 124). Moderate as the sum seems, out of 

 about 115 land-owning pueblos in Michoacan, 

 only 15 had as much or more land. Tzintzun- 

 tzan appears to have had the largest holdings 

 of any town in the Tarascan area at that time. 

 Unfortunately, the data do not indicate whether 

 this sum refers only to the strict ejido lands, 

 that is, nonagricultural, or to all of the lands 

 utilized by the community. 



In Michoacan the provisions of the constitu- 

 tion of 1857 were implemented by a State law 

 passed February 5, 1875, which provided for 



the drawing of a padron or list of all men of 

 each community, together with a description of 

 the location and nature of lands farmed by 

 them.' In the same year Jose Maria Villago- 

 mez, president of the Comunidad Indigena of 

 Tzintzuntzan, drew up the list, which showed 

 that 244 men, or 90 percent of all family heads, 

 were landholders. Area of land was calculated 

 by the old method, now found only in remote 

 parts of Mexico, of listing the amount of maize 

 seed needed to plant each field. Five basic areas 

 belonged to Tzintzuntzan, including the two hills 

 Tariaqueri and Yahuaro, and the rich lake-shore 

 lands of Sanamo, Zirandangacho (including Te- 

 neria), and Patambicho, stretching almost to the 

 limits of Quiroga. 



A total of 1,267 almuds of 8 liters each of 

 maize were listed as sown on land owned by the 

 pueblo. Figuring 15 liters of seed per hectare, 

 this gives a figure of 733 hectares of land. It 

 is impossible to check these calculations; what- 

 ever the exact figures may have been, it is cer- 

 tain that Tzintzuntzan held agricultural lands 

 in abundance, much of it the valuable lake-shore 

 milpas. 



In 1878 the list was formally accepted by all 

 interested parties, and the proposed distribution 

 of land titles approved, both by the citizens of 

 Tzintzuntzan, and by the Governor of the State. 

 The actual distribution was rather slow, due to 

 subsequent quarrels, objections on the part of 

 an outsider v/ho claimed to own some of the 

 lands, and to general bureaucratic inefficiency. 

 By 1883, a State commission had traced bound- 

 aries of all lands, and in spite of protests by 

 some farmers M'ho claimed to have been omitted, 

 the revised schedule of distribution was approv- 

 ed 216 to 33. Although the data are not clear, 

 it appears that the final distribution of agricul- 

 tural lands had taken place by 1885. 



Through sheer strength of character, the pres- 

 ident of the Comunidad Indigena, Jose Maria 

 Villagomez, forbade the citizens to sell their 

 property while he remained in power. This in- 

 cluded most if not all of the 7-year period in 

 which the distribution was made. Even before 

 the last title was assigned, the attacks began. The . 



1 Except for the quote from Simpson (p. "j/2) on the Plan- 

 of Veracruz of December 12 1914, all subsequent data refer- 

 ring to the e,ido are taken from \^^ archive gf the Agrariam 

 Department in Morelia, F'_ (>j„ 44 "T^int. ■ i.. ». n,^ 

 roga" (Archival data, n.'dj ^"'--untzan, Mp.„. ^... 



