QUIKOGA: a MEXICAN MXTNICIPIO — BRAND 



19 



ing lands. However, the metric system had Httle 

 popular use until the use of the entire system was 

 made mandatory September 16, 1896. Now, after 

 half a century of presumptive use, the metric 

 system is not used and is only imperfectly under- 

 stood by the rural population of the Quiroga area ; 

 and its chief use is by the merchants and officials 

 in town. The principal parts and conversions, 

 pertaining to land measurement, are: 



1 meter= 39.37 inches or 1.09 yards. 



1,000 meters make 1 kilometer= 3,280 feet, or 1,093.61 

 yards, or 0.62137 mile. 



1X1 meter=l square meter=l centidrea= 10.76 square 

 feet. 



lOX 10 meters= 100 square meters= 1 drea= 1076.4 square 

 feet or 143 varas^. 



100X100 meters= 10,000 square meters=100 dreas or 

 1 hecUirea = 2A71 acres, and 1 acre equals 0.4047 

 hectare. 



1,000X1,000 meters =1,000,000 square meters =100 hec- 

 tares or 1 square kilometer = 0.3861 square mile. 



Measiu-ements in the field were made (and still 

 are) by pacing and with a marked cord or rope. 

 Wliere wheeled vehicles could go, measurement 

 was sometimes made by tying a rag on a wheel of 

 a known circumference and counting the revolu- 

 tions. Toward the end of the colonial period a 

 formal measuring device (odometer or trocheam- 

 eter) to count rotations and calculate distances 

 was occasionally used on the main highways. 

 However, until recently most long road distances 

 and cross-country distances were calculated from 

 elapsed time (using the movement of the sun 

 instead of a watch) and conventional estimates of 

 rate of progress of pedestrian, horse, mule, ass, 

 stagecoach, etc. These distances were expressed 

 in leagues, and were qualified as long or short, 

 easy or hard, smooth or broken, etc. Since no 

 compass was used, direction was obtained by 

 reference to the sun, the pole star, and to various 

 landmarks. 



THE HACIENDA AND RANCHOS 



From the previous discussion it wiU have been 

 noted that a new element, the hacienda, entered 

 the picture between 1603 and 1681. The ha- 

 cienda, often an entailed estate or mayorazco 

 descending through the first-born son of succeed- 

 ing generations, developed in the seventeenth 

 century along with the white (and a few mestizo) 

 families which in some five generations since the 

 Conquest had managed to acquire wealth, prestige. 



and property. In most cases in Michoacan the 

 owners of haciendas were the descendants of 

 encomenderos and corregidores who had taken ad- 

 vantage of their ofiicial positions to acquire lands 

 at the expense of the Indians whom they were 

 supposed to protect, in addition to some lands 

 legally acquired by grant and purchase. Although 

 the Spanish laws from the sLxteenth century on 

 repeatedly affirmed that no lands were to be taken 

 from the Indians, the Indians were allowed to sell 

 their lands (under certain restrictions which were 

 seldom observed), and large tracts of land were 

 acquired by dubious purchases. Periodically (es- 

 pecially in 1631, 1643, 1674, 1716, and 1754) the 

 government of New Spain would issue confirma- 

 tory titles or composiciones (for a consideration) 

 which would absolve the possessors from review 

 and penalty for earlier irregularities, and which 

 also served as perfect and guaranteed titles despite 

 any imperfections in earlier titles. By the end 

 of the seventeenth century there were two ha- 

 ciendas in the area of our study. La Teneria, 

 which was a rented hacienda in 1681, and which 

 presumably had been turned over (in whole or in 

 part) to Cocupao, shows up in 1714 as a capellania 

 (capital property the income from which was 

 used to support an ecclesiastic) which constituted 

 the southern boundary of Cocupao. We can 

 surmise, from 1680 information in the titles of the 

 e.x-hacienda of Atzunbo, that Antonio de Caceres 

 y Secadura (the son or grandson probably of the 

 Alonso de Caceres of 1603) became afraid that 

 some day the government might really take away 

 the lands (as it had been doing on paper for so 

 long), and therefore turned over the property or 

 its usufruct to the church. This vested interest 

 of the chiu-ch may help explain why the Indians 

 of Cocupao were never able to obtain actual 

 possession of the land. However, we have no 

 details of the natiu-e or extent of the hacienda of 

 La Teneria. It is quite probable that it was not 

 a true hacienda de labor with many thousands of 

 acres of land, but rather was devoted (as its name 

 would imply) to the business of tanning hides and 

 skins. There remains the truly great hacienda 

 which came into being east and south of Cocupao 

 sometime between 1618 and 1680. 



Sometime prior to 1870 the Hacienda de 

 Atzimbo was divided among the tenant farmers 

 or parcioneros. We did not find out why or how 

 this was done, but on May 31, 1870, the par- 



