QUIROGA: a MEXICAN MtnVICIPIO — BRAJSTD 



23 



landholders developed in Mexico. However, in 

 the general Quiroga region no new latifundios 

 developed, although new names appeared among 

 the owners of larger than average properties such 

 as Jos6 Maria Arriaga and his son Francisco 

 Arriaga for the haciendas Chapul tepee and 

 Corrales, Jose Maria Torres Ortiz who owned seven 

 caballerias in El Tigre in 1889 which passed into 

 the hands of Francisco Torres Mendoza in 1892, 

 and Jesus Villanueva (native and resident of 

 Quiroga) who owned the Hacienda de Sanabria 

 as well as most of Zirandangacho, La Tenerfa, and 

 Samano. No foreigners were involved, although 

 elsewhere in Mexico large estates were acquired 

 by Spaniards, Itahans, Frenchmen, Britishers, 

 Americans, and Germans. The Ponce de Le6n 

 family did not lose out completely since we find 

 that in the 1890's a Gregorio Ponce de Le(5n 

 owned the Hacienda de la LaguniUa, and in 

 Quiroga a Gerdnimo Ponce owned most of La 

 Tirimicua as well as several other good pieces of 

 land. In 1910 there remained only the Hacienda 

 de Sanabria (in the tenencia of Tzintzuntzan) 

 within the municipahty of Quiroga, since the 

 haciendas of Chapultepec and Corrales had been 

 transferred to Patzcuaro earlier, and the haciendas 

 of La Lagunilla and Q\iiringuaro were within 

 Jesus Huiramba. However, on the north bound- 

 ary of Quiroga there was an hacienda of colonial 

 origin, the Hacienda de Tecacho of the jurisdiction 

 of Huaniqueo. In 1822 the lands to the north of 

 Icuacato, including the Malpais de Icuacato or 

 Sajo, belonged to the Hacienda de Santa Catalina 

 Tzintzimacato, and the Hacienda de Tecacho lay 

 to the north and west. Some time prior to 1870 

 the Hacienda de Tecacho acquii-ed Tzintzimacato 

 and controlled most of the country from Capula 

 and Teremendo to Huaniqueo. As late as 1907 

 Don Juan Landeta, owner of the Hacienda de 

 Tecacho, owned the Malpais de Icuacato, Sajo, 

 Tzintzimacato, and other lands in that region. 

 Diu-ing the period of the revolution the Hacienda 

 de Tecacho lost its southeastern holdings, and the 

 country to the north of Quiroga became the 

 Hacienda de Sajo or Zajo belonging to J. Berrueco 

 and his brothers. It was chiefly from this 7,000- 

 hectare hacienda in the 1920's and 1930's that the 

 ejidos of Teremendo Jaso, Coro Chico, and 

 Quiroga were obtained. 



BOUNDARIES OF QUIROGA AND ITS 

 RANCHOS 



The municipality of Quiroga consists of the 

 town of Quiroga, its six dependent ranchos, and 

 the three western pueblos and their dependencies. 

 The municipality, as such, never has had its 

 boundaries surveyed or marked or dehmited by 

 law. Its entity is recognized as consisting of the 

 villa and the three pueblos together with then- 

 lands. Consequently, the determination of the 

 municipal boundaries rests on the identification 

 of the boundaries of the constituent parts. We 

 are not concerned with the two most western 

 pueblos of San Andres Zir6ndaro and San Jer6n- 

 imo Purenchecuaro excepting to state that they 

 were dependencies of Erongaricuaro during most 

 of the colonial period, primarily due to the in- 

 fluence of the Franciscan convent in Erongari- 

 cuaro. The pueblo hospital of Santa Fe de la 

 Laguna has been a theocracy essentiaUy from its 

 founding by Don Vasco de Quiroga, in 1533-34 to 

 the present time. Its Indian community or 

 Comunidad de Indigenas weathered the period 

 of the Reform Laws and that of the Pax Porfiriana 

 better than did any other Indian community in 

 Michoacan. As proof of this we cite the fact that 

 the Santa Fe community owned 23 caballerias 

 worth 18,000 pesos in 1889 (as compared with the 

 value of 6,754 pesos for EI Tigre at the same date), 

 and in 1922 Santa Fe stiU owned 4,500 hectares 

 valued at 151,590 pesos, which represents a drop 

 in acreage but still a respectable acreage for com- 

 munity holdings that had not been benefited by 

 ejidal grants. As has been mentioned, Santa Fe 

 consistently won over Quiroga in any lawsuit 

 pertaining to land boundaries. Apparently Co- 

 cupao never actually held or worked the lands in 

 the western portion of her domain as outlined in 

 the title of 1534. At the present time the slopes 

 of Tzu'ate, all of the lands west of the Arroyo de 

 Quu'oga (also known as Arroyo de Cutzaro) as 

 far down as the source of the town water supply 

 (Las Cajas), the fields that border all of the western 

 side of the town of Quiroga, and aU of the fields 

 west of the road (the former Calle del MueUe) 

 that runs from Las Carreras to the lake, belong to 

 Santa Fe. This means that the Cerro Huarapo 



