54 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOI/OGY- — ^PUBUCATION NO. 1 1 



government commenced a movement for the 

 breaking up of communal lands, excepting the 

 necessary commons or ejidos. After independence 

 was achieved the republican government (at least 

 in Michoacan) reinitiated the partitioning of 

 communally held lands, in 1828; however, appar- 

 ently not much progress was made. In 1856 the 

 so-called Ley Lerdo terminated legally the owner- 

 ship of lands by religious and civil corporations. 

 This was the real beginning of the almost complete 

 loss of lands by Indian communities since no dis- 

 tinction was made (nor was it possible in many 

 cases) between the lands of the Indian community 

 and the lands of the municipal corporation. The 

 Indian communal lands and the municipal ejidos 

 were partitioned among the members of the com- 

 munity, or among the tenants and renters of the 

 lands, and also were sold to individuals from out- 

 side the community. Federal and State laws 

 facilitating such allotting or partitioning of 

 communal lands were passed in such years as 1872, 

 1877, 1883, 1892, and 1902. A Michoacdn State 

 law of September 27, 1877, completely extinguished 

 comvnidades de indlgenas. Despite all of these 

 laws the Inchan communities of Santa Fe, San 

 Jerdnimo, and San Andres, and Quiroga to a 

 lesser degree, maintained their identities and a 

 certain amount of communally possessed lands 

 until about the turn of the century. Apparently 

 in Quiroga between 1856 and 1872 the Indians did 

 allot most of the communal lands to individuals, 

 and a final reparto de bienes de la comunidad was 

 made in 1878. A number of these individual 

 Indians sold their lands to non-Indians, as in the 

 1871-72 sales of the lands that were converted 

 into the Pueblo Nuevo and the sale of the guata- 

 pera at about the same time. Such sales left the 

 Indian community and individuals with little land 

 excepting from La Tepdricua and the Barrio del 

 Calvario northeastward mto La Tirimicua. It is 

 of interest that in the 1890's, possibly aided by the 

 law of 1892, a non-Indian (Ger6nimo Ponce) 

 acquired control of most of La Tirinricua. For all 

 practical purposes the Indian community of 

 Quiroga did not exist after 1902 until the passage 

 of the fii'st agrarian law in 1915 and the adoption 

 of the Federal and State constitutions of 1917. 



According to inhabitants of El Calvario the 

 liistory of the Indian community has been as fol- 

 lows: Formerly the only inhabitants of Quiroga 

 were the ancestors of the present inhabitants of 



the Barrio del Calvario, who lived in the area 

 around the old cemetery and the hospital (la 

 guatapera). However, there finally came a white 

 man to Quiroga, who gave the Indians much hard 

 liquor to drink and who told them that if they 

 needed money he would be glad to lend it to them. 

 Under the influence of liquor, or spurred by eco- 

 nomic necessity, many of the Indians obtained 

 loans which were always secured by mortgages on 

 lands. Almost invariably the Indians were un- 

 able to pay back the loans, and in this manner the 

 inhabitants of the guatapera were dislodged from 

 the lands in the center of town and were forced to 

 move up the hill to what is now the Barrio del 

 Calvario. From great antiquity (the accounts 

 that have been summarized were extremely in- 

 definite as to chi'onology) the inhabitants of EI 

 Calvario have fought with the inhabitants of El 

 Centre (the downtown or central part of Quiroga) 

 because the latter tried to take away the remainder 

 of the lands of the Indians, attempted to rule and 

 to dominate the Indians, and discouraged their 

 attempts to become educated. The parish priest 

 was always in league with the "judge" to subjugate 

 the Indians. In former times the Indians or 

 Comunidad Indigena del Calvario had a repre- 

 sentative who was elected for life by the members 

 of the community. The last several {los uliimos 

 representantes) of these representatives began to 

 sell pieces of land to the whites {gentes de razon), 

 and in this fashion the Indians were displaced from 

 theh ancestral abodes in the center of town and 

 elsewhere. The position of represenfante disap- 

 peared about 1910, with the Madero Revolution. 

 An almost immediate result was that the inhabi- 

 tants of Sanambo (backed by the people of El 

 Centro in Quiroga) began to claim lands that be- 

 longed to the inhabitants of El Calvario. How- 

 ever, the people of El Calvario were able to retain 

 their lands through fighting, and because of the 

 complete unity witliin the Comunidad Indigena. 

 This unity was never threatened until the coming 

 of agrarismo (attempt to make use of the agrarian 

 law of 1915), at which time the town priest divided 

 the inhabitants of El Calvario into two parties by 

 exconimimicating those who were known to be 

 agraristas. The "atheistic" agrarians and the 

 good Christian members of the comunidad almost 

 came to blows, but ultimately the dissension was 

 settled peacefully — principally because of the for- 

 bearance of the agrarians who were in the majority. 



