A MEXICAN HACIENDA 



573 



whole of the country, is not compensated 

 for by the fact that his wants are few 

 and easily satisfied. 



The peon is not ambitious ; he is apa- 

 thetic. But he has known no better life, 

 and the lack of incentive to effort ren- 

 ders his mental and moral elevation a 

 matter of greater difficulty than it other- 

 wise might be. Taking into account the 

 generations of servitude to which he has 

 been subject, it is not strange that he 

 evinces no regard for the morrow, ex- 

 cept as a time to which all disagreeable 

 things should be postponed, and no con- 

 cern for any interests other than those 

 of the immediate present. 



the childish peon 



He is essentially a child and is to be 

 treated as such. His salvation is not in 

 higher wages, which would soon be 

 squandered, leaving him in worse condi- 

 tion than before, but first in education 

 of the right sort, which will give him an 

 outlook upon life and an incentive to 

 effort. At the time when the writer knew 

 Cedros it had just passed from the con- 

 trol of its Mexican owners into the hands 

 of an American company, whose interest 

 in the property was mainly in the exploi- 

 tation of guayule, a small rubber-bear- 

 ing tree of the desert. With the advent 

 of the new management an effort was 

 made to improve the condition of the 

 peon and the quality of his service by the 

 payment of higher wages, with the result 

 that he worked less than he did before 

 and no more often than was necessary to 

 eke out a subsistence. 



The people of the hacienda have little 

 opportunity for education and rarely re- 

 ceive any instruction worthy of the name. 

 A little teaching of the merest rudiments 

 by instructors whose own education is 

 exceedingly meager, with a dearth of 

 books and a dark hovel for a school- 

 room, is a fair representation of their 

 educational opportunity ; yet many of 

 these people have large capacity for edu- 

 cation and are eager to learn. 



That the interests of the country would 

 be better served if they were given rea- 

 sonable educational opportunity seems 

 obvious ; but the status of the peon, his- 

 toric and economic, militates against his 



receiving the consideration which he de- 

 serves. 



Mixture of Spanish and Indian blood 

 is common among the peon population. 

 Many of these people are clean, intelli- 

 gent, and industrious, but the reverse is 

 more frequently true. In the small com- 

 munity at Cedros, where both extremes 

 and many intermediate conditions obtain, 

 it is pleasant to remember an acquaint- 

 ance with a family of the better sort. 



It would be difficult to find more gen- 

 uine courtesy and refined taste than was 

 habitually shown by the members of this 

 household. They were comparatively 

 uneducated, but their spirit and manners 

 were apparently actuated by an innate 

 sense of delicacy and propriety. And we 

 found others of the same sort whose 

 manners would put to shame many boast- 

 ing higher education and culture. 



DIVISION MANAGERS 



For business management the large 

 hacienda is divided into fractions (this 

 hacienda into seven fracciones), over 

 each of which an officer, cap oral, pre- 

 sides, who administers his district and is 

 responsible to the owner, or representa- 

 tive of the owner, the administrador. 

 The peon labor is in charge of a mayor- 

 do in o, who assigns the men their tasks, 

 supervises their work, and gives account 

 to his chief. 



It is hardly necessary to say that the op- 

 erations of a hacienda in their character 

 and extent are controlled very largely by 

 the natural resources of the region occu- 

 pied. Mining, farming, and stock-raising 

 are the principal enterprises of the haci- 

 endas on the plateau, while exploitation 

 of native plants yielding fiber, rubber, 

 liquors, etc., are also operations of im- 

 portance in many places. 



In most instances where the manage- 

 ment of such business is in the hands of 

 the Mexican and has not passed under 

 the control of more progressive people, 

 the methods employed are of the crudest 

 sort. One observing their farming in the 

 outlying districts might imagine himself 

 living in the days of the Pharaohs. The 

 field is plowed with a crooked stick 

 drawn by oxen, with the yoke tied to the 

 horns. Grain is cut with sickle and 



