Hacienda Social Relations in Mexico:The Chalco Region in the Era of Independence
T HE Mexican hacienda, a great agricultural estate, evolved at the junction of Spanish power and Indian resistance.' Through the ownership of rural properties, Spaniards strove to control land and water resources and thus to profit in an economy based on feeding Mexico's urban population. In opposition to the long-term growth of the great estate, Indians struggled to retain subsistence lands, fighting to avoid total dependence on the Spaniards' economy. Estates developed, with important regional variations, from the resolution of this widespread conflict. By the late colonial years the hacienda had become, in the words of Charles Gibson, "the most comprehensive institution yet devised for Spanish mastery and Indian subordination."2 The present inquiry examines the hacienda as a vehicle of SpanishIndian relations at Chalco, a region of fertile lands and dense Indian settlement lying from fifteen to forty miles southeast of Mexico City. Primary attention is focused upon both the persons involved and their relationships: a landed elite residing in the capital and directing the hacienda economy; estate administrators and village priests serving urban, Spanish interests in the rural environment; village leaders tying the Indian population into the wider society; and the Chalco village Indians laboring at the estates yet preserving remarkable social cohesion and autonomy. During the three decades following the achlievement of national