Cline, Howard F., The Aurora Yucateca and The Spirit of Enterprise in Yucatan, 1821-1847.

The "Aurora Yucateca" and the Spirit of Enterprise in Yucatan, 1821-1847
Author(s): Howard F. Cline

Source: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Feb., 1947), pp. 30-60
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2508590
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THE "AURORA YUCATECA" AND THE SPIRIT OF
ENTERPRISE IN YUCATAN, 1821-1847
Its founder, Pedro Sainz de Baranda y Borreiro, asserted that

the "Aurora Yucateca" was the first completely mechanized
textile factory in Mexico to use steam power.' His descendants,
I Pedro Sainz de Baranda, "Informe sobre la fAbrica de tejidos de algod6n ... en el
Distrito de Valladolid, 28 de marzo de 1844," in Exposici6n del gobierno de Yucatdn al
supremo de la repuiblica, pidiendo la derogaci6n del decreto de 21 de febrero iltimo (M6rida,
1844), pp. 46-52. (Hereinafter cited as "Informe.")
Esteban de Antufiano rivals Pedro Sainz de Baranda for honors of precedence. A
prolific publicist, he also claimed to have been the first to found a cotton mill in Mexico,
the "Constancia Mexicana" in Puebla. He and associates, with combined capital of
100,000 pesos, contracted in 1831 for machinery to found a factory of 3,840 spindles. The
equipment proved unsatisfactory, producing only a small amount of low-grade thread
which he sub-contracted to local hand weavers for final processing into cloth, at two pesos
per piece. Ten Englishmen brought from the United States to Puebla in 1833 failed to
make the machinery work or to instruct native workmen in the use of machinery. With
his original capital gone, Antufiano borrowed more to get better machines from the United
States. Thrice shipments of it were lost at sea, but on the fourth attempt, enough arrived
to re-found "La Constancia Mvexicana Mejorada" sometime around 1835. All told,
Antuniano, according to his own account, poured about 400,000 pesos into the venture,
which finally succeeded, despite numerous obstacles.
He faced problems which Baranda escaped. The local guild of weavers in Puebla was
extremely hostile to encroachment of machinery. They menaced Antuniano's life and the
safety of the imported experts, who had to be lodged in a secret place near Puebla. The
same hostility wrecked a ginning enterprise in the cotton area of Veracruz. Moreover,
monopolists in 1839-1841 nearly cornered the cotton crop and raised its price artificially,
while the Mexican tariff prevented importation of foreign supplies from the United States
or elsewhere.
The "Constancia" was about ten times as large as the "Aurora." Lack of specific in-
formation on its activities from 1833 to 1835 leaves the question of precedence in pro-
duction an open one. Antufiano's writings give a good insight into the early cotton in-
dustry of MIexico (Esteban de Antufiano, Discurso analitico . . . o sea pensamientos para
un plan para animar la industria mejicana [Puebla, 1834]; also his Economia politica en
M4xico [Puebla, 18401 and Documentos para la historia de la industria moderna de Mexico
[Mexico, 1845]. I have not seen his Ampliaci6n, aclaraci6n y correcci6n a los principales
puntos del manifiesto sobre el algod6n [Puebla, 1833], Ventajas politicas, civiles, fdbriles y
domesticas que por dar ocupaci6n tambien a las mugeres en las fdbricas de maquinaria moderna
[Puebla, 1837], Exposici6n respetuosa. . . a las augustas cdmaras de la naci6n [Puebla,
1839], Raciones para un plan para repeler noblemente la importaci6n de algodones extrangeros
[Puebla, 1840], Teoria fundamental de la industria de algodones en M&ico [Puebla, 1840],
Economia politica de Mexico. Apuntes para la historia de la industria mexicana [Puebla,
1842], Insurrecion industrial.... Documentos para la historia de la industria moderna
[Puebla, 1846], but have examined Refutaci6n ... del articulo editorial del Monitor de
Veracruz de fecha 25 de agosto [Puebla, 1840]).
THE AURORA YUCATECA 31
Yucatecan contemporaries, foreign travelers, and later writers

have echoed the claim.2 The "Aurora" was designed to use
modern equipment for ginning, spinning, and weaving into yard-
goods the cotton grown locally. Its labor force was drawn from
Maya Indians and mnestizos. On March 8, 1833, the Yucatecan
congress extended to Baranda a five-year monopoly on the use of
steam-driven textile machinery.3 Shortly thereafter the factory
was producing cloth on an experimental basis.
Entirely unsubsidized, the "Aurora" was a private enterprise,
a completely Yucatecan undertaking. The mill did not reach
full or even profitable production until about 1839, but thence-
forth it flourished until the death of Baranda in 1845. Not long
after his demise the city of Valladolid and its surrounding district,
site of the "Autora" and its source of raw materials, were dev-
astated by rebel Maya in a savage uprising known in Yucatecan
annals as the War of the Castes.4 The fact that the "Aurora"
had operated in the area had little to do with the revolt, which
broke out in 1847, but the double blow, death of its founder and
outbreak of the long struggle, crushed any hope that the factory
would operate uninterruptedly in other hands.
The spirit which moved Baranda to establish the "Aurora
Yucateca" was not wholly confined to Yucatan. There, however,
impulses to change and novelty were surging strong in many
fields. All over the RPniihlihi of Mrxion Tnn of like stamn haid
2 Joaquin Baranda, Recordaciones hist6ricas (2 vols., Mexico, 1907-1913), I, 319-320;
Justo Sierra O'Reilly (pseud. "Jos6 Turrisa"), "Pedro Sainz de Baranda," Registro yuca-
teco: peri6dico literario, IV (1846), 187-195; Jos6 M. Regil and Alonso Manuel Pe6n,
"Estadfstica de Yucatan," Sociedad Mexicana. de Geograffa e Estadfstica, Boletin, III
(1852-1853), 275; B. M. Norman, Rambles in Yucatan (New York, 1842; 8th ed., 1848),
pp. 92-93; John L. Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (2 vols., New York, 1843), II,
328-330; Francisco de P. Sosa, Manual de biografia yucateca ... (M6rida, 1866), pp. 37-44,
and his Biografias de mexicanos distinguidos (Mexico, 1884), pp. 114-117; Antonio Garcia
Cubas, Diccionario geogrdfico, hist6rico y biogrdfico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (5
vols., Mexico, 1888-1891), I, 365-367; Carlos Diaz Dufoo, "The industrial evolution of
Mexico," in Justo Sierra (fils), ed., Mexico: its Social Evolution (trans. by G. Sentifn6n, 2
vols., Mexico, 1900-1904), II (Part 3), 140; J. M. Vald6s Acosta, A traves de las centurias:
obra especial que contiene ... relatos genealogicos etc. (3 vols., M6rida, 1923-1931), III, 472.
This is a partial list.
"3 Privilegio exclusivo en favor de D. Pedro Sainz de Baranda [March 8, 1833]," in
Alonso Aznar P6rez, ed., Colecci6n de leyes, decretos, y 6rdenes 6 acuerdos de tendencia
general del poder legislativo del estado libre y soberano de Yucatdn (3 vols., M6rida, 1849-
1851), I, 84.
4Howard F. Cline, "Remarks on a Selected Bibliography of the Caste War and
Allied Topics," Appendix C to Alfonso Villa Rojas, The Maya of East Central Quintana
Roo (Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 559) (Washington, 1945), pp.
165-178.
32 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
similar ideas. Fronmi mixed motives of patriotism, hope of gain,

desire for prestige, perhaps merely satisfaction derived from over-
coming the numerous obstacles in their way, other Mexican
capitalists of the era turned to textile ventures at about the same
time Baranda did. Political disorders, and the fact that funds
with which to launch industrial ventures could be had only at
ruinous rates of interest (12 to 24 per cent) hampered their
activities; but by 1843, in addition to the "Aurora Yucateca,"
there were already somne fifty-seven cotton-spinning mills scat-
tered widely over the republic. Their 125,362 spindles and
2,609 looms hummed and clattered from Sonora to Veracruz.5
The similarity of names testifies to like aims; thus the "Aurora
Industrial" of Puebla presumably expressed the hope of that
area, just as the "Aurora Yucateca" did for the peninsula.
Whether or not the Yucatecan bid for industrial precedence
in Mexico is valid seems relatively unimportant. Counter-claims
undoubtedly could be presented for other places, and perhaps
ultimately the matter can be settled by investigators of the com-
mnercialization and industrialization of Latin America, a theme of
recently growing interest.6 For present purposes the "Aurora
Yucateca" is significant as a symbol and as a case history which
illuminates facts of some importance. Its relatively early es-
tablishment indicates that a fairly general shift in ideas and
activities had taken place on Yucatan, and that by the first third
of the nineteenth century there was a climate of opinion saturated
with the spirit of enterprise. This was in direct contrast to the
spirit of the times reported in late colonial days: investigators in
1766 lamented that Yucatecans were completely apathetic to
ideas of commerce or change, that they were much less addicted
to "trade and war than to love, inaction, and repose."7 There is
a two-fold purpose in relating details of the "Aurora"-to provide
specific material on an early factory, and to utilize it as a point of
I Hubert Howe Bancroft et al., History of Mexico (6 vols., San Francisco, 1883-1888),
VI, 520-522; Diaz Dufoo, op. cit., 138-141.
6 George Wythe, "The Rise of the Factory in Latin America," THE HISPANIc AMERICAN
HISTORICAL REVIEW, XXV (1945), 295-314, and his Industry in Latin America (New
York, 1945); J. Fred Rippy, Latin America and the Industrial Age (New York, 1944), esp.
pp. 142-176; Alejandro E. Shaw, "A Half Century of Economic Progress in America,"
Bulletin of the Pan American Union, LXXIV (April, 1940), 291-309.
Juan Antonio Valera and Francisco Javier de Corres, "Discurso sobre la constituci6n
de las provincias de Yucat6n y Campeche, 1766," in F. V. Scholes et at., eds., Documentos
para la historia de Yucatdn (3 vols., M6rida, 1936-1938), III, 24-25; cf. Lt. [James] Cook,
Remarks on a Passage from the River Balise . . . to Merida ... in February and March 1765
(London, 1769), pp. 22-24.
THE "AURORA YUCATECA" 33
departure for sketching rapidly some of the other notable shifts

that were transpiring under the pressures which a newly arisen
spirit of enterprise was creating in Yucatan following its in-
dependence. These latter are important; they conditioned and
affected historical development there, most dramatically by
heightening tensions between the numerically preponderant Maya
population and the handful of white creoles who were attempting
to bring Yucatan abreast of the modern world.
Not only some insights into the economic. origins of the
Yucatecan Caste War may be gleaned from examination of
changes in the peninsula, but there seem to be even broader
implications. The generation that directed the first footsteps of
the newly emancipated province and republic was an enthusiastic
and generally able one. Its real achievements are sometimes
obscured in the murk of political polemic and of the history based
upon it. Partisan and factional bickerings did generate political
anarchy, but all life of the epoch was not confined to political
arenas and forums. There also existed social and economic
leaders with ability and vision, only loosely attached to a political
group. Baranda seems such a figure, but like others of the era,
when nearly any man of talent was likely to be pressed into
political service, he succumbed to the demands made on him,
though his chief interest lay* in his other enterprises. But
standing somewhat apart from small coteries, each obsessed by
notions of gaining and holding political power, were other groups,
pioneers in social, intellectual, and economic lines. Collectively
they were apparently moved by sincere and usually fervent zeal
to free their provinces and country from a colonialism which
others had combated on the battle fields. By substituting nation-
al achievement and aims for a discredited mercantilism, such
figures labored to put solid foundations under the political liberty
so recently won.
With supreme confidence that economic gains accompanied
and inspired desirable advance in other fields, Mexicans who
matured from 1821 to perhaps 1850 attacked an enormous task
with fervor and high hope. Their general object was to convert
an outmoded and now disdained economy and civilization based
on Spanish imperial policies into a commercial, possibly-industrial,
economy and a modern society premised on national sovereignty
and self-determination. In many aspects the United States,
Great Britain, sometimes France, whose important political
thought and economic philosophies were accepted, served as
suitable models. The enthusiasm and aspirations of their peoples

glow through their writings with an exultation and optimism most
nearly comparable to that engendered in Russian authors who
praise the Soviet five-year plans.
In the Yucatan of the period, politicians, educators, inventors,
artists, plantation owners, traders, and others were extending new
social and economic frontiers far beyond colonial bounds. In
one important respect, however, they overlooked a major prob-
lem, or at least deferred its consideration until too late. With
but few exceptions their new hopes and activities excluded the
native population, a vast mass of Maya whose forbears had
erected the sophisticated civilization, the ruins of which dot
southern Mexico, but who under the colonial regime had served
as a mute and docile labor force, retaining scarcely any memory
of their illustrious past.
In search of guidance for official policy, creoles after in-
dependence reached further and further into colonial experience
for means to continue control of the natives. From time to time
they made tentative gestures toward integration of the Maya into
the new world they were attempting to build: they forced a few
into schools, and nominally extended them suffrage in 1841.
But the unquestioned fact obtrudes: they failed to link the
natives satisfactorily to the new and dynamic developments that
were changing Yucatan. By shifting old balances, which in
colonial times had at least the merit of stability and mutual
recognition, entrepreneurs and others serving in the vanguard of
progress built up counter-pressures among the conservative and
powerful Maya which eventually produced the Caste War in 1847.
Some of the first acts after independence re-instituted political
and economic control of the Maya by establishment of "republics
of Indians."8 These killed nascent ayuntamientos which the Con-
stitution of Cadiz had spawned, in the hope they would serve as
training ground for popular sovereignty and self-rule. By placing
8 "Sobre repuiblicas de indfjenas [July 26, 1824]," in Jos6 Marfa Pe6n and Isidro
Gondra, eds., Colecci6n de leyes, decretos, y 6rdenes del augusto congreso del estado libre de
Yucatdn (2 vols., M6rida, 1832), 1, 135-136. For the establishment of numerous ayun-
tamientos by Art. 310 of Constitution of Cadiz, see Policarpo Antonio de EchAnove et al.,
"Cuadro estadistico de Yucatan en 1814," paragraphs 15-22; El f6nix, peri6dico politico y
mercantil, No. 22 (February 15, 1849), reprinted as Apuntaciones para la estadistica de la
provincia de Yucat4n queformaron de 6rden en 20 de marzo de 1814 (Merida, 1871), pp. 9-12.
I am indebted to F. V. Scholes for a typescript copy of the latter, made for him by Ignacio
Rubio Manfe. See also Ralph L. Roys, "The Cacique System in Yucatan," in The Indian
Background of Colonial Yucatan (Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 548)
(Washington, 1943), pp. 129-171.
Indians under a native cacique, appointed by the government and

responsible to it for his community, natives were segregated from
whites. Other laws, notably those defining debt peonage and
one which frankly reinstated "the ancient laws," consolidated
white economic and political domination and left Indians small
recourse but revolt in the case of injustices.9 A series of griev-
ances converged from about 1840 to 1847, and produced the War
of the Castes.
The eastern Maya rose in rebellion and swept the whites
before them to the very doors of Merida in the west. It took the
creoles six years to reconquer the devastated areas as far as Va-
lladolid, less than a hundred miles to the east of Merida. Beyond
Valladolid, and south of the Sierra de Yucatan-heart of the sugar
producing region-the Indians for many years remained virtually
autonomous; in the eastern forests they have not yet been wholly
subdued. The War of the Castes cost Yucatan nearly half its
territory, and at least a third of its population.
In part it arose from native reaction against the spirit of
change which stalked the land from 1821 onward. It represents
the local version of a basic problem: how to modernize and so
increase economic prosperity (on which domestic tranquility
seems to depend) in a backward area without undue exploitation
of the mass of natives, usually illiterate, ignorant, politically
naive, and individually impotent economically. No really
satisfactory answer for Yucatan or for Mexico appeared in the
period, or since. Even in the face of the more general situation
through Latin America and the world, following the social,
commercial, agricultural, and technological revolutions of the
late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, few universally accepted
solutions have emerged, as the spectrum of modern economic and
social philosophies testifies. That diametrically opposed social
and political systems have arisen to solve the riddle at least
suggests that perhaps moderns are no nearer an adequate and
practical policy which benefits the many as well as the few than
were the unsuspecting Yucatecans, blind to implications of their
oversight in regard to the Maya.
That planners and men of action from 1821 to 1847 failed to
grapple with a major element and to integrate the exploited
Indians into their dream of Drogress does not wholly obscure
9 "Restableciendo las antiguas leyes para el regim6n de indios," August 27, 1847, in
Aznar P6rez, ed., op. cit., III, 146-151; "Medidas para reducir a poblado a las familias que
viven dispersas en las montanias," October 17, 1846, in ibid., III, 75.
some positive achievements of the era. These remain as im-

portant pioneering steps, products of a protean spirit of enterprise
which at once was probably chiefly responsible for the Caste War,
but simultaneously for creation of solid foundations on which later
intellectual, social, and economic edifices could be built. De-
batable indeed is the question of whether the one result counter-
balanced the other. Here emphasis is placed on the more positive
side, particularized to discussion of Baranda's "Aurora Yucateca"
as a typical result of the reigning urge to progress, and to brief
indications of some other manifestation of the same spirit in
contemporary economic changes which led ultimately to the
Caste War.
THE ENTREPRENEUR: PEDRO SAINZ DE BARANDA
Y BORREIRO, 1787-1845
Though in most ways a child of his age and locale, Pedro

Sainz de Baranda was unlike some of his fellow citizens in that
his hopes and aims did not wholly outstrip his ability to realize
them. By background, experience, and temperament he was
fitted to undertake, with some assurance of success, a relatively
complex project like founding a cotton mill in the hinterland of a
backward peninsula. Though he was competent himself, what-
ever the personal traits he may have lacked to become an ac-
complished businessman may well have been supplied to the
enterprise by his close associates, John L. MacGregor, a Yucatan
Scot, and John Burke, an American from New York. The com-
bination proved a winning one until first MacGregor, then
Baranda died, and the Caste War erupted.
The Baranda family was a distinguished one in Old Spain,
and its Yucatecan branches did not dim its record. In addition
to his career as an entrepreneur, Pedro Sainz de Baranda had
been a Spanish and Mexican naval figure; and he held high civil
posts, including governorship, in Yucatan. His sons both became
state governors; one, Joaquin, was an intellectual, a lawyer, and
an able administrator, while another, Pedro, was chiefly instru-
mental in creating the separate state of Campeche and also
acquired glory as a professional soldier.'0
Pedro Sainz de Baranda, founder of the "Aurora," was a
creole. He was born on March 13, 1787, in Campeche to Pedro
de Baranda, a Spaniard and a minister of the royal exchequer in
10 Valdes Acosta, op. cit., III, 463-479. A picture of Pedro Sainz de Baranda is in -
cluded.
the port, and to his wife Maria Josefa Borreiro y Fuente, a lady of
old Yucatecan stock." After primary education in Campeche,
Baranda, at the age of eleven, started training for a maritime
career at a private academy in Ferrol, Spain. On completion of
an extended mathematical curriculum he became a midshipman
in the Royal Marines, assigned to duty in 1803. Thrice wounded
in the memorable battle of Trafalgar, he was promoted to ensign.
In 1808 he took command of a small war ketch and busied himself
carrying dispatches from Campeche to Cuba, Pensacola, and
Santo Domingo, and with minor diplomatic missions. In 1815
he served in an engineering corps that was renovating the forti-
fications of Campeche. As a youth in late colonial times,
Baranda had thus received sound technical training, strengthened
by more than a decade of practical experience.
When Mexico declared independence, he volunteered his
services and was commissioned teniente de fragata in June, 1822.
In September the department of naval armament was put in his
charge. By January, 1823, he was promoted to capitan defragata
and given general command of the Veracruz naval establishment.
Because of the entrenched Spanish garrison holding the strategic
fortress on the island of San Juan de Uluia in the bay of the port,
the post was one of considerable importance. Beaten off the
mainland, Spanish forces hoped to retain the island as a stepping
stone for troops from Habana to recapture Mexico for the crown.
Under Baranda and others, Mexican naval squadrons isolated the
fortress, drove back relief forces, and brought about its final sur-
render on September 15, 1825. Though in recognition of his
services the Congress of Veracruz emblazoned in letters of gold
his name on their wall, Baranda saw but little future in the
Mexican navy, since the national government now took small
interest in it after the last Spaniards had departed."2 In February,
1826, he resigned his commission and thenceforth remained in
Yucatan.
As a distinguished local son, war hero, and leading citizen,
Baranda almost inevitably became a political figure, despite poor
health and sincere unwillingness to seek official preferments.
For reasons not entirely clear, he was aligned with the Centralist
11 All biographers follow closely the data compiled on Pedro Sainz de Baranda compiled
by Justo Sierra O'Reilly ("Pedro Sainz de Baranda," loc. cit.).
12 Lorenzo Zavala, Ensayo hist6rico de las revoluciones de MEgico, desde 1808 hasta 1830
... (2 vols., Paris, New York, 1831-1832), 1,337; Miguel M. Lerdo de Tejada, Apuntes
hist6ricos de la her6ica ciudad de Veracruz ... (3 vols., Mexico, 1850-1858), II, 235-236,
279-290.
Party, whose strength lay largely in Campeche. The party

officials in power appointed him jefe polttico in Valladolid, a city
in the eastern part of the peninsula to which he had intended
moving because of its salubrious climate. As jefe he tried to
reform the city and area by introduction of new schools, comple-
tion of a cart-road to its port of Yalahau, and by honest adminis-
tration. Before he could accomplish much his party lost power
in 1832, but he remained in Valladolid to found the "Aurora."
He was prevented from giving it his full attention by continuing
political obligations after the centralists again resumed control of
the state in 1834.13
In that year he was elected vice-governor, and upon with-
drawal of the governor, filled the latter's post. Finally overwork
impaired his weakened health to the point that he was released
from the position in August, 1835. His was not the usual political
ailment, normally cured by additional grants of power, but
organic difficulties. In the acrimonious factional struggles raging
in Yucatan his administration as governor was marked by an
extraordinary mildness and by the fact he left the governorship
retaining the respect even of political opponents. They thought
highly enough of him to give the famous American traveler,
John L. Stephens, cordial letters of introduction to Baranda.14
Though persistently refusing to take on more political burdens,
Baranda finally agreed in 1837 to become prefect of the newly
organized District of Valladolid, a post he retained until 1840.
The remaining five years of his life he spent in ill health as a
private citizen. He died in Campeche on December 16, 1845.15
Viewed at this time and distance, some of the many virtues
attributed to Baranda by eulogists have their luster somewhat
dimmed, but he remains an attractive and typical figure of an
important transitional period in Yucatan. Urbane, sophisticated,
and able, sincerely patriotic and loyal to his province, he compares
well with other of his compatriots-Justo Sierra, Andres Quintana
Roo, Lorenzo Zavala, Manuel Barbachano---who rendered
valuable services to Mexico and Yucatan, their homeland.16
13 Sierra O'Reilly, "Pedro Sainz de Baranda," loc. cit., 194 ff; Eligio Ancona (Historia de
Yucatdn desde la epoca mds remota hasta nuestros dias ... [5 vols., Merida, 1889-1905], III,
303-460) covers party politics from 1825 to the period of Baranda's death. (Hereinafter
cited as Historia de Yucatdn.)
14 Stephens, op.cit., II, 329.
15 Carlos R. Men6ndez (Noventa aiios de historia de Yucatan, 1821-1910 [Merida, 1937],
p. 423-424, n.1) discusses at great length whether Baranda died December 15 or 16. citing
numerous biographical sketches.
16 Sosa, Manual de biografia Yucateca .. ., passim.
As a group they were widely traveled, alert to adopt new ideas

and developments of interest and value to their struggling prov-
ince and nation.
Unfortunately only scanty information is available on John
L. MacGregor, Baranda's silent partner in the "Aurora." Each
subscribed half the initial investment of forty thousand dollars
which it required, having agreed that Baranda would receive for
his active administration an annual salary of one thousand pesos."7
Since in 1844 Baranda listed his co-partners as heirs of MacGregor,
presumably the father had died.18 The latter's descendants in-
cluded sons who have left minor traces in the records of the day,
and who became linked to the Baranda family through marriage.19
Apparently both the Barandas and the MacGregors were included
in the group of cosmopolitan citizens whose polylingual house-
holds and attention to refinement, culture, and business gave Cam-
peche an air of briskness which travelers thought equal to the
best in Europe and perhaps unmatched in Mexico.20
John Burke left no literary remains, and data on him are few.
He succeeded four Americans who had accompanied the "Auro-
ra' s" equipment from New York, to install it and to instruct
native workmen: two died in Yucatan from malaria, and the other
17 Francisco Cant6n Rosado (Datos y documentos relativos a la vida militar y politica del
Sr. General Brigadier Don Francisco Canton [Carlos R. Men6ndez, ed., Merida, 1931], p. 2,
n.1) says that the "Aurora" "fu6 establecida en sociedad con un capital de m6s de Dlls.
40,000 por los Sres D. Juan Luis Mac-Gregor y Don Pedro Sainz de Baranda, quienes
pusieron cada uno la mitad del capital invertido. El segundo era el socio gerente y gozaba
de un emolumento por su trabajo de mil pesos anuales, 'Carta de Don Joaquin Garcfa
Rej6n a Don Juan Luis Mac-Gregor, de fecha 18 de enero de 1840.' Esta carta consta en el
archivo del Duque de Estrada."
18 Pedro Sainz de Baranda, "Informe," loc. cit., p. 46.
19 The elaborate houses erected by the younger MacGregors served as landmarks (cf.
advertisement for "Cosmorama" to be given in the area between the houses of "Sres. D.
Eduardo y D. Juan MacGregor," El fenix, No. 33 [April 10, 1849]); Francisco Alvarez,
Anales hist6ricos de Campeche, 1812-1910 (2 vols., M6rida, 1912), I, 354, 371-373, 382;
Men6ndez, op. cit., pp. 30, 31, 420; Vald6s Acosta, op. cit., III, 475-479. John F. Mac-
Gregor served as United States consul (see his letter to A. Bigelow, March 22, 1848, in
Senate Executive Documents, 30th Congress, 1st Session, VI, No. 43, p. 26).
20 Jean Fr6d6ric Maximilien, Baron de Waldeck, Voyage pittoresque et arch6ologique dans
la province d'Yucatan (Am6rique Centrale) pendant les ann6es 1834 et 1836 (Paris, 1838), pp.
10-16; Norman, op. cit., pp. 209-222; Arthur Morelet, Voyage dans l'Amerique Centrale,
l'ile de Cuba, et le Yucatan (2 vols., Paris, 1857), I, 161-169; C. B. Heller, Reisen in Mexiko
in den Jahren 1845-1848 (Leipzig, 1853), pp. 214-215; W. P. Robertson, A Visit to Mexico,
by the West India Islands, Yucatan and the United States ... (2 vols., London, 1853), I,
219-220. For impressions of residence in Campeche a generation later, see Jos6 Vas-
concelos, Ulises criollo, vida del autor escrita por el mismo (6th ed., Mexico, 1936), pp. 105 if.
pair seemingly soon left.21 Burke entered Baranda's employ in

1835 and acted as mill superintendent until at least 1844. When
Stephens talked to him in Valladolid in 1842, Burke had already
nearly forgotten English, but was otherwise typically American
in dress, appearance, and outlook. His career after 1844 is
hazy in detail, but was evidently profitable, since he is said to
have died in New York, leaving an estate of four million dollars.22
THE AURORA YUCATECA," 1833-1845
With their capital Baranda and MacGregor purchased

machinery to set up a small but quite up-to-date textile factory
which performed all operations necessary to convert raw cotton
brought from nearby fields to finished cloth. Their yard-goods
compared favorably in quality, less so in price, with products
from New England and Great Britain. Aside from the important
fact that the "Aurora" existed at all so early in an apparently
backward area of isolated Yucatan, Baranda's management
policies consciously or unconsciously formed a model pattern.
They indicated that exploitation need not necessarily accompany
economic development. His workers, fifty-three mestizos and
native Maya, were paid on a piece-work basis and earned twice
the prevailing wage for agricultural workers and aritsans, figured
usually at one real (0.125 pesos) and three cents worth of maize
a day.23 In addition Baranda contracted with sixty-four
Indian families to provide wood for his boilers, paying them
the standard wage of a medio (half a real, 0.063 pesos) a load.
Like others, he found it difficult to change the Indian way of doing
things and therefore conformed to it; he preferred unsplit logs, but
for generations the Maya had split them, and so perforce he got
split logs.24 A compatriot, Simon Pe6n, likewise discovered per-
21 "Les Am6ricains qui vinrent des Ptats-Unis A Valladolid pour y 6tablir une filature de
Coton, succomb6rent aux atteintes de ce mal, trois mois apres leur arriv6e" (Waldeck, op.
cit., pp. 54-55), but Stephens more reliably says, "four engineers, two of whom died in the
country" (op. cit., II, 330). Baranda says foreigners left after instructing workmen ("In-
forme," loc. cit., p. 48).
22 bid.; Stephens, op. cit., II, 283, 328-329; Francisco Cant6n Rosado, Ensayos his-
M6ricos, apolog6ticos y literarios (M6rida, 1927), pp. 83-84.
23 Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., p. 306; Pedro Sainz de Baranda, "Informe," loc. cit., pp. 48,
.50. Norman, (op. cit., p. 93) mentions that the Aurora "employs fifty men, principally of
the half-breeds, who are paid by the piece.... yielding to those employed more than
double the amount of wages usually paid in this state." Norman, for most things, is an
unreliable source, but as a Southerner interested in cotton, his descriptions of the "Aurora"
seem acceptable and trustworthy.
24 Stephens, op. cit., II, 330.
THE "AURORA YUCATECA 41
sistent native refusal to modernize when Indians on his hacienda

would not use a patented American churn.25
Aside from the 117 local families supported by the "Aurora,"
there was an unspecified number of Maya around Valladolid who
grew cotton for it. These were independent agriculturalists.
They cultivated cotton in their unplowed patches known as
milpas, which at the same time provided them with maize, beans,
and a number of subsidiary products.26 For the unginned cotton
Baranda paid them from eight to twelve reales (1.00 to 1.50 pesos)
for a load of thirty-two pounds. At current wage rates the
Indians made perhaps 100 per cent profit at that price and had
maize and other products from their milpas as bonus, by-products
of cotton culture.27 By March, 1844, the "Aurora" had used
nearly three hundred tons of cotton (580,000 pounds) and had
thus contributed a respectable sum to the Maya cotton growers.28
Whether these idyllic conditions, contrasting sharply with cotton
production by slave labor on American plantations, would have
continued had Yucatan developed a full-fledged industry is very
questionable, but it seems to Baranda's credit that even when
competition from smuggled goods undercut his prices and drove
his product from the peninsula he did not try to meet it by
exploitation of the native growers.
The plant of the "Aurora" was a neat, efficient-looking es-
tablishment. It consisted of a series of buildings surrounded by
a ten-foot fence on a lot which faced the plaza in Candelaria, a
barrio or suburb of Valladolid. Its area was 150 by 200 feet,
within which the buildings were grouped around an open patio.
Four warehouses formed the side nearest the plaza, divided by a
25 Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (2 vols., New
York, 1841), II, 416. Despite the similarity of title, this is a different work than the
Stephens account previously cited.
26 0. F. Cook, "Milpa Agriculture, a Primitive Tropical System," in Smithsonian In-
stitution, Annual Report, 1919 (Washington, 1921), pp. 307-326; R. A. Emerson, "A Pre-
liminary Survey of the Milpa System of Maize Culture as Practised by the Maya Indians
of the Northern Part of the Yucatan Peninsula," (mimeographed, Cornell University, n.d.
[1935]); Morris Steggerda, "Maize Production and Animal Husbandry," Maya Indians of
Yucatan (Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 531) (Washington, 1941), pp.
89-152; Augusto P6rez Toro, La milpa (M6rida, 1942).
27 Pedro Sainz de Baranda ("Informe," p. 49) stated that it cost four reales to produce a
carga. Cf. Joaqufn Ancona, "El algodonero," El repertorio pintoresco, 6 miscelanea in-
structiva y amena (Merida, bi-weekly), I (1861), 174-177. In Puebla, Antufiano paid
from four to six pesos for ginned cotton from Veracruz; Baranda's unginned cotton yielded
28 per cent fiber, equivalent to paying for ginned a price of from 3.56 to 5.45 pesos (without
adding ginning costs). See Antufiano, Economia politica en M6xico, pp. 3, 5.
gate which led to the patio. At the extreme end of the patio
were maintenance units, a smithy and a carpenter's shop. These
and all the other buildings were solid structures, of whitewashed
rubble and mortar, roofed with tile.29
The main building housed ginning, carding, spinning, and
weaving operations, distributed on its two floors. After having
seen the building collapse twice under the weight of machinery,
Baranida (who was his own architect) had the walls built thirty-
four inches thick, with the first floor made of packed mud, the up-
per of cedar planking, supported on arches forty-six feet in dia-
meter.30 The building was fifty feet high, and its dimensions were
fifty-two by eighty-eight feet. Iron grillwork placed across the
arches permitted good circulation of air and entrance of light, both
of which were notably missing from the low-ceilinged, dingy
Englishmills of the day. No child labor was used in the "Aurora."
Beside the main building was the powerhouse, a one-story
structure for the boilers and engine. Baranda used high pressure
boilers and an engine that developed fifteen horsepower. A
clumsy solid screw transmitted power to various machines within
the main building; as yet effective devices for power transmission
to textile machinery had not been fully developed anywhere.
All the machinery in the "Aurora" was new.
Adjacent to the powerhouse was a shed over a sizing vat.
After being used in the boilers, hot water was fed into the vats
through a complex of pipes and was pumped out by a power-
driven mechanism. The vat itself, used to give thread a coating
of starch, was seventeen feet deep. Drying sheds, tool-sheds, and
a small office completed the circuit of buildings. Though
Baranda's descriptions of specific machines leave much to be
desired, it is perfectly evident that the "Aurora" was well-
equipped to do its job. His mill performed the necessary steps
of ginning, the complex operations involved in spinning, and
finally weaving, whereby the thread produced by spinning is
converted into cloth.31
29 Norman, op. cit., p. 93; Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, II, 328, noting the
Aurora's "neat, compact, and business-like appearance. . ."; Pedro Sainz de Baranda,
"Informe," loc. cit., pp. 46-47.
30 Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, II, 330; Pedro Sainz de Baranda, "Informe,"
loc. cit., p. 47.
31 Baranda's ginning in the "Aurora Yucateca" started on the second floor of the main
building, where cotton brought by Maya to Valladolid was put through a saw-gin. The
latter's twenty-six blades removed seeds. Normally at least half, and sometimes nearer
three-quarters of the weight of raw cotton consists of seeds, the remainder being utilizable
fibers. Baranda found that 28 per cent of locally grown cotton was fiber, indicating that
Salable products included thread and yard-goods. The

former was reckoned by weight, the latter by yardage and number
it was of good to average quality. Following the ginning, fibers passed to the spinning
process.
Spinning consisted of a number of related, consecutive activities, the first of which was
"opening." Raw fibers were spread apart, opened, to let waste materials and rubbish
drop out. This took place on the second floor, through use of a tundidor or diablo which
flailed fibers and passed them on to a second machine with fifty mechanical pickers. Once
through here, cotton was ready for scutching, which cleaned the fibers further and formed
them into a heavy blanket or lap, ready to be carded. Baranda's scutcher, mdquina de
ovillar, was on the first floor.
But his carders were on the second. Scutcher-lap was placed on the carders and
drawn into a finer, web-like blanket on a carder; the "Aurora" had four of these, adjust-
able. Further refinement of carding took place on hiladores de trama which twisted the
web into a cord, known as card-sliver. At this point in production the first salable product
appeared, since card-sliver, hilo de trama, was occasionally vended to cordage makers or
cowboys to be hand worked into rope or lassos, where small irregularities in the fibers made
no appreciable difference. But for commercial thread, and from it cloth, card-sliver
normally continued in process, passing next to draw-frames.
On draw-frames, estiradores, card-slivers were stretched, twisted, and three of them
combined into a single twine. The object of drawing was to parallelize and regularize
fibers; the twine, or draw-sliver, might be put through the operation of drawing a number
of times, but when it was satisfactory, draw-sliver next went to flying frames, veloces or
pablidores. These reduced the twine-like draw-sliver to a still finer cord, now approaching
the size and quality of thread; the product of the draw frames were rovings. Fine quality
cloth required that rovings emerge from four successively more refined operations repre-
sented by four types of frame, slubber, intermediate, roving, and jack, but only the first
two were necessary for a medium grade cloth. Baranda used only two flying-frames.
From them rovings passed to spinning mules, of which the "Aurora" had four. They spun
rovings into No. 16 thread, known as hilo urdido from the name of the mules, urdidores de
hilo. The combined total of spindles on the mules was 432, compared to 480 bobbins used
for carding operations. Thread could be sold as a finished product or woven into cloth.
If it was to become yard goods, part of the thread went to warpers, urdidores, and was
twisted into warping beam, while another portion was made into weft by passing through
a sizing made of starch in the outside vat mentioned above. On the looms they were
woven into cloth. The "Aurora" possessed twenty looms which produced pieces of
finished goods each about thirty yards in length. Preparatory to shipment, a printing
press placed a "face-plait" on each, which identified pieces by number, yardage, rnaker,
and the like; Baranda's carried the seal of the Mexican Republic as well as that of the
"Aurora." Cylindrical packages were made of an appropriate number of pieces and over
them was forced a covering of fabric or leather; the latter was cheaper (Pedro Sainz de
Baranda, "Informe," loc. cit., pp. 47-48). For contemporary data on mills and specialized
bibliography, see especially M. T. Copeland, The Cotton Manufacturing Industry in the
United States(Cambridge, 1912), pp. 54-100; Caroline F. Ware, The Early New England
Cotton Manufacture: a Study in Industrial Beginnings (Boston, 1931); Sydney J. Chapman,
The Lancashire Cotton Industry: a Study in Economic Development (Manchester, 1904);
George W. Daniels, The Early English Cotton Industry (Manchester, 1920), pp. 1-148.
James Montgomery (The Cotton Manufacture of the United States Contrasted and Compared
with That of Great Britain [Glasgow, n.d. (1835)]) gives drawings of machinery, calculations
of costs; the latter were questioned as biased by an anonymous expert (Strictures on Mont-
gomery on the Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain and America [Newburyport, 18411). A
picture of the "Aurora" appears in Diaz Dufoo, op. cit., p. 135.
of pieces. Daily capacity of the "Aurora" was from four to five

hundred yards of medium-fine cotton cloth, plus a hundred
pounds of thread. By March, 1844, the factory had produced
13,256 pieces of cloth, amounting to about 395,000 yards, and
about 1,700 pounds of No. 16 thread.32
The factory did not immediately begin profitable production.
By 1835, at an estimated cost of eight thousand dollars over
capital investment, it had produced only eighteen yards of cloth.33
The difficulties were due mainly to technical troubles which
seemingly were cleared up after Burke got on the job. In the
three years from 1840 through 1842, the factory output amounted
to about 200,000 yards of cloth, and 7,000 pounds of thread.34
Since cloth from the "Aurora" sold for 18!/2 centavos per vara
(33 1/3 inches), gross income from that alone would amount to
37,000 pesos. Raw materials probably cost about 27,000 pesos,
leaving the difference to labor, Baranda's salary, other overhead,
and profits, if any. Production was much less a problem than
was distribution, for in the latter Baranda ran afoul of political
snarls.
Because of competition from British Honduras, Baranda had
to seek markets outside Yucatan. British cloth, produced in
Manchester, could be smuggled into Yucatan via Belize and sold
for 12 2 centavos a yard, as opposed to Baranda's 18 2 per vara,
a differential of about 40 per cent in favor of British goods.35
When Baranda looked abroad for sales, he was trapped, after
1843, by a political impasse between Yucatan and Mexico.
Yucatan twice had cut itself loose from Mexican control
following 1839. Once it had returned voluntarily without
coercion, and once, in 1843, it soundly thrdshed Mexican troops,
but then joined the union on Mexican promises that Yucatecan
goods might enter Mexican Gulf ports without duty. Mexico was
to publish such a list of "natural products" of Yucatan which
a treaty arranged in December, 1843, prescribed.36 When Mexi-
can authorities published the list, nearly all Yucatecan money
33 Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, II, 330.
" Pedro Sainz de.Baranda, "Informe," loc. cit., p. 50.
35 Ibid., p. 48; Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, II, 330.
36 Serapio Baqueiro (Ensayo historico sobre las revoluciones de Yucatan desde el anio de
1840 hasta 1864 [2nd ed., 3 vols., M6rida, 1878-1888], I, 11-243) covers the period from
1839 to the opening of the Caste War. See also Albino Acereto, Evoluci6n hist6rica de las
relaciones politicas entre Mexico y Yucatdn (Mexico, 1907), pp. 60-88; Felipe P6rez AlcalN,
"La revoluci6n de 1840," in Recordaciones hist6ricas (M6rida, 1919), pp. 346; J. Ignacio
Rubio Mane, El separatismo de Yucatan (M6rida, 1935), pp. 46-55.
crops and products had been dropped or omitted from it; among
them were sugar, henequen, salt, and textiles. As the situation
existed in 1844, and thereafter for some time, these goods shipped
from Yucatan were considered by Mexican port officials as merely
trans-shipments from foreign ports, and therefore subject to
regular tariff levies.37
Earlier Baranda had run into the same type of difficulty. At
Veracruz and Tampico his yard goods had been categorized as
"foreign" despite their Yucatecan trademark, because port offi-
cials refused to believe that Yucatecans could produce such cloth;
it appeared to them English, marked locally to avoid duty. Even
after this matter had been cleared at those places, officials at
Tabasco charged full tariff on samples Baranda sent there. But
omission from the free list in early 1844 was a rude blow. Con-
temporaries hinted that Mexican factories feared Baranda's
competition and had brought pressure to bear to ruin him.38 In
any event, before the difficulty was finally cleared in 1848 Baranda
was dead, and the "Aurora" was serving embattled creoles as a
fortress to withstand Maya assaults. Its ruins remained standing
for many years.39
The "Aurora" brings to the fore some of the problems that
entrepreneurs of the time had to face, and which Baranda solved
as well as one man could. His relations to native and mestizo
workmen seem irreproachable, but in carrying out a humane and
enlightened policy he lost a large local market. The financial
difficulties that destroyed many another textile enterprise-Lucas
Alaman's as a notable example-were overcome through the help
of MacGregor.40 Technical problems were often solved by em-
37 Exposici6n ... pidiendo derogaci6n (June, 1844) (hereinafter cited as "Exposici6n
[1844]"); Exposici6n que dirige al soberano Congreso Nacional el gobierno del Departamento
de Yucatdn (June 7, 1845) (hereinafter cited as "Exposici6n [1845]"); Pantale6n Barrera
et al., Observaciones sobre la actual situaci6n politica del Departamento de Yucatdn (Novem-
ber 26, 1845) (Mexico, 1845). See Aznar P6rez, ed., op. cit., II, 297-302; III, 1-2, 39-42,
48-50, 217-219; also Piezas justificativas de la conducta politica de Yucatdn, al observar la
del gobierno de M4jico, respeto de los convenios de 14 de diciembre de 1843 (Merida, 1846).
38 Exposici6n (1845), p. 12, citing "el s6rdido inter6s de 57 fabricantes de hilados y
tejidos de algod6n"; Exposici6n (1944) p. 40.
39 "El edificio, en estado ruinoso, existe aun, y creo forma parte del presidio" (Felipe
Perez Alcald, Ensayos biograficos, cuadros hist6ricos, hojas dispersas [M6rida, 1914], p. 82,
writing in 1884, when Indians still occasionally made armed incursions into Valladolid).
40 Antufiano finally spent as much as 300,000 pesos getting the "Constancia Mexicana"
under way (see above, n. 1). Lucas AlamAn's enterprise went under because of financial
difficulties. A group in 1840 thought it would spend 15,000 for a paper mill, but found
that before production began, it had increased its investment to 85,000 (Diaz Dufoo, op.
cit., 138-141).
piricism, such as more solid construction of the main building

after its two collapses, or by the importation of foreign experts
like Burke. Yet one man alone could not regulate the political
environment; that required group action, as did numerous other
subsidiary elements.
Transportation, for instance, was a conditioning factor. Until
roads had been completed from the port of Sisal to Merida, and
thence to Valladolid, the heavy machinery, carried to Baranda's
"Aurora" in special carts purchased in New York, could not have
been moved inland, nor the finished product out, except at
prohibitive cost.41 Yet if the mill were placed elsewhere, added
cost for transporting raw cotton to it would have been equally
restrictive.
It seems clear that the "Aurora" was not an isolated phenom-
enon of individual enterprise, when viewed in this context.
Preceding it and accompanying it were other developments which
made possible its appearance in 1833, but whose unchecked
acceleration led to the Caste War in 1847. Probably that ugly
wave of revolt would have obliterated the "Aurora" even had
Baranda not died in 1845.
THE SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE IN YUCATAN, 1821-1847

The rise and fall of the "Aurora Yucateca" from 1833 to 1845
was a minor motif in the symphony of change occurring in
Yucatan from 1821 to 1847. Baranda's colleagues, in their
attempts to bring to the peninsula a modern climate of opinion,
were tinkering with nearly all their institutions and activities,
from church to cuisine.
The "Aurora" grew as one of many innovations. Space
is lacking here to detail and catalogue the important shifts which
were occurring in education, art, concepts of public welfare, pro-
fessional training, the theater, literary activities, applied science,
journalism, and other ramifications of contemporary social life.42
A Yucatecan in 1846, dazzled by the movement he saw on the
local scene, was justified by facts when he wrote:
41 "The engine, looms, &c., were brought from New-York, and transported across the
country, from the port of Sisal to this place, in wagons imported for the purpose. It was
an arduous as well as a very expensive undertaking" (Norman, op. cit., p. 93).
42 See Carlos A. Ech6nove Trujillo, ed., Enciclopedia yucatanense (Vols. I-VIII, Mexico,
1944-), a pioneer attempt to give well-rounded treatment to various aspects of Yucatan.
I have seen only four volumes of this work, I, II, IV, and VI. I have dealt with various
social movements and developments in a forthcoming book "Regionalism and Society in
Yucatan, 1825-1847."
THE "AURORA YUCATECA77 47
We have literary and scientific periodicals, as well as mercantile and

political ones. There are philharmonic societies, reading groups, and
scientific academies. Progressive enterprises have been successful: now
established is a brilliant line of coaches, and also caf6s, hotels, and re-
creational associations. Primary education has been perfected; govern-
ment improves; agriculture is fostered; roads are built and repaired.
In fine, there is movement, advance, down a path of progress that has
no end.... Yucatan is going to be an important place.43
Economic thought and activity paralleled the burgeoning

social and cultural awareness of Yucatecans. Under pressure of
new ideas and aspirations, as well as competition from the outside
world, change from colonialism was proceeding almost visibly.
As a prime policy the intimate and underlying connection between
business and government was acknowledged and legitimized.
One strong link between the major economic interests of the
peninsula, regionally distributed, was the creation of five semi-
official societies in district capitals. Ten members selected by
the jefe politico from among the chief commercial and agricultural
figures of the area formed the membership of each of these
sociedades de fomento de agricultura e industria.44
One of the prime functions of each regional society was to
draw up suitable laws for passage by Congress, "to present
ref orms necessary to the progress of agriculture and industry;
to make experiments or trials of new discoveries or improvements,
by devoting half their funds to this purpose." Thus in addition
to offering gold medals, collecting statistical data, and supervising
fairs, the leading men of the times were given virtual carte
blanche to write their own laws. Obviously but few Indians were
appointed to membership in the societies. i
From very early times after independence the government had
consciously stimulated change in the economic field. In 1823 it
g;ranted to Baranda's Drecursor. one Feliciano Martin, tax ex-
43 Registro yucateco, III (1846), 148-149.
44 "Estableciendo sociedades de fomento," October 26, 1843, Aznar P6rez, ed., op. cit.,
II, 265-267. Commerce was added as an objective ("Mandando que el gobierno cuide de
restablecer las sociedades de fomento," April 1, 1851, in Eligio Ancona, ed., Colecci6n de
leyes, decretos, 6rdenes y demds disposiciones de tendencia general, expedidas por el poder
legislativo del estado de Yucatdn (8 vols., M6rida, 1882-1889), I, 58-59 [hereinafter cited as
Colecci6n de leyes]). Similar in intent and purpose was the lonja mercantil which Cam-
peche, and then M6rida, founded on a municipal basis in the early forties (Registro yuca-
teco, IV [1846], 153). New interest in statistics and orderly presentation of them in
Yucatan stems from law ("Bases reglamentarias para la estadfstica del departamento,"
August 29, 1837, in Aznar P6rez, ed., op. cit., I, 267-281).
emptions and other privileges for his projected textile manu-

factury of three looms in the villa of Izamal; the grant was
generalized by announcing that others who wished to start new
enterprises would receive the same concessions.45 Yet, in general,
industry as such did not flourish in Yucatan. Nothing more is
heard of Martin's mill, and not until after Baranda's death did
other manufacturing establishments appear. The first was the
"Constancia Yucateca," a factory for gunpowder. In 1845 a
group of local capitalists, including the archbishop, banded
together for the purchase of appropriate machinery in New York;
and the archbishop contributed his fruit farm as site of the
enterprise. Production started in 1847, with a product that
Heller, a Swiss botanist, thought compared favorably to imported
stuff.46 Shortly after the Caste War broke out, and while it was
still raging, a beer factory and a paper mill also made permanent
appearance.47 But for the most part economic change came in
agriculture, the basic activity of Yucatan from time immemorial.
Dramatic was the increase in number of rural establishments.
Even in 1794 Yucatan had a disproportionate number of hacien-
das and estancias in comparison with the rest of New Spain---more
than a quarter of those reported in the entire viceroyalty at the
end of the colonial period.48 These increased from 1,515 in 1794
to 2,413 in 1836. From the latter figure they leaped to 3,428 in
1845, an increase of 43 per cent in the decade which marked the
effective life of the "Aurora."49 Much of this expansion stemmed
from liberalized land laws and new crops.
Following 1824, legislation made transfer of public lands to
private hands progressively easier and simpler. More and more
the leg-al and traditional protection native claims to soil had
45 Decree, October 6, 1823, in Pe6n and Gondra, eds., op. cit., I, 27-28.
46 "Concediendo privilegio exclusivo para la elaboraci6n de p6lvora en el estado,"
April 10,1847, in Aznar Perez, ed., op. cit., III, 118-119; Heller, op. cit., p. 278. Menendez,
op. cit., pp. 52, 254, 379.
47 On the brewery, see Aznar Perez, ed., op. cit., III, 263, 339-341; on the paper mill,
Eligio Ancona, ed., op. cit., I, 35. See also Joaquin Castillo Peraza, "La industria," in
Articulos sueltos (Merida, 1899), pp. 52-55.
48 Table II, "Distribution of large holdings in 1810," in George McCutchen McBride,
The Land Systems of Mexico (New York, 1923), p. 63. According to these data, Yucatan
would have had 26.7 per cent of all reported haciendas and estancias, with about 9.5 per
cent of the total reported population.
49 "Estado expresivo de las jurisdicciones y pueblos de la intendencia de Merida de
Yucatain etc. . . . 1794," in Rubio Mane, ed., Archivo de la historia de Yucatan, Cam-
peche, y Tabasco (3 vols., Mexico, 1942), I, 207-247; Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., Tables A and
B (adapted), and p. 258.
THE "AURORA YUCATECA"' 49
enjoyed under the colonial regime was stripped away.50 Behind

an especially free-handed land law in 1841 was an avowed policy
of filling the state treasury by sale of land and opening for coloni-
zation all lands to which title was not perfectly clear. Though
the treasury remained as empty as before, the Indians, one writer
stated, became convinced "that a notorious injustice had been
done them and that it had been hoped they would be condemned
to perish of hunger. Such was the result of that [legislative]
operation which offered so many hopes for improving the coun-
try."51 The change in land laws coincided closely with the climax
of a newer type of hacienda economy, more dynamic than the
colonial one, which rested largely on the idea of production for
subsistence, ownership for prestige, and some small money returns
on such products as cattle, rice, and logwood.
In a competitive world, to which Yucatan was now turning
for models and ideas, its colonial crops were finding hard shrift.
Emphasis now had to be placed on improving means of pro-
duction, on efficiency, and on technology. Where apparently
little could be done, capital was withdrawn and placed in enter-
prises the future of which seemed brighter. Fifty or a hundred
years earlier probably Baranda and MacGregor would have
purchased a logwood concession or a cattle hacienda; in their
time they were unusual for not placing their funds in sugar or
henequen, the crops to which investment was most attracted
after 1830.
50 Of the numerous land laws, those of greatest importance are "Ley de colonizaci6n,"
December 2, 182a, in Pe6n and Gondra, eds., op. cit., II, 37-38; "Reglas para la venta de
terrenos," December 28, 1833, in Aznar Perez, ed., op. cit., I, 155-156; "Sobre enagenaci6n
de terrenos baldfos," April 5, 1841, in ibid., II, 116-119; "Acerca de los ejidos de los pueblos
y de los establecimientos situados en ellos," October 8, 1844, in ibid., II, 350-351; "Sobre
terrenos comunes," November 13, 1844, in ibid., II, 369; "Sobre ejidos," November 14,
1845, in ibid., II, 484; "Aplicando los terrenos baldfos a la amortizaci6n de la deuda del
estado," November 17, 1843, in ibid., II, 288; "Derogando la ley de 5 de abril de 1841
sobre enajenaci6n de terrenos baldfos," March 5, 1847, in ibid., III, 105-106; "Sobre
propriedad, enajenaci6n, y arriendo de terrenos baldfos," April 30, 1847, in ibid., III, 130-
131. The latter two laws were an ineffectual attempt to stem the aroused Indian re-
sentment.
51 Justo Sierra, "Consideraciones sobre el orfgen, causas, y tendencias de la sublevaci6n
de los indigenas, sus probables resultados y posible remedio," El f6nix, each issue; quoted
from No. 51 (July 10, 1849); cf. op. cit. (No. 48, June 25, 1849), "los indios, o los caciques y
repdblicas en su nombre, defendfan con la tenacidad que les es caracteristica, la perpetua
conservaci6n de los terrenos valdfos, siempre reputindolos como suyos... ." Another
writer, talking of the land law of 1841, said it was necessary to fill up vacant areas, which
"necesitan de ser poblados, cultivados, y beneficiados, para hacerlos producir en utilidad
del comercio y de las artes. Esta fue la mira principal de aquellos legisladores al decretar
el artfculo citado," Barrera et al., Situacion . . . actual, p. 10.
In general, textiles, a colonial product, seemed moribund,

until the appearance of the "Aurora." Until the very late eight-
eenth century or even into the nineteenth, cloth for local needs was
hand-produced by the Maya. For many years it had been one
form of required native tribute-payment to Yucatan's many
encomenderos. Considerable quantities also resulted from Maya
forced labor under repartimiento arrangements whereby raw
materials were made into cloth as part of the Indians' labor
portion, contracted for by creole entrepreneurs who shared profits
with native caciques, thus reaping the benefits of cheap native
labor.52
Thus as long as encomiendas and repartimientos flourished in
Yucatan, Valladolid remained a notable textile center. In 1739,
for instance, the area produced nearly twice as much cotton goods
as did the combined jurisdictions of Merida and Campeche.53
The Bourbon reforms crippled the industry, the abuses of which
were known and lamented. After free trade was permitted in
1778, cheaper foreign cloth began to displace the Yucatecan;
suppression of the encomiendas in 1785-1786, payment of tribute
by cash rather than goods, and amelioration of repartimiento
practices following 1787 all helped to reduce output of native
cloth to negligible amounts. Yet in selecting Valladolid as the
site of the "Aurora," Baranda could count on the high reputation
its colonial cloth enjoyed, as well as the fact that the Maya of the
vicinity were already familiar with cotton cultivation. He would
not meet there, moreover, entrenched opposition to mechanization
from hostile guilds of artisan weavers fearful of competition, as
did a rival.54
Cattle raising had not suffered all the blows that hit colonial
textiles. After 1821, however, it began to lose its hegemony in
52Valera and Corres, op. cit., 17-18, 20, 55-57; EchAnove et at., "Cuadro estadistico ...
1814," paragraphs 46-47; El ftnix, No. 24 (February 25, 1849); Pedro Manuel Regil,
Memoria instructiva sobre el comercio general de la provincia de Yucatdn, y particular del
puerto de Campeche (Madrid, 1814), pp. 5-6; also published in El ftnix, No. 7 (December 1,
1848). Lesley Byrd Simpson, The Repartimiento System of Native Labor in New Spain and
Guatemala (Berkeley, 1938), pp. 3-161.
3 Oswaldo Baqueiro Anduze, La ciudad her6ica: historia de Valladolid (Merida, 1943),
pp. 238-239.
" TomAs Aznar Barbachano and Juan Carb6, Memoria sobre la conveniencia, utilidad, y
necesisdad de erigir constitucionalmente en estado de la confederaci6n mexicana el antiguo
distrito de Campeche (Mexico, 1861), pp. 12-13; "Incorporaci6n a la real corona de las
encomiendas de la provincia de Yucatan," Boletin del Archivo General de la Naci6n, IX
(July, 1938), 456-569; "Incorporaci6n de encomiendas en la provincia de YucatAn y
Tabasco," ibid., (October, 1938), 591-675. See above, n. 1.
Yucatan. Hides, tallow, and beef products from Buenos Aires

displaced Yucatecan ones in Merida's chief market at Habana.
The peninsula had been cut off from trade with Cuba when it was
reluctantly forced to declare war on Spain. Later, Yucatecans
could not recapture the trade against the competition of Argen-
tina, whose wares were vended for little more than the cost of
transporting them, so great was the growth of grazing on the
pampas.55 Yucatecan rice, in like manner, was driven off the
Habana market by the superior, lower priced yields from the large
plantations in the United States.56 Yucatecan equipment for
hulling rice was primitive, and there seemed but little incentive
for improving it. Though small amounts of rice still were grown
for local use, it was a dwindling money crop by 1845.
Logwood, still another traditional colonial product, was also in
a parlous state. British Honduras and Honduras had broken
Campeche's virtual monopoly; prices had dropped to around
eighty pesos a ton for the chips from which dye was extracted.
Best sites on the peninsula had been logged over, forcing cutters
inland where costs of transportation to water were superimposed
on high operating expenses. Since cutting logwood had always
been a speculative business, concessionaires found rates of interest
high, and climbing from 1830 onward. Under optimum condi-
tions they could see but slim margins of profit. Already on the
horizon was another threat, "diverse chemical compounds," from
which good and cheap dye could be manufactured.57 But as yet
aniline colorings had not been sufficiently developed to displace
logwood completely, though they did later. Working against
time, proponents of the logwood industry attempted technological
improvements; extract was made at logging sites and was de-
hydrated to form tablets in order to cut transportation costs.
They experimented with a hot-bath process to fix the colors, since
tablets were not acceDted in foreign markets. where Durchasers
55 "Exposici6n que elev6 el Congreso Constituyente de YucatAn al Congreso Nacional,
6 de julio de 1824," Elftnix, No. 57 (August 10, 1849); Regil, op. cit., p. 5; Echinove et at.,
op. cit., paragraphs 48-50; Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., pp. 281-283. Speaking of Yucatan in
1831 a writer said the inhabitants "son afectos a la cria de ganado y al comercio, y en
particular al producido de carnes, sebo, s.uelas, palo de tinte, y henequ6n en rama y labrado,
en que consiste su riqueza" (Jos6 Julian Pe6n, Cr6nica sucinta de Yucatdn [2nd ed., MWrida,
1901], p. 7; cf. Waldeck, op. cit., p. 27).
56 Regil, op. cit., p. 3; Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., pp. 272, 304-305; El noticioso, No. 29
(M6rida) (February 12, 1847).
57 Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., pp. 314-316; Valera and Corres, op. cit., pp. 43-46; Regil,
op. cit., p. 3; Heller, op. cit., pp. 283-285; Morelet, op. cit., I, 235 ff. Echdnove et al. (op.
cit., paragraph 95) assert that the best lands had already been logged.
asserted the dyes thus derived were not fast.58 Logwood seemed
a losing gamble, though the day was still distant when Campeche's
only exports would be "men and guitars, that is to say, pain
and complaints."59
Most of the new rural establishments centered around pro-
duction of sugar, some few around henequen. After independence
the government had attempted to supplement Yucatecan prod-
ucts with coffee and silk. Despite the offered premiums, in the
form of "perpetual" tax exemptions and other concessions
to growers, coffee did not flourish.60 Little success attended the
separate efforts of Baranda and Juan Frutos, a Spanish doctor, to
revive an early colonial industry, silk production.6" Official efforts
to put henequen on a paying basis seemed barren. With a
minimum of governmental stimulation, however, sugar took a
sudden and dramatic rise, due chiefly to accident and necessity.
Sugar was known in Yucatan from as early as 1605, but
imperial policy had proscribed its commerical production.62
Optimistic reports in the late eighteenth century on its pos-
sibilities were borne out in the nineteenth.63 Cut off from Spanish
supplies at Cuba and unsure of those from the Gulf plain of
Mexico, Yucatecans, with government blessing, set about growing
their own.64 Sugar culture now boomed, and with it expanded
hitherto minor communities like Tekax, Peto, Bolonchenticul and
like hamlets on the Indian frontier. Before long sugar out-
58 Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., pp. 316-317. A decree of October 30, 1828, gave a monopoly
on extraction of liquid dye to a M6rida merchant (Pe6n and Gondra, eds., op. cit., I 144-
145; Eligio Ancona, Historia de Yucatan, IV, 390-391.
59 Aldo Baroni, Yucatdn (Mexico, 1937), p. 36. The decadence of trade in Campeche is
clearly evident in Jos6 Vasconcelos' account of his residence there in 1895 (op. cit., pp. 119,
122, 131). A. Woeikof ("Reise durch Yucatan und die siud6stlichen Provinzen von
Mexiko," Petermanns Mittheilungen, XXV [1879], 205) states: "Die Stadt Campeche ...
jetzt liegt Alles darnieder . .. zu einem Hafen ohne Hinterland reducirt."
60 Decree, November 26, 1825, in Pe6n and Gondra, eds., op. cit., II, 35-36. Notes on
history of coffee in Mexico may be found in Matfas Romero, El estado de Oaxaca (Bar-
celona, 1886), Part II, pp. 61-199.
61 Justo Sierra (p6re), "Dr. Juan Antonio Frutos, noticia biogrgfica," Registro yucateco,
III (1846), 106-110; Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., p. 285; J. T. Cervera, "El gusano de seda,"
Repertorio pintoresco, I (1862), 431-436; Woodrow Wilson Borah, Silk Raising in Colonial
Mexico (Berkeley, 1943), pp. 22-23.
62 J. F. Molina Solis, Historia de Yucatan durante la dominaci6n espaiiola (3 vols.,
M6rida, 1904-1910), II, 399; Baqueiro Anduze, op. cit., p. 240.
63 Valera and Corres, op. cit., p. 53.
64 Exposici6n (1844), especially pp. 15-16. Protective laws of October 13, 1823, in Pe6n
and Gondra, eds., op. cit., I, 31-33; of October 19, 1826, in ibid., II, 58; of March 5, 1832,
in ibid., II, 238; of February 12, 1841, in Aznar P6rez, ed., op. cit., II, 22.
stripped every crop in acreage and value with the exception of the
peninsula's great staple, maize. New haciendas, distilleries, aind
canefields began to appear in ill-explored grounds previously
occupied only by isolated groups of Maya families. Some of
these were forcibly attached to the new haciendas as labor and
kept there by the peonage laws passed by state congresses.65
Within the decade from 1830 to 1840 sugar prices plummeted
from luxury levels.66 By 1840 not only did the growers produce
sufficient supply for peninsula use, but began to pile up ex-
portable surpluses.
Technological improvement following 1840 gave Yucatecan
growers hope of increasing current production by 30 per cent
without an increase of acreage, though there was little to prevent
the latter. Steel cane presses replaced wooden ones; techniques
of distilling gave higher and higher yields.67 As in the case of
Baranda, political entanglements rather than production prob-
lems temporarily dimmed the growers' optimism. Like Ba-
randa's cotton goods, their sugar was omitted from the "free
list" of the Mexican ports to which they shipped. But the sugar
interests were numerous and powerful enough to prod their local
government into action.
Common interests and objectives led sugar growers to or-
ganize. They banded together in a monopolistic organization to
control all distilleries on the peninsula and to lobby. One of their
aims was to have taxes on stills, now becoming a major source of
revenue for the state government, removed and transferred to the
consumers. Compromises were arranged on this matter after
the Caste War had been under way a short time, but the struggle
dealt a virtual death stroke to sugar; and not for some years
afterward were operations resumed.68
65 The land law of December 2, 1825, directed that fertile areas near Tekax be given in
preference to others (Pe6n and Gondra, eds., op. cit., II, 37-38). Cf. also Francisco Mar-
tfnez de Arredondo, "Bolonchenticul," Museo yucateco, I (1841); Angel Cuervo, "Yax-ha,"
Registro yucateco, III (1846), 15-16; Agustin Zetina, "Becanchen: su origen, formaci6n,
y descripci6n," ibid., II (1845), 272-278; Stephens, Travels in Yucatan, I, 329-348; II,
170-250.
66 Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., pp. 275, 309-311; Exposici6n (1844); Peraza, "Cafna de
azdcar," in Articulos sueltos, pp. 111-114.
67 Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., p. 309; Vicente Solfs ("Informe de la junta de fomento ...
del distrito de Merida, marzo 22 de 1844," in Exposici6n (1844), pp. 28-29) writes that a
"multitud de yucatecos volvieron la vista a las tierras proprias para la vegetaci6n de la
cafia: no pocos comerciantes y hacendados ganadores acudieron con sus capitales de
riqueza reproductiva a poner establecimientos de azucar ... construyeron buenos edificios
rurales; importaron en el pafs mdquinas extranjeras para moler la caa..... ." He thought
expansion was limited chiefly by "poquisimos labradores proletarios."
68 Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., p. 310; "Industria: destilaci6n del aguardience de cafna,"
Henequen, on the other hand, survived the war; its rise was
less startling than that of sugar, though both began to appear in
ponderable quantities about the same time. Like Baranda's
"Aurora," and like sugar, henequen was locally financed and
developed, aided by protective legislation but not subsidized by
the state government. The crop consisted of fiber extracted
from leaves of species of agave that flourished on Yucatan's
limestone soil and in its semi-arid climate.69 Both in pre-conquest
days and through the earlier colonial regime small amounts were
grown. In the late colonial period private enthusiasts pointed out
its possible use in ship's-cordage because of its high resistance to
rot and insects. Though some official interest was aroused, little
planned exploitation ensued until after independence.70 In their
quest for commercial products, state officials hit upon henequen
and in 1828 decreed that every householder should plant at least
ten agaves in his patio, and that municipal authorities and Indian
caciques should see that all vacant house-lots and public lands
were cultivated in henequen.71
La voz p0blica, No. 32 (August 15, 1846). Justo Sierra ("Destilaci6n de aguardiente," El
fknix, Nos. 18, 19, 21 [January 25, February 1, 10, 1849]) discusses at length the monopoly.
See numerous changes in laws, e.g., that of June 5, 1833, in Aznar Perez, ed., op. cit., I, 120.
122 (taxing stills); that of January 10, 1834, in ibid., 1, 174 (reducing taxes on stills); that
of December 17, 1841, in ibid. II, 158 (taxing barrels, not stills); that of April 26, 1847, in
ibid., III, 123-126 (making consumer rather than distiller responsible for tax); that of
December 20, 1848, in ibid., III, 244-246 (suppressing consumer tax, reestablishing tax on
stills); that of November 15, 1849, in ibid., III, 287-290 (allowing monopoly to pay lump
sum annually); that of January 7, 1850, in ibid., III, 308-309 (repressing monopoly). See
comment of El f6nix (No. 77 [November 20, 1849]) on decree allowing monopoly to pay
lump sums. Cf. also Peraza, "El ingenio Tabi," in Articulos sueltos, pp. 175-180.
69 H. T. Edwards, Production of Henequen Fiber in Yucatan and Campeche, United
States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 1278 (Washington, 1924); E. W. Nelson, "The
Agaves, a Remarkable Group of Useful Plants," United States Department of Agricul-
ture, Yearbook, 1902, pp. 313-320; E. F. Castetter, W. H. Bell, and A. R. Groove, The
Early Utilization and Distribution of Agave in the American Southwest (University of New
Mexico, Studies in the American South West, VI) (Albuquerque, 1938); W. B. Marshall,
"Useful Products of the Century Plant," Journal of Geography, I (January, 1902), 6-17;
Alice Foster, "Sisal Production in the Semi-Arid Karst Country of Yucatan," ibid., XXIX
(January, 1930), 16-24. There is much other literature.
70 Jose Maria de Lanz, "Observaciones . . . sobre la planta nombrada henequen, sus
utilidades, y lo conveniente de su fomento, en cumplimiento de la comision con que
despach6 a Yucatan para la inspecci6n de jarcia ... 1783," Registro yucateco, III (1846),
81-95; Valera and Corres, op. cit., pp. 60-61; Regil, op. cit., p. 3; Echanove et al. (op. cit.,
paragraphs 46, 87-94) give an enthusiastic description of its possibilities, stating "No hay
mina de oro y plata y piedras preciosas de semejante utilidad, porque se dilata en bene-
ficio de las infinitas manos que puede entretener su labor." He thought it would give lazy
Indians sufficient work. Cf. Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., pp. 274-275, 311-314.
71 Alvarez, op. cit., I, 203-204.
Official fiat did not create the industry, however. The year
1830 marks the beginning of commercial henequen production in
Yucatan. In that year the first small crop was harvested on an
experimental plantation, and a corporation was formed-ap-
parently the first modern one in Yucatan, aimed at "promotion,
fracture of henequen."72 For these purposes local capitalists sub-
scribed 7,500 pesos, a large part of which was dedicated to finding
suitable machinery. Rasping mechanisms were especially need-
ed. To extract salable fiber from matured leaves was an ineffi-
cient and expensive job by hand labor. As a substitute they
sought a simple, power-driven device which could be operated
by natives.
Local and foreign inventors vied for premiums which the
government and private parties offered. Early among the
solutions was a machine which Henry Perrine, American consul
at Campeche, patented in 1833; his enthusiasm for henequen led
him to introduce its cultivation in Florida.74 But his apparatus,
like those of other foreigners - James K. Hitchcock, E. S. Scrip-
ture, Ferdinand Salisch, and a "Mr. Thompson from Boston"
-proved ineffective; their merit lies in the fact that their de-
fects were carefully noted, and on this empirical data improve-
ments were made.75
Yucatecans soon produced workable machines. Rivalry
72Alonso Fabila, Exploraci6n econ6mico-social del estado de Yucatdn (Mexico, n.d.
[1942]), pp. 52-53. Thirty-two hectares were planted on the Hacienda Chaczinkfn, yield-
ing a crop worth 838 pesos, 2Y2 reales (Gonzalo Ca,mara, Zavala, Resenla hist6rica de la
industria henequenera de Yucatdn [M6rida, 1936], pp. 11-12, 36-38).
73 Boletin de bibliografia yucateca, No. 6 (March, 1939), p. 1; Mireya Priego de Arjona,
"Indice de las obras que tratan sobre el hehequ6n existentes en la Biblioteca 'Crescencio
Carrillo y Ancona,'" ibid., No. 18 (July, 1943), pp. 2-24; Men6ndez, op. cit., pp. 277-
278. The group was also given a ten-year monopoly on a henequen rasping machine in
August, 1830, "which Mr. Freeman Graham offers to introduce on the peninsula in ac-
cordance with his contract" (Boletin de bibliografia yucateca, No. 8 [July, 1939], pp. 12-13).
74 "Mandando librar patente de invenci6n de una maquina," May 29, 1833, in Aznar
P6rez, ed., op. cit., I, 116-117; "Sisal Cultivation in Florida," United States Department
of Agriculture, Report for 1890, p. 467; Nelson, op. cit., 319.
75 Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., 313-314; Eligio Ancona, Historia de Yucatdn, IV, 389; James
K. Hitchcock and E. S. Scripture, "CAlculo que manifiesta las ventajas que produce el
raspar jenequ6n [sic]," La voz pfiblica (M6rida), No. 56 (November 7,1846). A premium
of two thousand pesos was voted to Salisch, if the Sociedad de Fomento found his ma-
chine workable ("Autorizando al gobierno para conceder un premio," November 14,
1840, in Aznar P6rez, ed., op. cit., I, 339). By 1873 the stakes had risen, as even the ma-
chinery of that time "incurs so much waste of the filament that last year . . . the planters
of Merida proposed to offer a reward of 20,000 dollars to any person who would improve
the machine" (Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, "Notes on Yucatan," The Mexican Calendar
Stone etc. [Stephen Salisbury, compiler, privately printed, Worcester, 1879], p. 74).
between local inventors ran high. Courts ruled that precedence

went to a machine created by Manuel Cecilio Villamor, but
popular opinion, and later official recognition, favored that of
Jose Esteban Solis, on whom the Empress Carlota pinned a gold
medal for his work.76 Between 1850 and 1880 numerous improve-
ments appeared, still largely by Yucatecans. By the time Mc-
Cormick's self-binding reaper was booming in the early 1880's,
henequen entrepreneurs were prepared to furnish excellent binder-
twine, which they did on a monopolistic basis.77 Foundations for
henequen economy, which changed the face of later Yucatan,
were laid by Baranda's generation and its sons.78
Even by 1845 the crop was appreciable, despite technical
difficulties. Unlike Baranda's textiles, or sugar, but few political
snarls developed externally to hamper trade in henequen. Aside
from lack of an efficient rasper, henequeneros found that elements
necessary to commercial economy had appeared. Notably de-
fective were credit facilities,79 but one feature that had slowed
down developments, an integrated transportation network, had
emerged under the spur of entrepreneurs. As pointed out,
Baranda could scarcely even have moved his machinery to
Valladolid until after 1820: before that time roads were lankinw.
76 Antonio G. Rej6n, "Maquina para raspar jenequ6n," Repertorio pintoresco, I (1861)
16-18, 70-79; Men6ndez, op. cit., p. 404. Gustavo Molina Font (La tragedia de Yucatdn,
12nd ed., Mexico, 1941], p. 67) says that when the courts fined Solfs for infringement of
Villamor patents public subscription brought 4,000 pesos to pay the fines. I cannot find
justification for the statement that steam-driven henequen machinery was operating in
1851, as stated by Asael T. Hansen ("The Ecology of a Latin American City [Meridal]," in
Race and Culture Contacts [E. B. Reuter, ed., New York, 1934], p. 132. Cf. Woeikof,
op. cit., p. 203). Camara Zavala (op. cit., pp. 29-33) reviews the various claims.
77 Eleutorio A. Solis, in 1856, seems to have produced the first really workable machine
(Men6ndez, op. cit., p. 347; Serapio Baqueiro, Reseha geogrdfica, hist6rica, y estadistica del
estado de Yucatdn desde los primitivos tiempos de la peninsula [Mexico, 1881], pp. 116-117).
Jos6 Esteban Solfs' apparatus was patented in January, 1857. In 1863, Miguel Espinosa
Rend6n improved former models.
78 Molina Font writes, "Cumple al yucateco y al historiador recordar con respeto y
gratitud a aquellos hombres... [que] fueron jefes y gufas de esa generaci6n benem6rita,
y [que] encabezaron, dirigieron, y alentaron el esfuerzo de los yucatecos de entonces para
realizar la magnffica obra que los yucatecos de ahora no supimos conservar .. .." (op. cit.,
p.,71). Cf. activities of Miguel Rendon, who in addition to inventing henequen machinery
became the partner of Bruggies Co. (1881) to finance henequen, imported Holstein cows to
the peninsula, financed railroads there, and was chief entrepreneur of electric lighting
system (Vald6s Acosta, op. cit., II, 285-288).
7 In 1876 a bank was projected to finance henequen (Priego de Arjona, op. cit., pp. 3-4),
but by 1878 it was still merely a dream (Pedro de Regil Pe6n, Jos6 G. Zavala, and Manuel
Donde, "Informe sobre agricultura y comercio, marzo 26 de 1878," in Emiliano Blusto, ed.,
Estadistica de la Repftblica Mexicana [3 vols., Mexico, 1880], III, 255-269, 410-416).
THE "AURORA YUCATECA " 57
In 1803 Baron Alexander von Humboldt stressed difficulties of

cotton transport. 80
Nothing is more typical of the spirit moving Yucatecans than
the various activities connected with solution of their transporta-
tion problems. As in the other examples above, private initiative
and government cooperated; extension of the roadways was a
boon to entrepreneurs, who had loudly demanded them, but at
the same time helped precipitate the Caste War. At the end of
the colonial period about sixty-five miles of passable cart roads
existed, dating chiefly from 1793; they stuck out spoke-like
from a hub at M6rida, joining it to nearby communities among
which were interspersed cattle haciendas dating mainly from the
sixteenth century.81 By 1846 mileage had grown to 330, by
extension of colonial roads to points in the hinterland-Valladolid,
Tekax, Peto, Tihosuco, Bolonchenticul.82 One of the most elabo-
rate completed projects was the Sierra road which passed through
sugar entrepots; by use of carts, transportation costs were reduced
to less than half previous charges for mule-back, and after the
road was improved in 1845, they dropped even further.83 To
accomplish the laborious tasks of road-building, the government
decreed that each male (or a paid substitute) should devote four
to six days annually to it, a labor portion generically known as
fagina.84 At least one Maya gave as his reason for joining the
revolt in 1847 that when he and fellow villagers went to Val-
ladolid to perform fagina they were cruelly treated.85 But
private enterprise also took a hand in road building. From
Bolonchenticul to a point on main highways a private toll road
was constructed, to revert to the state after a ten-year period. 86
80 Alexander von Humboldt, Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne (5
vols., Paris, 1811), II, 334. Echo4nove in 1814 pointed out that lacking ginning apparatus,
and with the suppression of cheap labor by abolition of the repartimiento, cotton was too
expensive to transport from Tizimin (op. cit., paragraph 28).
81 Regil, op. cit., pp. 10-11; Echdnove et al., op. cit., paragraphs 80-81.
82 Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., pp. 325-326.
83 Ibid., pp. 326-327.
84 See various laws, especially law of October 30, 1827, in Pe6n and Gondra, eds., op. cit.,
II, 99-101; that of May 6, 1833, in Aznar P6rez, ed., op. cit., I, 106-110; and that of Janu-
ary 20, 1841, in ibid., II, 4-13.
85 Statement of Leandro Poot (R. L. Roys, The Titles of Ebtun [Carnegie Institution of
Washington, Publication 505] [Washington, 1939], p. 59). A long and interesting eye-
witness statement of incidents of the Caste War by Poot is given in Edward H. Thomp-
son, "A Page of American History," American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, New
Series, XVII (October, 1905), 239-252. Poot lived anid worked on Hacienda Chichen.
86 "Privilegio exclusivo para la apertura de un camino," October 29, 1841, in Aznar
Perez, ed., op. cit., II, 140-141; Martfnez de Arrendondo, op. cit.; Pedro Baranda (hijo)
in Registro yucateco, IV (1846), 153.
To cut transportation costs, merchants at M6rida sought a more

protected and nearer port than Sisal. After reconnoitering the
northwest coast in a canoe, three men found what they deemed a
suitable place.87 Typically they named it "Progreso"-Progress.
Though a new port there was projected in 1846, it did not attain
sizable growth until a generation later.88 It is of some interest
to note that when the railroads came to Yucatan, with but few
exceptions they were laid along the routes of cart-roads built
from 1821 to 1847.
Increasing activity and shifting of economic balances in-
evitably disturbed traditional political alignments in Yucatan.
After 1841 two parties began to form around issues on which there
was real difference of opinion and policy. Each group was headed
by a man with mercantile rather than agrarian-hacendado back-
ground, as was more common earlier. The one, Santiago
i6ndez, drew strength from Campeche and its sugar-growing
and salt-producing environs, which were interested in maintain-
ing close connections with Mexico and the Gulf ports to which
they shipped.89 Less enthusiasm for an independent Yucatecan
nation was found in the Campeche area than in M6rida and among
its cattle-henequen satellites whose products flowed to Cuba,
even to the United States. The latter group was headed by
Miguel Barbachano, who at the same time professed to be a
champion'of the Indians. To some degree Barbachano accurate-
ly reflected the attitude of his supporters. On the older colonial
cattle-maize haciendas there was less of the ruthless efficiency and
drive for new lands that marked sugar economy to the south.
Henequen plantations expanded northward into barren lands not
extensively cultivated nor of much interest to the Maya. Cur-
iously enough many Maya of the Merida area not only did
not revolt in 1847, but took up arms to fight the rebel natives
of the east and south. 90
87 Vald6s Acosta, op. cit., I, 416-417; Regil and Pe6n, op. cit., p. 245.
88 Men6ndez, op. cit., p. 331; Le Plongeon, op. cit., pp. 71-73; Frederick A. Ober, Travels
in Mexico and Life Among the Mexicans (Boston, 1885), pp. 26-28; Morris Steggerda, "A
Description of Thirty Towns in Yucatan, Mexico" (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 136) (Washington, 1943), p. 242.
89 Aznar Barbachano and Carb6, op. cit., p. 31.
90 These loyal Maya were given the name of "hidalgos." Of the 25,000 troops raised to
fight the war, 10,000 were these, according to Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona (El Obispado
de Yucatdn (Merida, 1892), p. 1,039). They were given special badges and equipment.
Among others, see laws, "Premios y recompensas en favor de los indfgenas que contribuyen
a reprimir la sublevaci6n," January 26, 1848, in Aznar Perez, ed., op. cit., III, 181-182;
"Concediendo el tftulo de hidalgos a los indfgenas que concurrieron a la defensa de Tun-
kas," April 3, 1848, in ibid., pp. 203-204; list of hidalgos, in ibid., p. 206; "Aprobando
The splits between economic groups, each with special inter-

ests, tended to shatter whatever was left of colonial political
unity, based on common sentiments and complementary eco-
nomnic interests. Factional struggles following 1841 compoun-
ded mounting Indian grievances without settling some of the
basic issues of internal and foreign policy. Ultimately the Caste
War resulted from political reprisals against the Indians, and the
fundamentally different outlook of the Campeche and M6rida
entrepreneurs led to creation of a separate state in 1858.91 Cam-
peche and Me'rida had previously differed often on a number of
points, but in 1821 there were few unbridgable chasms between
them. Developments in the 1830's and 1840's, largely economic
in nature, sharpened antagonism to such a point that both were
nearly overwhelmed in 1847 as a consequence of their refusal to
co6perate in quelling the Indian revolt of that year.92
Some idea of the relative weight of contemporary economic
groups in direction of internal affairs and foreign policy (for
Yucatan arrogated to itself right to arrange its own affairs with
Mexico and some foreign nations) appears from the following
table.93 It shows the total annual production of the peninsula,
the amount of the product which went into local channels, the
value of exported amounts, and the percentage of total export
trade these sums represent.
ESTIMATED VALUE OF COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION IN YUCATAN, 1845

TOTAL PRODUCTION SOLD EXPORTED
CLASS MAJOR LOCALLY Value Per cent of
ITEMS Pesos Per cent Per cent (pesos) export trade
Cattle...... Hides ........ 1 43,723 5.2 57.4 61,723 9.0

Forest ..... Logwood..... 422,691 14.7 14.0 363,660 53.7
Mineral. .. Salt.92,641 3.3 26.8 67,918 10.0
Tobacco... . Cigarettes .... 328,955 11.7 75.3 68,955 10.1
Sugar ...... Raw; liquor... 1,660,413 59.1 95.5 10,503 1.6
Henequen.. Raw; bagging. 169,776 6.0 37.5 105,930 15.6
Totals ..... .............. 2,818,199 100.0 73.2 678,689 100.0
la organizaci6n de hidalgos," May 27, 1848, in ibid., pp. 208-209. The government paid
the debts of those held in debt bondage, but it gave Indians no pay for service except
booty, although a gold medal was promised for distinguished service.
91 Barbachano and Carb6, op. cit., passim; Juan Suarez y Navarro, Informe sobre las
causas y cardcter de los frecuentes cambios politicos ocurridos en el estado de Yucatdn (AMexico,
1861), pp. 17-18, 23-28; Joaqufn Baranda, Recordaciones hist6ricas, II, 231-449.
92 Baqueiro, op. cit., I, 244-597; II, 5-577.
93 Regil and Pe6n-, op. cit., Tables 2, 12 (adapted and corrected for errors of extension.
etc.).
From the above brief survey of Baranda, a typical Yucatecan,

his "Aurora Yucateca," an early cotton mill, and some of the
various contemporary activities, there seems but little doubt that
a spirit of enterprise was strong in Yucatan from 1821 to 1847.
Yucatecans were now "modern," for better or for worse.
HOWARD F. CLINE.
Harvard University.

Cline, Howard F., The Aurora Yucateca and The Spirit of Enterprise in Yucatan, 1821-1847.

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The "Aurora Yucateca" and the Spirit of Enterprise in Yucatan, 1821-1847

Author(s): Howard F. Cline

Its founder, Pedro Sainz de Baranda y Borreiro, asserted that

Yucatecan contemporaries, foreign travelers, and later writers

similar ideas. Fronmi mixed motives of patriotism, hope of gain,

departure for sketching rapidly some of the other notable shifts

suitable models. The enthusiasm and aspirations of their peoples

Indians under a native cacique, appointed by the government and

some positive achievements of the era. These remain as im-

THE ENTREPRENEUR: PEDRO SAINZ DE BARANDA

Though in most ways a child of his age and locale, Pedro

Party, whose strength lay largely in Campeche. The party

As a group they were widely traveled, alert to adopt new ideas

pair seemingly soon left.21 Burke entered Baranda's employ in

THE AURORA YUCATECA," 1833-1845

With their capital Baranda and MacGregor purchased

sistent native refusal to modernize when Indians on his hacienda

Salable products included thread and yard-goods. The

of pieces. Daily capacity of the "Aurora" was from four to five

piricism, such as more solid construction of the main building

THE SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE IN YUCATAN, 1821-1847

We have literary and scientific periodicals, as well as mercantile and

Economic thought and activity paralleled the burgeoning

emptions and other privileges for his projected textile manu-

enjoyed under the colonial regime was stripped away.50 Behind

In general, textiles, a colonial product, seemed moribund,

Yucatan. Hides, tallow, and beef products from Buenos Aires

between local inventors ran high. Courts ruled that precedence

In 1803 Baron Alexander von Humboldt stressed difficulties of

To cut transportation costs, merchants at M6rida sought a more

The splits between economic groups, each with special inter-

ESTIMATED VALUE OF COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION IN YUCATAN, 1845

Cattle...... Hides ........ 1 43,723 5.2 57.4 61,723 9.0

Totals ..... .............. 2,818,199 100.0 73.2 678,689 100.0

From the above brief survey of Baranda, a typical Yucatecan,

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