/ MEXICO =

o<
l'TI
::i:,
BECOMING CAMPESINOS
Campesinos argues that the formation of the campesino as both a
tegory and a cultural identity in Mexico was one of the most enduring

=
the great revolutionary upheavals that began in 1910. Challenging rhe
that rural peoples "naturally" share a sense of cultural solidarity
al consciousness because of rheir subordinate social status, the author
hat the particular understanding of popular-class unity conveyed rr,
1 campesino originated through the interaction of postrevolutionary·,,.__ ·

o
(j
and agrarian militancy during the 1920s and 1930s.
k uses oral histories, archiva) documents, and partisan newspapers
history of one movement born of this dynamic-agrarismo in rhe ·"•�­ �
choacán. The agrarians of Michoacán initially mobilized ro support _. ·::
ionary land reform during the short-lived administration of Govern�t� ,,,.,...•
. Múgica, one of the revolution's most radical intellectuals. When he+
·,
from office, however, leadership of the agrarian movement fell to
admen, union organizers, and schoolteachers. These "village revolu­
eveloped understandings of peasant militancy and campesino identiry;';· ·
tructured around postrevolutionary ideals of class and citizenship. (if
'zara Cárdenas became governor of Michoacán in 1928, he activaced ::·
scourses and appealed to village revolutionaries in order to creare r
nization that institutionalized agrarianism-a strategy he later
with minar variations, as president. The author argues that the inter- .·)
assroots militancy and political mobilization from the top meant rhat :·;,,
pulace entered the political sphere, not as indigenous people or rural
s, but as a class-like social category of campesinos. As a result, the
ostrevolutionary interpenetration of popular and official political
d implications far Mexican political life that are still felt today.
.f i

[_
1
�
R. B oyer is Assistant Professor o ( History and Latin American
�------.;._----....-a11t-
tudies at the U11iversity~ o[I{linois_at_ChiCC1gQ ..
'U .
• • •
••
D UNIVERSITY PRESS .NTITY ' AND AGRARIAN STRUGGLE IN
rg TIONARY MICHOACÁN, 1920-1935
1
ndolier, Corn, Sickle, 1927, by Tina Modotti.
hrockmorton Fine Art, Inc.
James P. Brommer Christopher R. Boyer
 '1

l/
Becoming Campesinos
POLITICS, IDENTITY, AND

AGRARIAN STRUGGLE IN

POSTREVOLUTIONARY MICHOACÁN,
1920-1935

♦
CHRISTOPHER R. BOYER

l 1 111111111111
3 9 O 5 O 7 9 9 O 4 3 Q

Stanford University Press [I Biblioteca Daniel Cosio Villega.s

Inventario .. J07
Stanford, California
2003
 323. 33 o cr:¡ 235
B=1'( I 2. b 1/
Stanford University Press For Amy,
Stanford, California
Partner and Practitioner
© 2003 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior Ur.iversity.
Ali rights reserved.
Printed in the United Stares of America
on acid-free, archival-quality paper. ..)
o
o
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data t\

Boyer, Christopher R. (Christopher Roben)

Becoming campesinos: politics, identiry, and agracian struggle
in posrrevolurionary Michoacán , 1920-1935 / Chrisropher R. Boyer.
p . cm.
lncludes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8047-4352-5 (clorh: alk. paper)­
ISBN 0-8047-4356-8 (pbk : alk. paper)
r. Peasantry-Mexico-Michoacán de Ocampo-History-2oth century.
2. Peasantry-Mexico-Political activity-History-2oth century.
3. Agricultura! laborers-Mexico-Michoacán de Ocampo-Hisrory-
2oth century. 4. Land reform-Mexico-Michoacán de Ocampo­
History-2.oth cenrury. 5. Michoacán de Ocampo (Mexico)-Politics and
government-2orh cenrury. 6. Mcxico-Politics and government-1910-1946.
l. Title.
HDl 5 3 T.M6 B69 2002.
305. 5 '633 '09723709042-dc 2.r 2.002012.183
Original Printing 2003
Last figure below indicates year of this printing:
12. II 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 OJ
Typeset by James P. Brommer in ro/14 Sabon

...
 '
1

Contents f/

Acknowledgments IX

Introduction l

r. Becoming Campesinos: From Political Category to

Cultural Identity 16

2. Land, Community, and Memory in Postrevolutionary

Michoacán 46

3· Francisco Múgica and the Making of Agrarian Struggle,

1920-1922 80

4. Village Revolutionaries Il4

5- Refusing the Revolution: Catholic Nationalism and

the Cristero Rebellion 154

6. Lázaro Cárdenas and the Advent of a Campesino Politics 188

7- Conclusion: The Politics of Campesino Identity in

Twentieth-Century Mexico 223

Appendix: Land Reform in Mich oacán, 1917-1940 245

List of Abbreviations 246
Notes 249
Glossary 286
Bibliography 289
Index 310
Acknowledgments r/
\

I first began writing about the agrarian militants of Michoacán in 1991,

in part because I wanted to understand why the rural people of Mexico
found themselves in desperate straits despite the nation's revolutionary
heritage. Sorne tattered remnants of that heritage could still be found in
those days, even if in radically altered form. The official party of the rev­
olution (then in its most famous guise as the Partido Revolucionario In­
stitucional, or PRI) was still in power and the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) had yet to be signed. The land reform still existed,
at least on paper.
A lot has changed since those days. The PRI has lost the presidency
and faces the deepest crisis of its long history. NAFTA has made global­
ization into a central feature of Mexico's political economy despite yet
another economic crisis that began in late 1994. The redistribution of
lands is only a memory, and land reform beneficiaries can privatize their
holdings if they wish. It seems that the epitaph can finally be written for
the Mexican Revolution. Or can it? On the same day that NAFTA took
effect, indigenous people from Chiapas revolted. They called themselves
Zapatistas, harking back to the famous revolutionary agrarian of the
19ros. In 2002, a governor by the name of Lázaro Cárdenas took office
in Michoacán, three-quarters of a century after bis grandfather and name­
sake did likewise. It seems as if a revolutionary ghost continues to dwell
somewhere in the machine.
Many people who share my interest in the fate of Mexico's rural peo­
ple have encouraged me to write this history. I would like express my
gratitude to my teachers at the University of Chicago: John Coatsworth,
Paul Friedrich, Claudia Lomnitz, and my dissertation director, Friedrich
Katz. Anyone familiar wirh their extensive contributions to the study of
Mexican history will doubtless find echoes of their work in the pages that
follow.

IX
X Acknowledgments
Michoacán is fortunate to have two distinguished institutions of higher
education whose scholars helped me to orient my research and think about
its implications. They have built up a vibrant historiography of Micho­
acán, and I am pleased to finally add my own contribution to it. At the
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, I benefited from the
kindness and constant support of Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, Napoleón Guz­
mán, and Eduardo Mijangos. And at the Colegio de Michoacán, I would
like to thank my friends and colleagues Álvaro Ochoa Serrano, Verónica
Okión Solano, and Martín Sánchez, the latter of whom has been a gra­
cious host on more than one occasion.
A number of archivists helped me locate the sources for this book.
Thanks to Elva Ruiz Magaña, Alicia Venegas González, Pilar Ortega Va­
rela, and Rita María Hernández Hernández, ali of whom worked at the
Archivo Histórico del Poder Ejecutivo in Morelia when I was doing my re­
search; to Lic. Luis Prieto Reyes, Arturo Ayala López, Guadalupe Ramos
García, Angelica Herrera Arteaga, and Teresa Sánchez Santillán of the
Centro de Estudios de la Revolución "Lázaro Cárdenas" in Jiquilpan; to
Padre Alberto Burgos of the Seminario de Zamora; and to Juventino Gon­
zález Pimentel and Ignacio Trejo Gutiérrez of the Archivo General de la
Nación in Mexico City. Mons. Francisco Valencia Ayala allowed me to re­
view the holdings of the Sala Canonical of the Cathedral of Zamora and
helped me to make sense of what I had read. Severa! other individuals al­
lowed me access to documents in their possession, including Fidelmar Gu­
tiérrez, Pilar Ortega, Samuel Ruiz Madrigal, Alvaro Ochoa, and Adonaí
Sotelo. And many thanks to the late Salvador Lemus for allowing me to
read his memoirs and speak with him about their historical context.
When it came time to leave the archives and check my impressions
against the memories of people who participated in the events, I found
more than fifty people to speak to in 1994, 199 5, and 1997. Many of these
individuals have passed away since that time, and I can only hope that this
book helps in sorne way to preserve their experiences and thoughts.
lt is common to refer to the debts one has incurred with other scholars
over the course of writing a book. But I do not feel so much indebted as
grateful to ali of those who ar sorne point or another made specific sug­
gestions to improve the book, or provided moral support, or (as was of­
ten the case) did both simultaneously. These include but are not limited
Acknowledgments XI
to Alee Dawson, Heather Fowler Salamini, Enrique Guerra Manzo, Gil
1/
Joseph, Florencia Mallon, Erika Pani, Pablo Silva, Mary Kay Vaughan,
and John Womack.
Severa! people read and commented on part or ali of the manuscript. I
would like to thank an anonymous reader and John Tutino, both of whom
\
read the manuscript for Stanford University Press and encouraged me with
both insight and sensitivity to expand the book's scope. Though the final
product may not be what they had in mind, their comments were im­
mensely helpful as I made final revisions. Ben Fallaw, Matt Karush, and
Álvaro Ochoa also read the en tire manuscript and offered penetrating sug­
gestions for its improvement. Jocelyn Olcott and Tim Snyder read chap­
ters at one point or another. Emilio Kourí and Bruce Calder gave me cru­
cial help in the late going. I have tried to respond to the insights of ali these
colleagues and friends, but I of course take responsibility for the errors of
fact and interpretation that still refuse to be stamped out.
Writing a book takes time to sit and peck at a keyboard, of course, but
it is made immeasurably easier by running ideas and uncooked concepts
past perceptive and empathetic colleagues. A fellowship at the Harvard
Academy for lnternational and Area Studies gave me both the time to
write and a cohort of peers who were engaged in similar pursuits. The
academy also provided funds for a final research trip for this project. Pre­
vious funds were provided by a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship,
the University of Chicago Program in Mexican Studies, and a University
Small Research Grant from Kansas State University, ali of which I grate­
fully acknowledge.
Spencer Throckmorton and Malin Barth of Throckmorton Fine Art in
New York City kindly gave permission to reproduce Tina Modotti's Ban­
dolie1� Corn, Sickle on the cover. Jonathan Wyss of Topaz Maps in Wa­
tertown, Massachusetts, worked patiently with me to produce the map of
Michoacán. Equally patient were Norris Pope, Stacey Lynn, Mike Mol­
lett, and my other editors at Stanford University Press. Many thanks to
them ali.
Following some sort of unwritten scholarly convention, I have waited
until the end to thank those who have sacrificed the most to see this book
through. I never could have written this book without the support and en­
couragement of my family, and in any case I doubt I would have wanted
 F"'

xu Acknowledgments

to. I would like to thank my son, Isaac Boyer, who carne along in the
middle of this proc':ess and has lived his whole life so far with this book
always in the background. Unlike Isaac, my compañera Amy Shannon Becoming Campesinos 1/
had sorne choice in the matter. Over the years, she has generously drawn \
upon her own experiences as an advocate for campesinos in Mexico as
she read and appraised these pages. I dedicare this book to her with !ove
and admiration.
-
lntroduction 1/
♦
Aquí estamos mi General, aquí seguimos. Aquí estamos
porque estos gobiernos siguen sin memoria para los indígenas
y porque los ricos hacendados, con otros nombres, siguen
despojando de su tierra a los campesinos.

Here we are, my General, we're still here. We're here because

these governments still ignore indigenous people anc) because
rich hacienda owners, with different names now, still rob che
campesinos of their land.
SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS,

spokesperson of the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas.

Open letter to Emiliano Zapata, April ro, r997.

RURAL FOLK KNOWN AS campesinos occupy a privileged position in the

national consciousness of modern Mexico. Ever since the revolution of
r9ro-20 made the desperace condition of subsistence farmers and rural
wage laborers into a central issue of Mexican política! life, the plight of
chese campesinos has absorbed che attention of che nation's most cele­
brated writers, artists, and public intellectuals. Stylized images of country
people ciad in ghost-white tunics and pitched sombreros appear in the mu­
rals of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco as the bearers of the na­
tion's cultural heritage, and Octavio Paz, Mexico's premier essayist, once
called campesinos the "most ancient and secret element" of Mexican soci­
ety.1 The nation's greatest political leaders of the twentieth century tended
to regard campesinos as che righcful heirs of che nation's revolucionary leg­
acy. Political visionaries such as Lázaro Cárdenas (Mexico's president from
1934 to 1940) have understood campesinos to be the disenfranchised rural
I
 pz
2 lntroduction
folk whom the revolution could "redeem" and integrare into the political
nation . Sympathetic as these renderings of the campesino are, however,
they end up portraying country folk as the ageless face of the Mexican
countryside, as a resolutely traditional people who have stoically endured
their lot clown through the centuries.
At other times, artists and politicians have considered campesinos in a
very different light, imagining them to be downtrodden masses prepared
to lash out against their oppressors . The muralists painted campesinos
not only as the soul of the nation but also as the vengeful instrument of
the revolutionary crusade to build a more just society. Paz himself argued
that revolutionary violence gave Mexico a rare glimpse into the true tem­
per of the countryside. The image of a unified and potentially revolution­
ary rural populace also captured the imaginations of major political fig­
ures such as Cárdenas and his political mentor, Francisco Múgica. Botb
men were central players in the creation of the postrevolutionary Mexi­
can state and were, not coincidentally, natives and one-time governors of
Michoacán, tbe western state that is the focus of this book. Like tbe mu­
ralists, Múgica and Cárdenas supposed that campesinos had certain "ob­
jective" interests in political and economic terms, although they also be­
lieved that rural people could not advance their interests, or even fu!ly
recognize them, until they had the cognitive and political means at their
disposal to do so.
It may seem that there is no way to reconcile the two perceptions of
campesinos-as cultural conservatives and as protorevolutionaries-but
in fact the two representations share a fundamental similarity. They both
take it for granted that campesinos exist as a determínate and virtually
unchanging social group. In other words, rather than treat campesino
identity as a product of historical processes, these artists, thinkers, and
politicians have understood campesino identity as a preconstituted fact,
an objective social category produced by extrinsic and relatively stable
historical structures such as rural people's ancient cultural traditions or
the fact that they must work the land to make a living.
The apparent timelessness of campesinos' presence in rural Mexico may
explain why so few historians have considered campesino identity a fit
topic for investigation. After ali, if campesino identity is in a sense struc­
turally determined by people's relationship to the land, then there is no
lntroduction 3
real reason for historians to inquire into the specific historical circum­
stances in which the Mexican campesinaje was constructed as a social en­
tity. It can seem nonsensical to ask what rural people or politicians mean //
when they refer to "campesinos" because the answer appears to be self-ev­ \
ident. Recently, however, a few pioneering scholars have inquired into the
manner in which state makers created an ideology around the "campesino
problern" in order to revolutionize and modernize rural society. As Guil­
lermo Palacios has argued, this ideology aimed at nothing less than the re­
construction of the popular mentality, insofar as political leaders hoped to
"construct the postrevolutionary campesino" as a vital political actor and
economic producer in a new, postrevolutionary Mexican society. 2 Never­
theless, by focusing primarily on the ideologies and political discourses of
the political class, these scholars have left unansweredthe critica! question
of how rural people carne to create, adopt, or reject campesino identity, or
indeed what it meant to them to be campesinos in the first place.
I argue in this book that campesino identity in twentieth-century Mex­
ico is the outgrowth of popular militancy as interpreted through localized
versions of postrevolutionary ideology. As we will see in Chapter 1, this
cultural process began when rural people known as agrarians (agraristas)
mobilized to request lands made available in the postrevolutionary land
reform. The mobilized country people who participated in the land re­
form carne in contact with schoolteachers, local activists, and others, lo­
cal leaders whom I will call village revolutionaries. Village revolutionar­
ies articulated a radical, class-based discourse that emphasized the values
of class struggle and citizenship in what they imagined to be a new, post­
revolutionary nation. As agraristas organized politically, solicited lands,
and interacted with village revolutionaries, they appropriated sorne post­
revolutionary ideals, but they rejected or transformed others in ways that
made sense to them. Eventually, they began to represent themselves as be­
longing to a social category known as campesinos, that is, as a distinct
social group united by a shared set of political and economic interests as
well as by a collective history of oppression.
The locally intelligible conceptions of class and citizensbip that agraris­
tas began to elaborare in the 1920s constituted the fundamental building
blocks of campesino identity. But this was not an even process, and varia­
tions in the way class and citizenship were experienced and contested in
4 Introduction
the postrevolutionary era help to explain why the campesino seems to be
such a protean social category in Mexico. The term has almost no mean­
ing in a strictly economic sense, leading sorne scholars to insist that it
lacks analytical coherence. It applies equally well to villagers who have
access to their own land and to those who are wage laborers or share­
croppers or those who earn a living through a combination of subsistence
strategies. Sidney Mintz argued more than a quarter-century ago that the
solution to this ontological difficulty is to analyze the development of
rural class consciousness in historical terms. 3 With the notable exception
of Jeffrey Gould's examination of political consciousness among the cam­
pesinos in Chinandega, Nicaragua, however, relatively few historians have
taken up the challenge. 4
Gould demonstrated that rural people's community-centered political
struggles eventually engendered a self-described "campesino movement"
in Chinandega. Community allegiances (and rivalries) as well as rural peo­
ple's collective experiences of political mobilization will also play a central
role in this study, but rural folk in Mexico had an enormous political as­
set that their Nicaraguan counterparts lacked at the time. Mexico's Con­
stitution of 1917 was both a product of the revolution and a fundamental
pillar of political life in the 1920s and 1930s. It guaranteed that ali Mexi­
can citizens would benefit from the "promises of the revolution," includ­
ing access to land and education, as well as the ability to unionize. So even
though rural people had been negotiating the rights and duties associated
with Mexican citizenship since the early nineteenth century, 5 the constitu­
tion expanded these benefits beyond anything that rural people could have
previously aspired to. As we shall see, their efforts to capitalize on these
rights set the stage for the decades-long agrarista struggle in Michoacán.
The ideology and practice of agrarian mobilization, both of which are
captured by the term agrarismo (agrarianism), politicized rural people's
understanding of class and citizenship and began to instill a sense of cam­
pesino identity among a radicalized core of peasant militants. However,
agrarismo never became a truly mass movement in Michoacán, and that
fact poses something of an analytical puzzle. After ali, if many rural peo­
ple rejected the politics of agrarismo, how can we account for the increas­
ingly widespread presence of campesino identity in the postrevolutionary
years? The answer is that, although agraristas were the first ones to de-
lntroduction 5
fine themselves as campesinos in Michoacán, campesino identity quickly
1/
surpassed the boundaries of the agrarista movement. Rural people who
felt alienated by the politics of agrarismo appropriated the central con­
ceptual components of campesino identity in the late 1920s, and they too
began to argue that in1poverished rural people had a moral right to pos­
\
sess the land they worked, that subsistence farmers should sustain a de­
gree of political solidarity with each other, and that the promises of the
revolution codified in the 1917 constitution redressed a long history of
social injustice in the countryside.
A cultural identity such as the one rural people adopted in postrevolu­
tionary Michoacán refers to a specific quality or set of values that a given
set of people use in order to categorize social groups and codify social dif­
ference . Cultural identities are reflected in language and other symbolic
systems that refer to attributes such as ethnicity, religion, class, gender,
nationality, or sorne other seemingly innate quality. Cultural identities are
not established in a political vacuum, however. As scholars such as Er­
nesto Laclau and Stewart Hall have demonstrated, they often reflect the
values and prejudices that dominant social groups seek to map onto sub­
ordinare ones. Yet subordinate peoples typically contest or even reject
sorne of the characteristics that others seek to impute to them, meaning
that identity formation often arises out of an interplay between powerful
and less powerful groups in society. 6
So it should not be surprising that agraristas were not the only ones
who eventually carne to think of themselves as campesinos in Michoacán.
As agrarian activists and political leaders brought campesino identity into
existence in the 1920s and 1930s, more and more rural people found that
it was a meaningful way to describe their own condition regardless of
their attitudes about agrarismo. Jhis should not be taken to imply that
rural people who identified themselves as campesinos discarded other cul­
tural identities that were important to them, of course. Rural people of­
ten found it possible to locate themselves within a number of different so­
cial categories that varied over time and according to context. Humble
country folk became campesinos, at least in certain contexts, but they did
not cease to have a Catholic identity of sorne sort, nor did they stop think­
ing of themselves in gendered terms as men or women, or in ethnic terms
as mestizos or indigenous people. Finally, it is important to recognize that
6 Introduction lntroduction 7

while the land reform and política! organization associated with agra­ AGRARIAN MOBILIZATION: POPULAR MOVEMENT
rismo helped to propel the process of campesino identity formation in OR STATE PROJECT?
Michoacán, people in other regions of the nation may have adopted cam­
Although historians have studied agrarismo ever since the 1930s, they
pesino identity through very different processes and in very different con­
still do not agree on whether it was primarily a grassroots mobilization
texts. Thus, there necessarily is no reason to assume that campesino iden­
of militant villagers or a by-product of government patronage and boss
tity formation in Michoacán served as the model for the rest of Mexico.
politics. The earliest generation of scholars took the first position. Tow­
On the other hand, Michoacán's experience of agrarismo does represent
ering figures in Mexican historiography such as Frank Tannenbaum and
an especially significant case of the way that identity politics played out in
Jesús Silva Herzog depicted the revolution as a massive peasant uprising
the postrevolutionary years. There was a truly remarkable degree of polit­
led by social progressives determined to end the quarter-century-long dic­
ical activation of rural people in Michoacán, whether as prorevolutionary
tatorship of General Porfirio Díaz. These populist historians maintained
agraristas or antirevolutionary Catholic rebels. This popular awakening
that hacienda owners had acquired vast amounts of village land through
politicized village life and helped induce Michoacán's agraristas to think of
fraudulent transactions as well as through various legal devices during
their solidarity with each other in terms of class and revolutionary citizen­
the 1876-19rr Díaz regime, a period known as the Porfiriato. The loss of
ship. Moreove1� Múgica and Cárdenas were major architects of the post­
village lands outraged country folk, these scholars argued, leading the
revolutionary state, and their understanding of rural people's needs and
rural masses to join the revolutionary armies of the 1910s. Two years af­
solidarities derived in large measure from their interaction with the mobi­
ter the fighting had ended, the victorious revolutionaries passed a new
lized country people of their home state. Cárdenas was particularly eager
constitution in 1917 that authorized the redistribution of hacienda lands
to bring the popular classes into the public life of the nation, and his expe­
and thus fulfilled "a promise embedded in the revolution." Although the
riences with campesino politics as governor of Michoacán clearly guided
presidents of the 1920s were slow to implement land reform, these histo­
some of the policies he followed as president in the mid-r93os.
rians maintained that agraristas continued to press their demands until
The political organization of Michoacán's agraristas was thus a partic­
President Cárdenas brought about the "culminating moment" of the rev­
ularly conspicuous manifestation of the massive enlargement of the polity
olution in the mid-r93os by distributing more than 14 million hectares to
that occurred throughout Mexico in the postrevolutionary years. Popular­
nearly a million rural people. 8
class groups such as workers, campesinos, indige_nes, and (to sorne extent)
By the 1960s, sorne historians had begun to reexamine this "populist"
women were ali incorporated into the political sphere, both because they
narrative of the revolution. Inspired by the growing realization that the
demanded to have their voices heard and because postrevolutionary lead­
revolution had not substantially transformed Mexican society, revisionist
ers sought to build political clienteles. 7 This means that the question in the
historians complained that leaders such as Venustiano Carranza, Álvaro
postrevolutionary years was not so much whether popular groups would
Obregón, and others never intended to truly empower workers and cam­
be allowed to participate in politics but rather under what conditions they
pesinos, much less to overturn the capitalist system itself. They argued that
would do so. Historians have long recognized that the carefully orches­
the leaders of the revolution intended to take the place of the prerevolu­
trated expansion of political participation in the 1920s and 1930s was a
tionary economic elite and refashion the political system in ways more
critica! factor in the formation of the inclusive yet increasingly authoritar­
amenable to the nationalist middle class. The revisionists asserted that
ian character of the twentieth-century Mexican state. The history of agra­
peasants and workers had rebelled against the Díaz dictatorship in the
rismo in Michoacán can revea! quite a bit about how rural mo?ilization,
hope of forging a more equitable society but that petit bourgeois pseudo­
campesino identity, and the postrevolutionary state developed in mutually
revolutionaries and foreign capitalists interrupted the revolutionary pro­
reinforcing ways.
cess before popular-class militants could achieve their goal. 9
 8 lntroduction
The revisionist thesis soon echoed in historical studies of the postrev­
olutionary era as well. Scholars began to recognize that relatively few
peasant communities in the 1920s and 1930s had spontaneously mobi­
lized in support of the new regime. Instead, historians such as Jean Meyer
demonstrated that national leaders and petty politicians often promised
land and other benefits to rural folk in a more or less overt effort to pan­
der to the demands of landless villagers and win sorne degree of support
for postrevolutionary state formation. Inverting the populist historians'
argument, Meyer emphasized the popular origins of the counterrevolu­
tionary Cristero revolt of 1926-29 and painted agraristas as opportunis­
tic "clients" of the government. As another author put ir, rural people
who participated in the land reform found that they had to "recognize
the legitimacy of the new social order and to accept their subordinare
role" within the postrevolutionary political system.10
Severa! subsequent stu �ies revealed that the land reform (and the po­
tential for distributing political patronage) appealed more to cadres of
relatively well-to-do local politicians and aspiring rural bosses than to av­
erage villagers themselves. Sorne of these historians also contended that
Cárdenas's far-reaching land reform program did not so much liberare
rural people as shackle them to an increasingly indifferent agrarian bu­
reaucracy.11 The postrevolutionary project to forge a modern citizenry­
through the introduction of public education, through revolutionary lead­
ers' legislative assault on the Catholic church, and through governrnent-led
mobilizations of rural people-began to seem like arbitrary acts of social
control, not the movement for popular liberation that revolutionary lead­
ers had promised. As historian Luis González explained, most rural people
did not spontaneously embrace postrevolurionary ideology simply because
they felt so alienared by the existing social structure. Country people were
not inherently revolutionary, in other words, they were "revolutionized"
by outsiders.12
The most recent generation of "postrevisionist" historians has recruited
Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony to help them reconsider the rela­
tionship between the postrevolutionary project of state formation and the
political consciousness of rural folk. Gramsci and his followers argued that
the educational system, the media, and other cultural institutions in capi­
talist societies promote values that uphold and perpetuare the economic
lntroduction 9
elite's moral authority. As a result, the dominant political culture in capi­
1/
talist countries makes ir seem that disparities between rich and poor are
natural and inevitable features of modern social life. To the extent that the
popular (or "subaltern") classes accept these ideals, elites can avoid the use \
of violence as they strive to perpetuare the existing order. 13
Postrevisionisrs have opened a new avenue of inquiry into postrevolu­
tionary Mexico by deemphasizing Gramsci's concepnial framework regard­
ing economic structures and focusing mainly on state formation. These his­
torians argue rhat political elites, together with modernizing intellectuals
such as schoolteachers, carried out a hegemonic project that naturalized
and perpetuated postrevolutionary ideology. Initiatives such as secularized
public education, nationalist radio programming, and carefully orches­
trated civic rituals exposed popular groups to a new. universe of revolu­
tionary mores. They introduced the ideals of nationalism, reverence for the
new pantheon of revolutionary heroes, and respect for the federal govern­
rnent into the consciousness of rural folk in an effort to establish the legit­
imacy, or perhaps even the inevitability, of the postrevolurionary order.14
Popular groups did not blindly adopt revolutionary precepts, of course,
and postrevisionist historians have also emphasized that peasants, workers,
and other subordinare groups attempted to negotiate their status within the
emerging political system by resisting sorne aspects of the postrevolution­
ary project and reconfiguring others. As historian Mary Kay Vaughan has
explained, the development of rural people'� political consciousness was
not the product of a top-down, state-led project to impose modernizing
and revolutionary values on rural people; instead, ir derived from "the di­
alogue between state and society that took place around that project." 15
I propose in rhis book to expand historians' understanding of this ne­
gotiation by showing just how complicated and multifaceted this hege­
monic process was. I have tried to keep from attributing univocality to elite
actors or to assume that subordinare social groups have a single cultural
identity that trumps ali others; ir is an analytical srance born out of neces­
sity. Consider the number of mutually antagonistic ideological projects in
Michoacán in the postrevolutionary era. Revolutionary leaders, old-line
liberals, and Catholic leaders ali aspired to transform the consciousness of
the popular classes, but none of them had the means to effect a "hege­
monic outcome" {to borrow Florencia Mallon's term) on a regional scale. 16
 IO Introduction
These elite actors lacked the unity and the institutional resources to realize
their ideological vision in any but the most modest terms.
Even Michoacán's political class found it impossible to articulare a
unified ideological vision between 1920 and r93 5. No fewer than seven
governors held office during that period, and their principies and politi­
cal discourse differed in fundamental ways. To complicare matters fur­
the1; radical governors in Michoacán and other states occasionally carne
under fue, both from local power brokers and from increasingly conser­
vative national leaders who rejected their class-based brand of populism.
And ali of Michoacán's governors had to contend with the resistance of
fractious military commandets and other regional power brokers. 17
Because there was not a dominant political ideology in postrevolution­
ary Michoacán, country people, their leaders, and their schoolteacher­
mentors could choose from a number of different political discourses or
even use multiple discourses simultaneously. Aside from the radicalized
language of class and citizenship propounded by Múgica, Cárdenas, and
the village revolutionaries, rural people had a long-term familiarity with
versions of Social Catholicism and liberalism. Indeed, Catholics and liber­
als had attempted to advance hegemonic projects of their own long before
the revolutionaries entered the scene.
Catholic leaders had been advancing a well-developed vision of Mex­
ican political culture and nationhood since the late nineteenth century.
The movement known as Social Catholicism construed Mexico as one
large religious community and promoted a social vision that emphasized
social peace over class conflict and paternalism over militancy. Western
Mexico provided fertile ground for such a vision because Catholic lead­
ers there were able to draw on the church's immense moral authority to
put their ideals into practice. They established a network of credit unions
and labor organizations intended to spiritually and materially improve
the lives of the popular classes and, it was hoped, to transform them into
modern yet devout citizens of the religious nation. 18
A very different form of hegemonic project also existed in Michoacán
prior to the advent of postrevolutionary radicalism. Política! liberals were
no more enamored of social conflict than the Catholics, and they contin­
ued to press for popular acceptance of notions of market relations and
political individualism well into the twentieth century. Liberalism of this
Introduction II
sort had sprouted deep roots in political circles and in some parts of the
countryside in the nineteenth century, and many landowners and old-line
political leaders continued to insist in the postrevolutionary decades that 1/
prívate property and republican values were the defining attributes of
Mexican civilization. 19
\
Rural people had no use for ideological orthodoxy, however, and village
political cultures typically included some elements of ali three of these ide­
ologies. As a result, historians must account for rural people's capacity to
hold multiple and seemingly incongruous cultural identities and political
outlooks at the same time. This means avoiding the temptation to ignore
the complexity of rural politics by analytically privileging the putatively
authentic or historically deep varieties of "campesino" or "indigenous"
culture-those associated with Catholicism, say-over other, putatively
less "authentic" cultural forms. The tendency to analytically flatten out
the complexities of rural people's political consciousness is visible in sorne
ethnographically inclined studies of peasant identity that proceed from the
profoundly moral standpoint that it is wrong for governments, markets,
or other extraneous entities to overwhelm existing forms of popular con­
sciousness and community organization. Yet scholars' healthy distrust of
outside intrusions into the cultural life of rural communities should not
lead to the reification of seemingly autochthonous folkways or to the un­
derestimation of the permeability and heterogeneity of "peasant culture."
Marjorie Becker, for example, has written that peasants who allied with
Cárdenas had to relinquish "their cultural knowledge to outsiders"-a
framing of the issue that seems to presume that rural folk cannot simulta­
neously engage with the state to seek out social change and yet preserve
their cultural heritage as they understand it.20
Cultural histories such as Becker's have the great virtue of demon­
strating that peasant attitudes cannot simply be inferred from structural
categories, as if rural people's worldview was somehow governed by their
form of land tenure. But it does no good to replace ahistorical structural
categories with ahistorical cultural ones, assuming that modern values
(such as those the revolutionaries declaimed) are incompatible with "tra­
dition." As Néstor García Canclini has brilliantly demonstrated, the cog­
nitive frameworks are not in fact incompatible.21 Indeed, I would argue
that insofar as rural people's understanding of postrevolutionary ideology
 p
r2 Introduction
was mediated by such factors as family networks, religious practice, and
the existing structures of authority, they often found ways to make revo­
lutionary ideologies resonate with their existing political cultures.
My goal in this book is to advance the postrevisionist synthesis without
abandoning either tbe ethnographic sensitivity or the theoretical rigor that
previous scbolars have brought to bear on the countryside. Recognizing the
pervasive influence of state formation on local politics and popular identi­
ties, my analysis blurs the typical analytic dyads-state/ society, elite/ pop­
ular, dominant / subaltern-through which hegemonic processes unfold. 22
While acknowledging the importance of both land and religion in the
everyday life of rural people, I try to show that revolutionary and tradi­
tional peasant identities were not necessarily incompatible. Perhaps most
important, I argue that rural people's lived experience of multiple ideolog­
ical projects and multiple forms of power influenced their efforts to come
to terms with the unprecedented occurrences of the postrevolutionary
years. 23 As we will see in the following chapters, the process through which
these events were understood on the local leve! determined how postrevo­
lutionary ideologies were integrated into che political cultures of agrarian
communities and the countryside more generally.
If campesino identity ultimately surpassed the narrow boundaries of
agrarista ideology and discourse, I believe it is because rural people have
found the politics of campesino identity to be a useful way to define rheir
political presence in postrevolutionary Mexico. Far from subscribing to a
useless artifact of postrevolutionary ideology, rural people have recog­
nized that the adoption of campesino identity offers one avenue through
which they can maintain political solidarity and engage in collective ac­
tion. Perhaps for that reason, mobilized rural people, from che agraristas
of postrevolutionary Michoacán to the neo-Zapatisras of twenty-first­
century Chiapas, have found ir meaningful to frame their politics-at least
in part-as a campesino struggle.
TOWARD A HISTORY OF CAMPESINO IDENTITY
IN M ICHOACÁN
The following chapters trace out the course of the agrarista movement
in Michoacán and its impact on rural people's cultural identity in the
Introduction 13
postrevolutionary decades. My analysis is based on archiva! sources, oral
'
1
1/
histories, privare correspondence, and the partisan tabloids known as
"attack newspapers." These sources revea! che interdependent relation­
ship between the discourse of major political figures in Michoacán and
che idiom that village revolutionaries deployed in their communities. In­
\
terspersed witb chis analysis are narratives of locally significant events in
selected peasant villages, haciendas, and cities, which are intended to il­
lustrate how continually evolving postrevolutionary discourses attached
politicized meanings to the collective experiences of mobilized country
people. The interplay between local histories and political ideology-and
between and among villagers, village revolutionaries, clergymen, and.pol­
iticians-slowly established new bonds of social solidarity in the coun­
tryside and eventually defined what ir meant to be a campesino.
Chapter r addresses chis interplay in greater detail by investigating the
process whereby the concept of the campesino evolved from a political
category within che discourse of radical populists into a cultural identity
embraced by many people in the countryside. Chapter 2 turns to an ex­
planation of how local histories became embedded in postrevolutionary
ideology and molded popular understanding of the Díaz dictatorship in
che years following che revolution. As political leaders and village revolu­
tionaries carne to remember it, che Porfiriato appeared as the fountainhead
of rural injustice in twentieth-century Mexico. Even though widespread
dispossession of village land did cake place during che three decades before
che revolution, chis fact alone does not explain why postrevolutionary pol­
iticians and village revolutionaries demonized institutions they associated
with the old regime, most notably che hacienda and the church. The rea­
son, I argue, is rhat rural people's height�ned awareness of revolutionary
ideology politicized their memories of che Díaz dictatorship and led sorne
of them to reassess their existing, and often ambivalent and complicated,
relationships with haciendas in the r92os.
Chapter 3 examines che ill-fated 1920-22 administration of Francisco
J. Múgica as governor of Michoacán. Múgica intended to bring revolu­
tionary values to the countryside and encouraged agraristas to mobilize
and press for their rights to the land. His efforts succeeded ali too well in
some cases. Múgica's policies heightened existing conflicts between com­
munities and landholders, but his tenuous grip on power kept him from
I4 Introduction
controlling how these conilicts actually unfolded. By I922, the rising tide
of unrest in Michoacán convinced President Alvaro Obregón to cashier the
state's rogue government. Múgica's ouster reined in the agrarista move­
ment, but it also decentralized the movement's leadershjp and gave village
revolutionaries the opportunity to reconfigure the ideals of citizenship and
class consciousness in ways consonant with rural people's expectations and
experiences. Chapter 4 examines the rise of these village revolutionaries.
Many agrarian leaders had traveled either to the United States or within
Mexico and had encountered well-organized labor unions before settling
in their home communities. Their personal histories guided their efforts to
organize villagers and carve out positions of authority withjn their com­
munities during the hard years between 1922 and 1926, when antiagrarian
governors sought to check the land reform and rural mobilization .
Whereas revolutionaries hoped to instill class consciousness and revo­
lutionary citizenship as Mexicans' core values, Catholic activists regarded
Mexicans' common religious faith as the proper basis of nacional identity.
Catholics argued that respect for privare property and paternalistic social
relations should form the core of Mexican nationhood. The fundamental
incompatibility of revolutionary ideology with Catholic nationalism led
nearly ali postrevolutionary presidents to restrict the activities of the
church. These policies outraged people throughout the nation. In Micho­
acán, people resisted government anticlericalism throughout the 1920s and
1930s, opposing it most dramatically during the 1926-29 Cristero rebel­
lion that pitted rancheros, priests, and sorne indigenous people, along with
sectors of the middle class, against revolutionary leaders, the federal army,
and agrarista militias. Chapter 5 examines the evolution of Catholic ide­
ology, its role in the Cristero rebellion, and agraristas' response to the po­
liticization of religion.
As the Cristero revolt wound to a close, agraristas flocked into a state­
wide campesino union that Governor Cárdenas created in order to give
them a political voice and to channel their support behind his policies. As
I argue in Chapter 6, village revolutionaries' willingness to join with Cár­
denas contributed to the institutionalization of the agrarian movement
through a statewide peasant union, known as the Revolutionary Labor
Confederation of Michoacán (or CRMDT). The confederation gave rural
people an organized platform through which they could press for their
Jntroduction I5
rights as class-conscious citizens, but its dependence on Cárdenas also
1/
abridged their political autonomy. This trade-off proved to be costly. The
confederation and its successors sought to regiment the empowerment of
rural people, but in the long run, as the revisionist historians have so
\
clearly demonstrated, the state lost much of its revolutionary fervor. By the
r94os, the same institutions that Cárdenas had created to give a political
voice to rural folk began to work instead as mechanisms to squelch their
political demands.
Country people, not political leaders, ultimately ensured that campesino
identity would be compatible with other peasant identities based around
attributes such as religion, gender, and ethnicity. Chapter 7 concludes. that
most rural people declined to identify themselves as agraristas or rural pro­
letarians but still found that representing themselves as campesinos was a
viable way of calling attention to their collective social condition. In the
late r93os, campesino identity moved from the realm of agrarian struggle
into the sphere of national politics as a result of Cárdenas's decision to ex­
pand the scope of land reform and to create a national campesinos' union,
known as the Confederación Nacional Campesino. Insofar as Cárdenas
conformed to campesino expectations by expanding the scope of land re­
form and placing rural leaders in positions of authority, his government in­
deed fulfilled one of the revolution's covenants with rural folk. By the time
he left the presidency in 1940, politically mobilized campesinos had come
ro understand that they shared a common historical experience as well as
collective economic and political interests. In many parts of Mexico, cam­
pesino identity (often in a hybrid form alongside other peasant identities)
had become a mainstay of peasant political culture and an important ele­
ment of community survival.

I
Becoming Campesinos: From Political
Category to Cultural Identity
EARLY IN THE DRY SEASON OF 1921, the members of an indigenous
community not far from the town of Zitácuaro in the eastern highlands of
Michoacán decided to confront the North American mining company that
owned the land surrounding their homes. People in the village of El Aso­
leadero were outraged that the company had scrapped an arrangement
that had preved mutually beneficia! for more than a decade. The company
had employed most of El Asoleadero's men as lumberjacks, paying them to
cut timber out of the jagged mountainside and deliver it to the sawmill,
where it was made into railroad ties and mine shaft srays. In exchange, the
villagers earned money to supplement the meager livings they made raising
their own crops and herding a small amount of livestock, and they were
also granted the right to log as many trees as they needed for their own do­
mesric use. However, a company foreman abruptly fired the villagers that
fall and ordered them to keep away from the woodlands. In response, a
handful of men from El Asoleadero fortified themselves with alcohol on
the afternoon of September 15 and rushed into the sawmill shouting,
"Death to the company!" while shooting their guns into the air. 1
The mining operation claimed that ir had changed its policy because the
villagers were overexploiting its woodlots and degrading the forest, but
that was not the real crux of the problem. Company administrators pri­
marily intended to discourage the villagers from participating in Mexico's
postrevolutionary land reform program. If the government went ahead
with plans to grant a permanent land reform arcel (ejido) to the commu­
nity of El Asoleadero, the company stood to lose both a valuable source of
labor and a sizable portion of its property.2 As it turned out, though, ir
was too late ro stop the villagers from recovering rheir land. Severa! months
16
Becoming Campesinos 17
before the incident in the sawmill, a local political activist, in his capacity
as the self-described "Delegate and Representative of rhe community of
Indians" at El Asoleadero, had petitioned the government for an ejido,
and Francisco J. Múgica, the radical young governor of Michoacán, had
ordered thar a large tract of the company's forestland be turned over to the
petitioners. The company answered back with a lawsuit challenging the
governor's determination. For good measure, foremen also sent around
sorne hired hands to intimidate anyone who had signed the petition ask­
ing for the restitution of El Asoleadero's property.
The scare tactics did not dissuade the villagers, who moved onto their
fields soon after they received the governor's permission. Another eight
f
years passed before all the paperwork carne through of icially finalizing
the villagers' rights to the land, however, and sorne m_embers of the agrar­
ian community developed an affinity for revolutionáry politics in the in­
terim. In 1924, land refonn beneficiaries donated a parce! of land to the
village's federally run elementary school. 3 Two years after that, a few res­
idents agreed to join a military expedition against the Catholic-inspired
peasant uprising known as the Crisrero rebellion. This grassroots support
for postrevolutionary policies did have its limits, though. Villagers re­
fused ro send their children to school if tbey felt the teacher did not show
the proper respect for religion. And when tbe army tried to conscript
eight men for yet another campaign against the Cristeros in 1929, com­
munity leaders complained directly to the president, explaining that they
did not "judge it appropriate" ro contribute to rhe war effort a second
time. "We have already lent our services once before," tbey wrote, "and
now we need everyone to prepare for the planting season." 4
Ten years later, a new generation of El Asoleadero's village leaders met
with a dozen or so of their counterparts from other nearby indigenous
communities that had also received land grants. The purpose of the meet­
ing was to sign a declaration expressing solidarity with President Lázaro
Cárdenas, whose política! temperament and personal style they had first
experienced when he had served as governor of Michoacán a few years
earlier. In their declaration, the community leaders voiced their support for
the president's plan to creare what they understood to be "a united front
of campesinos." The document was shot through with spelling errors that
betrayed the authors' untutored backgrounds, but its overall message carne
 pz

Becoming Campesinos 19

through clearly enough. The signatories began by declaring their "formal '
w 8
�ti: 1/
lL X oath" to support the principies of the "Revolution as incarnated by the
o w
� current Government" and their readiness "to join together to safeguard
the interests of workers, campesinos, and agrarian [reform] communities."
They summed up by declaring their solidarity with rural people every­
\
where who sought "to defend their class interests and defend themselves
o against the iron hand of the bourgeoisie and the religious zealots [cleri­
a:
LU cales] who undermine the sound principies of the Revolution."5
o
� -�
a,
a:
a: The village leaders' manifesto-like the political activation of the El
:::,
-, 0 LU
<{
:e => Asoleadero villagers in the first place-attested to the massive changes that
:::, .,e (9
were overtaking rural Michoacán between 1920 and 193 5. The horizon of

�.
(!J
.u., village politics expanded beyond the confines of the community itself and
e
�ee g¡
-u
.
1;i carne to encompass the abstraer social collectivities en_visioned in postrev­
o'.:
olutionary ideology. Whereas the original leader of the agrarista move­
,Cl e

L
...rl.
� -� <..)

e
ment in El Asoleadero had described his followers as a "community of In­
"' � :,
3
� .,e dians" who wanted to recover their access to land and timber, the new
.,
.
� �
.., e•\�t
'
N
::5 generation of village headmen now made grand proclamations about class
f!
l struggle and the promotion of revolutionary principies. Agrarista militants
. � g,
.,E Q
� �
�
.
� within the village had somehow transformed from a group of gun-shoot­
�t
N
:¡;; <
u � ing protesters into an organized cadre of self-declared revolutionaries who
� saw themselves as the allies of the president of the republic.
The radicalized language that village leaders evoked in their letter to

� '(::!
¡;:: '" Cárdenas also demonstrated that they regarded themselves as members of
� a specifically postrevolutionary social category: rather than describing
e � -�
� Cl
themselves as Indians or villagers or members of sorne other social group,
.,
¡¡¡
:....--5::: '"...
es d
-� (::!
u they depicted themselves as campesinos (a term that literally means "coun­
o
ü
o
try people"). Rural folk such as the residents of El Asoleadero had made a
�
...J '" living in the forests and cornfields of central Mexico since time immemo­
�
...., § V,
rial, of course, and in this sense they had always been campesinos. But in
-�
av� ·o
o
the years after the Mexican Revolution, these rural folk found a new po­
-� litical vocabulary and a new set of concepts through which to think about
� ·&v E their place in rural society. As villagers in El Asoleadero and similar com­
� c.," ''"ue:
:J °' munities throughout Michoacán in the 1920s and 1930s organized and so­
o i
ü u
licited lands that had once belonged tO wealthy oursiders, they tentatively
engaged postrevolutionary notions of class and citizenship. In the process,
many of them carne to regard themselves as members of an abstract col-
 paz
20 Becoming Campesinos
lectivity with a shared historical legacy, similar social attributes, and a
unique set of collective politico-economic interests, and in this sense to
imagine that they belonged to a new social category that had never existed
in Mexico before, a collectivity of class-conscious revolutionary citizens
known as campesinos.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF POPULAR IDENTITY
IN POSTREVOLUTIONARY MEXICO
It is easy to assume that rural folk, politicians, and scholars have always
conceived of the rural masses in Mexico as a more or less homogeneous
class of campesinos.6 Yet the idea that marginalized rural folk constitute a
discrete social group by virtue of their shared political and economic sta­
tus is in fact of relatively recent origin. I seek to show in this book that the
understanding of what it means to be a campesino in Mexico today is es­
sentially an ideological construct-a particular way of understanding the
world-that was framed during the revolution and consolidated in its af­
termath.7 Specific historical processes associated with postrevolutionary
agrarian politics led rural people to rethink their place within Mexican so­
ciety, a process that in Michoacán began around 1920, when populist pol­
iticians and radicalized rural leaders started to depict campesinos as the
incarnation of rural masses who (it was said) had played the leading role
in the Mexican Revolution. This newly emerging political discourse con­
strued campesinos as belonging to a political category, that is, as a poten­
tial constituency to be mobilized through an appeal to their political and
economic interests. Soon, however, certain groups of rural people appro­
priated elements of this postrevolutionary ideology and invented other
ones, thus transforming campesino-masses (campesinaje) from a,political
category into a new form of cultural identity.
Campesino identity as it carne to exist in postrevolutionary Michoacán
therefore originated with the interaction of state formation and the lived
experiences of rural people who participated in the land reform and agra­
rista movement. The establishment of the campesinaje as a new pressure
group inMexico was evidenced by the plethora of political organizations
(many of them called campesino unions) and forros of popular militancy
that appeared in the countryside during the 1920s and 1930s, but it was
Becoming Campesinos 21
particularly visible in the changing vocabulary that political leaders and
rl\
country people used to describe rural society itself. Whereas the word cam­
pesino appeared only occasionally in the political lexicon of nineteenth­
century Mexico (and even then as little more than a value-neutral descrip­
tion of the rural masses), it became a fundamental element of Mexican
political discourse sometime in the mid-r92os. By the early r93os, it had
acquired a good deal of the ideological cargo it continues to bear today.
People who called themselves campesinos usually meant to irnply that they
belonged to a classlike group of rural folk who worked the land and were
locked in an inherently conflictive relationship with large-scale landowners
and other dominant social groups. The term also carried with it the con­
notation that politically militant country people had earned a privileged
status as revolutionary citizens because they had supported both the revo­
lution and the controversia] initiatives such as the land reform that had
grown out of it. 8
So how did people conceive of the rural masses before the revolution if
they did not think of them as a socially unified, classlike collectivity known
as campesinos? Perhaps because most people lived in the countryside in the
nineteenth century, they tended to discern rural social complexities in great
detail. Nineteenth-century political discourse tended to highlight the mark­
ers of social difference among rural people rather than the putative simi­
larities among them. On the local level, the language that rural people used
to describe themselves depended on their own circumstances and their in­
tended audience. Country people called themselves "indigenous people" or
"villagers" or "Catholics" or (republican) "citizens," as the situation de­
manded. In other circumstances, they referred to their form of land ten­
me, tagging themselves as "common landholders," "casual hacienda work­
ers," and so 011. Perhaps most often, they simply described themselves in
terms of locality. Well into the 1920s, rural people often used a colonial-era
idiom of "residents" (vecinos) or "natives" (originarios) of their home vil­
lages, although these terms had lost sorne of their former capacity to index
ethnic differences in the countryside.
Outside observers used many of the same categories when describing
rural society, though they were particularly apt to emphasize rural peo­
ple's relationship to the land. Rural people worked the land in any num­
ber of ways in the nineteenth century: as privare landholders, resident ha-
 22 Becoming Campesinos
cienda workers, hacienda day laborers, sharecroppers, holders of com­
mon land, woodcutters, or (perhaps most freguently) as sorne combina­
cion of these. At other times, observers referred to rural folk as "the agrar­
ian population," though a few political militants had begun to use a
language of class and to speak of "agricultura! workers" by the late nine­
teenth century or so. 9 When observers or rural people wanted to describe
country folk as a collectivity, they afeen used che time-honored term "el
pueblo" (che people) or, perhaps more commonly, "los pueblos" (the vil­
lages).1º Both of these words could refer egually well to che residents of
rural communities as to che nation itself.
Most of these conceptual categories derived from intellectual currents
associated with liberalism, che dominant ideology of late-nineteenth­
century Mexico that promised ali members of sociecy equal rights and
economic opportunities. As a number of historians have demonstrated,
certain groups of rural folk appropriated liberal ideals because they dis­
covered that these tenets could be used to defend community autonomy.
After ali, liberals promised to uphold municipal self-rule and che rights of
people to possess their lands, or at least to do so as long as che lands were
held as prívate property. Sorne villagers did not learn until che late nine­
teenth century chat liberal politicians regarded che privatization of com­
munal property as an essential step in the modernization of rural Mexico.
It was then that a new generation of landowners-who had wealth, polit­
ical savvy, and good connections-began to use liberal doctrines to divest
peasant communities of their common lands. Even then, che disparities in
the way that villagers and politicians understood liberalism set in motion
a regime of conflict and negotiation that had yet to be resolved by the
time che revolution erupted.in 1910. 11
Even then, most revolutionary factions continued to describe their
aims in quintessentially liberal terms. To cake one notable example, Emil­
iano Zapata's grassroots revolutionary movement in the state of Morelos
drew heavily on the tradition of popular liberalism. The Zapatistas' dec­
laration of principies set forth in the Plan of Ayala made rhetorical use of
such liberal shibbolechs as Mexico's constitution of 1857, the doctrine of
fair elections, che rule of law, and in general che people's need to "recon­
guer liberties and recover their rights which have been crampled on." 12 In
stark contrast to the agraristas' later proclivity to lump ali country folk
Becoming Campesinos 23
together as a single political agglomeration, they took it for granted that
1/
che individual and che community constituted the fundamental política!
units of rural Mexico. According to the Plan of Ayala, the salient social
actors were the "Mexican pueblos and citizens," not an undifferentiated
mass of campesinos. The Zapatistas saw their enemies in primarily polit­
\
ical terms, as "landlords, científicos [venal politicians], and bosses," not
in structural terms, as che oppressors of campesinos as a class. 13
Indeed, it did not appear obvious to most people that villagers and field
hands who made a living by tilling che soil belonged to the same social
class at ali. Early-twentieth-century observers of the countryside typically
emphasized the economic diversity of rural people's relationships with the
land, not their similarity. After ali, some country people had easy access to
farmland, while others did not; some depended heavily on hacienda wage
labor, while others used it as a supplement; and sorne people were rela­
tively wealthy by village standards, while others had to struggle to make
ends meet. 14 In addition, the land reform created an entirely new sector of
rural people {land reform beneficiaries known as ejidatarios) who had eco­
nomic intereses of their own to worry about. So even though it was true
that most rural people were relatively impoverished and sustained them­
selves on sorne form of agricultura! activity, the conditions in which they
did so often differed in critica! respects. And the same could be said for
other important social distinctions. Lumping rural folk together in a single
category of campesinos failed to reflect the great variety of ethnic groups
that existed in the countryside; nor did it cake into account the fact that
many people gave their primary allegiance to their families and their home
communities rather than to cheir putative social class.
But campesino identity, as postrevolutionary leaders and agrarian ac­
tivists originally conceived of it, was not really meant as a description of
rural people's exact relationship to the means of production or their eth­
nicity, much less as a reflection of the way chat rural people described their
own place within society. Instead, campesino identity originated as a po­
litical category. Postrevolutionary state makers elaborated a form of rev­
olutionary populism that defined Mexican society in broad, essentially
political terms. By the time Cárdenas became president in 1934, the post­
revolutionary state was claiming to act "in che name of che masses" (that
is, on behalf of workers and campesinos), as historian Amoldo Córdova
24 Becoming Campesinos
has shown. 15 Indeed, this form of mass politics had existed since 1917,
when the constitution authorized the redistribution of land to "villages,
townships, and communities" rather than to landless individuals. 16 In the
early 1920s, revolutionary populists in Michoacán were already address­
ing their policies to "rural laborers," and by the middle of the decade
they had dropped thac term in favor of "campesinos." These political cate­
gories found their way into the countryside through che medium of radi­
calized schoolteachers, agrarista leaders, and labor organizers, who began
to encourage rural people to solicit lands and become more politically
organized. 17
Thus the rural working poor took their place within the polity of twen­
tieth-century Mexico not as sharecroppers or villagers nor even as land re­
form beneficiaries or indigenous people. Instead, they were integrated into
the postrevolucionary state by institutions intended to advance the collec­
tive interests of "campesinos." Lázaro Cárdenas himself was the foremost
proponent of this collective empowerment of rural folk. First as Micho­
acán's governor from 1928 to 1932, and ultimately as president from 1934
to 1940, Cárdenas and his followers distinguished themselves for their
populist policies, redistributing eighteen million hectares of land to more
than 800,000 families and founding campesino unions intended to orga­
nize, discipline, and empower rural people. They redoubled the effort to
institute public education in the countryside and launched legislative as­
saults on the hacienda, the church, and other institutions that they con­
sidered inimical to campesinos' well-being.
Sorne rural people deeply resented these policies and refused to locate
themselves within the newly created political category. For example, an­
thropologist Daniel Nugent reponed that small-scale family farmers in
Mexico's far north refused to cal! themselves campesinos because they be­
lieved the designation would imply that they accepted the "political dom­
ination" of leaders who lacked the moral authority to meddle in issues of
property ownership. These proud northerners refused the land reform
parcels (ejidos) from the government because they felt that communal
_possession com_promised the honor and economic autonomy that they as­
sociated with outright ownership of private property. In Michoacán, the
small-time landowners known as rancheros held roughly similar attitudes.
They rejected land reform on the grounds that the ónly honorable way to
Becoming Campesinos 25
obtain lands was by purchase. Most rancheros thought it was a disgrace
'1
1/
to receive the land that the government redistributed to rural folk at no
cost, and they rejected the collectivist and indigenous-tinged connotations
of campesino identity. 18
Nevertheless, many of the nation's poorest and most politically disen­
\
franchised rural people began to represent themselves as campesinos dur­
ing the postrevolutionary era, and they continue to do so today. While
the meaning of campesino identity has varied over time and from place to
place, it nonetheless conveys what today are widely recognized ideals
concerning rural people's solidarity against powerful and wealthy social
classes, che right to the land they till, and their privileged status as the
prime beneficiaries of Mexico's revolutionary heritage. These ideals are
not timeless, however. They derive from specific historical processes that
took place in the 1920s and 1930s. They were neither che simple artifact
of the postrevolutionary state's hegemonic project to transform rural peo­
ple's political outlook, nor were they a spontaneous expression of popular
actitudes. Rather, they arose through the interaction of popular and elite
political cultures that were constantly changing as postrevolutionary ide­
ologies became embedded in village política! culture.
Rural folk did not need postrevolutionary ideologues to tell them that
richer and poorer social groups existed, of course. They had always known
it. But they had never before had access to a política! idiom that de­
scribed their poverty as inherently unjust. Mobilized villagers such as the
ones in El Asoleadero were particularly apt to appropriate the revolu­
tionary discourses articulated by populist leaders and village radicals. As
they did, they reevaluated the nature of long-standing relationships they
maintained with powerful oucsiders, including landowners, corporations,
notable families, and (in sorne cases) priests. Politically activated rural
people who became known as agraristas carne to regard their relation­
ships with these outsiders as intrinsically conflictive or even as oppres­
sive. Campesino identity in Michoacán thus originated as the cultural
expression of agrarian militancy. Yet while agrarianism had a relatively
limited appeal to rural folk and ali but disappeared as an autonomous so­
cial movement by the mid-193os, campesino identity outlived the agrarista
movement and became a widely accepted cultural identity in twentieth­
century Mexico.
 26 Becoming Campesinos Beco111ing Campesinos 27

ments elsewhere in Mexico, but the great revolutionary wars of 1910-15

r/
AGRARIAN STRUGGLE ANO THE ADVENT OF
VILLAGE REVOLUTIONARIES had ali but passed Michoacán by. Most of the state's revolutionary-era po­
litical leaders belonged to notable families who opposed making radical
Agrarian militancy spread in Michoacán and severa! other states in the
changes to the established social order, and indeed relatively few country
late 1910s, as members of rural communities began to solicit and occupy
people had pressured them to do so. Like most other parts of western and
\
lands made available through a land reform program that eventually be­
southern Mexico, no broad-based peasant movement emerged in Michoa­
carne the most enduring and successful such initiative in Latin America.
cán that could challenge the social dominance of hacienda owners during
Vigorous agrarista leagues appeared in the states of Puebla, Durango,
the 1910s.20 But that ali changed in 1920 when the revolutionary ideo­
Morelos, and Tamaulipas, where they began to send organizers into the
logue Francisco J. Múgica became governor and began to promote land
countryside to encourage and advise rural people who were eligible to re­
reform and a radical educational program.
quest land reform parcels. These organizations had a variety of aims, but
For the fust time in living memory, hacienda owners realized that they
most of them pressured state governments to move forward with the re­
had an enemy in the governor's mansion. Múgica and his followers en­
distribution of rural property and attempted to provide political cover to
couraged rural folk to take advantage of land reform and, in sorne cases,
communities that had run into problems with landowners or local po­
to take up arms and organize village home guards.··It seemed to many
liticians. Probably the most established of the regional leagues was the
people as if the revolution had belatedly arrived, complete with rural mil­
one in Veracruz, where agraristas developed the local organization into a
itancy, threats to life and property, and radical invective. Múgica's vision
major p olitical force. In 1926 the Veracruz league's communist-inspired
, did not attract much of a following among rural people, and he quickly
leader, Ursulo Galván, refounded it as the National Campesinos' League
fell from power, but not before small but committed groups of agrarian
and turned it into a sounding board for radical agraristas throughout the
militants had formed in a few dozen rural communities.
country, including Michoacán. There had been other attempts at a na­
Múgica's successors attempted to repress, or at least to moderare, the
tional convergence of agraristas as well. In 1923, ex-Zapatista leader (and
agrarista movement, but local militants continued to plow ahead nonethe­
future governor of Michoacán) Gildardo Magaña along with the revolu­
less. Lacking a strong patron in the statehouse, village leaders took it upon
tionary intellectual Andrés Molina Enríquez founded a national agrarian
themselves to forge political links with powerful outsiders, while they con­
league dubbed the Confederación Nacional Agraria that primarily aimed
tinued to encourage rural folk to solicit lands, organize agrarista leagues,
to influence legislation in Mexico City, though it sometimes advocated on
and form unions on haciendas. Communities with histories of boundary
behalf of agrarian communities as well. Likewise, the major labor con­
disputes or ethnic tensions with their neighbors were prone to develop this
federation of the 1920s briefly sought to unionize hacienda field hands in
sort of grassroots agrarian militancy, especially the so-called ex-communities
the early part of the decade, although it soon confined its activities to in­
of indigenous people that had lost their lands during the late nineteenth
dustrial workers. 19
century. The quest to retrieve land in such communities often had a racial
Despite this proliferation of agrarian leagues and rural labor unions,
connotation, because mestizo landowners typically reacted violently to the
agrarista mobilization in Michoacán was primarily a local phenomenon
prospect of losing their property to agrarista "Indians." But agrarismo also
initiated by the leaders of specific communities, perhaps fifty or so of whom
appeared in many mestizo communities as well, where groups of rural peo­
had convinced their followers by the first years of the 1920s to ignore the
ple-often a single village faction-began to solicit lands as a strategy for
blandishments of priests and landowners and solicit land reform parcels.
achieving a degree of política! and economic autonomy.
Yet the appearance of even this degree of agrarista radicalism in Michoa­
Community leaders and rural political activists made unprecedented
cán would have been difficult to predict even a few years earlier. Villagers'
efforts in the 1920s and 1930s to organize agrarian leagues and unions of
demands for the land had been the driving force of revolutionary move-
28 Becoming Campesinos
hacienda laborers, a process that soon became known as the "organizing
of campesinos." The first popular organizations in Michoacán sprang up
during the revolution itself, often under the direction of respected com­
mmüty leaders. For example, Miguel de la Trinidad Regalado formed an
informal alliance of pueblos in I912 that set as its goal nothing less than
the unification of indigenous people throughout the region. A decade
later, peasant leader Primo Tapia and his allies in the Michoacán Socialist
Party created an agrarista league that was more squarely based on class
rather than ethnic foundations.21 While these agrarian leagues were of
relatively limited geographic scope and political significance, they set the
stage for broader organizational efforts in the years to come. In the mid-
192os activists affiliated with the powerful yet accommodationist labor
central known as the Mexican Regional Federation of Labor, or CROM,
organized most field hands in the Morelia region into a union of so-called
campesino workers. And in r929, Cárdenas created a statewide federa­
tion of labor that he regarded as both an instrument to organize civil so­
ciety and a labor federation capable of aggregating workers and campe­
sinos into a united front. 22
The grassroots leaders who sought to actívate rural folk included school­
teachers, village headmen, union organizers, and petty politicians-people
who had different educational and social backgrounds, and who sorne­
times worked at cross-purposes with one another. This informal and in a
sense amorphous set of ideologically driven activists, whom I will cal! vil­
lage revolutionaries, did share some critica! similarities, however. Most of
them had grown up in villages or small townships, and they dreamed of
rebuilding Mexican society after the revolution. 23 They were inspired by
a combination of ideological zeal and personal ambition, both of which
were qualities that attracted them to populist leaders such as Múgica and
Cárdenas. Revolutionary schoolteachers of the r92os and r93os had often
attended secondary schools that preached revolutionary ideals or even a
stripped-down form of Marxism, and they typically hoped to transform
the consciousness of rural folk through secular education. On the other
hand, local agrarista leaders, who were often called caciques (an unflat­
tering label that by the r92os was applied to petty political bosses), typi­
cally had a less formal but more substantive introduction to popular mil­
itancy. Most of them had travelled outside of their communities, either as
Becoming Campesinos 29
soldiers in revolutionary armies or as workers in the United States, and
1/
had returned home ful! of ideas about how to politically organize their
communities.
When schoolteachers and aspiring agrarista leaders arrived in the
countryside and began mobilizing agrarista cadres, they positioned them­
\.
selves as política! and cultural brokers between rural folk and the post­
revolutionary state. Schoolteachers' ability to read and write allowed them
to pen letters on behalf of land reform beneficiaries, keep the minutes of
meetings, and help with organizing civic celebrations. Agrarian caciques
typically lacked these bureaucratic skills, but they had privileged access
to political outsiders and could sometimes obtain land from the govern­
ment or acquire arms for village militiamen. Maybe they could give their
followers an advantage in village politics. In any case, caciques were po­
tentially dangerous individuals. They demanded the respect of their fol­
lowers, and most of them intended to keep ir, whether by paternalism, in­
timidation, or violence.
Village revolutionaries mediated between postrevolutionary values as
they perceived them and the political cultures of the communities where
they lived. As anthropologist Steven Feierman put ir, such cultural bro­
kers locate themselves in the liminal spaces "between domination and dis­
course, between the active creation of public language and long-term con­
tinuity, and also between rural society and the wider world. " 24 Far from
passive interpreters between rural communities and the postrevolutionary
state, village revolutionaries attempted to structure the way that agraris­
tas understood their movement's origins and historie mission. They por­
trayed the prerevolutionary dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz as a monstrously
corrupt regime that allowed hacienda owners to usurp villagers' land­
holdings and to treat their employees like slaves. While this description of
the Porfirian regime contained quite a bit of truth, it also obscured the
complex relationship that had developed between villages and haciendas
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On the other hand, this
dark legend of hacienda tyranny produced the sense that rural people
shared a common heritage of victimization and therefore a strong moral
basis for accepting the lands made available through agrarian reform. 25
When they turned their attention to their own times, village revolu­
tionaries fashioned a distinctive understanding of class struggle and rev-
 30 Becoming Campesinos
olutionary citizenship. They encouraged their followers to press for their
rights, as contained in the revolutionary Constitution of I917, and to or­
ganize around what were called the collective economic interests of land­
poor country people and hacienda laborers. Village revolutionaries there­
fore regarded the political activation of the popular classes as a way of
consummating the "promises of the revolution" (and, not incidentally, of
consolidating their own stature within the community), and conceived of
agrarismo as a popular movement aimed at overturning an unjust social
system. The most radical village revolutionaries eventually carne to por­
tray agrarian militancy as a class struggle against putatively exploitative
landowners who acted in tandem with the "counterrevolutionary" Cath­
olic hierarchy.
While village revolutionaries' class-based, agrarista ideology both drew
upon and generated pockets of intense support in the countryside, many
rural people experienced agrarismo as polemical and alienating. It is im­
possible to precisely quantify rural people's attitudes about agrarian ide­
ology, but it seems clear that even though the majority of marginalized
rural people in Michoacán eventually accepted the campesino identity that
the agrarista movement brought in tow, they also rejected sorne of the cen­
tral tenets of agrarianism. In the fust place, agrarismo faced a serious struc­
tural difficulty because rural militancy often got tangled up with inter­
village r_ivalries or factionalism within an individual community. Local
politics in many parts of Michoacán revolved around long-standing con­
flicts over scarce resources such as land, water, timber, employment, polit­
ical patronage, the ministrations of a parish priest, or family honor. In
these circumstances, the redistribution of lands (often lands that had more
than one set of claimants) created a clear set of winners and losers that ag­
gravated insular hostilities and discredited agrarismo in the eyes of at least
sorne rural folk.
In the second place, many people found the radical and often irreli­
gious politics of the postrevolutionary state deeply offensive. They expe­
rienced the government's restrictions on the church as an attack on their
religious beliefs and harbored deep misgivings abotlt the government in­
stitutions (schools, the army, ejidos) that began to appear in the country­
side in the 1920s and 1930s. Because agrarismo appeared to many people
as little more than an appendage of the postrevolutionary srate, it stood
Beconúng Campesinos 3r
little chance of galvanizing widespread support. After all, the federal gov­
ernment still seemed like a distant and unfamiliar entity to most rural
folk in the years following the Mexican Revolution.
THE SONORAN STATE, 1920-1935
In May 1920, General Álvaro Obregón overthrew the government of Pres­
ident Venustiano Carranza in what turned out to be the last successful mil­
itary coup of the Mexican Revolution. Obregón's revolt brought to a close
ten years of warfare and political instability that had destroyed the struc­
tures of governance in many parts of the nation. The armed struggle had
begun in r9ro, and within a decade approximately one million peopl� had
either left the country, died in combat, or perished in the epidemics of ill­
ness and hunger that wracked the country after the fi.ghting had ended.
Obregón emerged as the foremost military leader in the Constitutionalist
faction of revolutionaries, and his prowess on the battlefi.eld had allowed
Carranza to take offi.ce as president in 1917. Most observers believed that
Carranza would turn the presidency over to Obregón once his term ex­
pired in 1920, but it eventually became clear that he intended to name one
of his cronies as heir apparent instead. In response, Obregón rallied the
army and rebelled against his erstwhile chief, who lost his life in a desper­
ate retreat toward the Veracruz coast.
Although Obregón was no radical, he had a far more ambitious agenda
than his predecessor did. Carranza had conceived of the revolution as a
narrowly defined political project to reform government institutions and
ensure the nation's political autonomy, and he often ignored calls for social
justice, regardless of whether they carne from popular-class groups or from
his own subordinares. Obregón conceived of the revolution in more ex­
pansive terms. Although he intended to keep Mexic;o squarely on the path
of capitalist development and never proposed making massive changes in
the nation's social structure, he was enough of a realist to recognize that he
could not simply ignore popular expectations for the realization of revolu­
tionary promises such as land reform and prolabor legislation. Popular­
class groups had organjzed to make political demands on the revolution­
aries wherever the fi.ghting had generated mass movements, especially in
places like Mexico City, Puebla, Morelos, and the northern states. 26 Ob-
32 Becoming Campesinos
regón was also enough of a populist to understand that mobilized cadres
of country people and workers could be organized to support bis regime
and considerably ease the task of governance. Once in office, he authorized
a series of modest social reforms that mollified sorne of these groups and
allowed him to turn his attention to consolidating the central government's
authority over the fractured nation.
Obregón and his successor, Plutarco Elías Calles, dominated national
politics for the next fifteen years. The two men were longtime political al­
lies from the border state of Sonora, and their combined 1920-3 5 regime
is often called the Sonoran State. Like most other prominent politicians of
the 1920s, the Sonoran presidents belonged to a sector of middle-class
landowners, merchants, and petty professionals who believed that the
principies of free enterprise would benefit both themselves and the nation.
For the most part, they embraced the philosophy of political liberalism,
which promised that an individual's right to hold property and vote would
promote the exchange of goods and political ideas and thereby promote
national development.27 Yet the Sonorans also made ample use of pop­
ulism: they sought to galvanize support for their programs by promising to
redistribute lands, promote labor unionization, and provide other benefits
for the popular classes, but without challenging the fundamental struc­
tures of the capitalist system itself. 28 During their ascendancy, the two
leaders reformed the federal bureaucracy and restructured the economy to
promote commerce and social arder. More than anything, they intended
to tonvert Mexico from what they regarded as a backward land, mired in
traditionalism, into an economically vibrant, modern nation. In their eyes,
this meant forging a land of productive workers and family farmers who
gave their allegiance to the postrevolutionary government and its princi­
pies. In articulating their vision of this new Mexico, the Sonoran presi­
dents adopted a progressive, and at times overtly radical, discourse that
was at odds with their increasingly conservative policies. In a sense, how­
ever, they had no choice but to do so.
Spurred along by peasant demands for land, by spreading labor mobi­
lizations, and even by Catholic activism, postrevolutionary Mexico be­
carne a hotbed of popular militancy. Rural people in states like Chihuahua
and Morelos that had venerable revolutionary traditions, as well as in
states !ike Michoacán that did not, demanded the redistribution of land
Becoming Campesinos 33
r/
and the establishment of a more equfrable society. Labor leaders founded
unions in nearly every factory and in a number of haciendas as well, sorne­
times with the help of international labor syndicates ranging from the
American Federation of Labor to the Comintern. On the left, radicals
founded socialist parties in a half-dozen states. Communists and anar­
\
chists rallied workers and country folk in hot spots around the nation. On
the right, the Catholic Church organized thinly disguised political parties,
established labor unions of its own, and initiated a number of ambitious
rural development projects. 29
The awakening of popular activism in Mexico conformed with a global
trend of mass mobilization that historian Eric Hobsbawm has called "a
world revolution." In 1920, not quite two years had passed since the Great
War in Europe had reached its agonizing and uncertain end, and the way
seemed open for epic experiments in social organization. Vladimir Lenin
and the Bolshevik Party took control of Russia in 1918 and vowed to ere­
ate a new order that placed the interests of the proletariat above those of
ali others. Four years later, Benito Mussolini sent his Fascist party cadres
to march on Rome, marking the advent of an alternative but equally total­
itarian manner of mobilizing the masses and harnessing their power. In
Western Europe and the United States, labor movements of ali ideological
orientations embarked on bitter struggles to win concessions from em­
ployers. If anything, this sweep of events seemed to gather momentum over
the next fifteen years. The Great Depression that struck the United States
in 1929 and quickly spread to the rest of the world both diluted the United
States' hegemony in the Western hemisphere and made it clear that capi­
talism itself could not endure in an unalloyed form. 30
Like the rest of the world, Mexico experienced the rise of popular un­
rest, economic distress, and political uncertainty in the period between
1920 and 193 5. Yet in comparison to the political doctrines that gained
ground elsewhere around the globe, the ideology of the Sonoran State
seems singularly restrained. Historians have consistent!y demonstrated,
for example, that Obregón and Calles did not seriously intend to follow
their Bolshevik counterparts and turn the means of production over to
the proletariat. 31 Nor did they follow the fascist model of xenophobic au­
thoritarianism. Instead, tbe Sonoran presidents countenanced a certain
degree of working-class militancy, particularly when it carne from mod-
-- p

34 Becoming Campesinos Becoming Campesinos 35

erate agraristas or the CROM. They tolerated, and at times even abetted,

1/
political activism and intellectual freedorn. For the most part, however,
they sought to control and tame existing popular demands rather than
stirnulate new ones. 32
In the early 1920s, the Sonorans' policies to sorne extent matched their
political discourse. Obregón allowed the land reform to proceed in states
with particularly troublesome peasant movements, as long as they did
not scare away foreign investors or complicate his troubled diplomatic re­
lations with the United States and Europe. Calles, who succeeded him in
office in 1924, had misgivings about continuing the redistribution of lands,
and instead made organized labor a central pillar of his regime. He gave
CROM leader Luis Morones an important cabinet position and initially
ignored alternative labor organizations run by radicals and communists.
He also allowed sorne strike activity, though he drew the line at labor un­
rest that threatened to destabilize his government.
National politics took a pronounced swing to the right in the latter part
of the 1920s, however. The watershed year was 1928, when, after winning Plutarco Elías Calles, center, and Lázaro Cárdenas, far right, with other genera Is
election to a second term, Obregón was assassinated by a Catholic ex­ campaigning against the Escobardista-Cristero uprising, 1929. Courtesy
tremist befare he could take office. Obregón's death threw the nation inco CERMLC.
a severe política! crisis as various political factions began a desperate bid
for power. The political instability deepened Calles's resolve to put an end
sort of crossroads. Many of the nation's political leaders believed that the
to the Cristero rebellion and marked che beginning of his increasingly au­
revolution had already fulfilled its prornises to the popular classes. Calles
choritarian leadership. Although Calles vacated the presidency in 1928 at
hirnself had concluded that land reform and the organization of labor
the end of bis term, he then declared himself che Suprerne Chief of the rev­
should give way to private landholding and the exigencies of economic de­
olution and continued to rule frorn behind the scenes for the next severa!
velopment. On the other hand, revolutionary populists within the PNR,
years (a period known as the Maxirnato). In 1929 he established the Na­
along with grassroots militants such as agraristas and a new generation of
tional Revolutionary Party (PNR), which unified his partisans and all self­
unionized workers, expected the deepening of political reforms. The corn­
declared revolutionaries in a single organization capable of winning elec­
peting demands soon rnade Cárdenas's situation untenable. As governor
tions and pushing aside alternative political factions. The PNR allowed
of Michoacán, he had earned a reputation as both an able social reforrner
him to control che behavior of nearly any politician-including a president
and a staunch supporter of Calles, but he had also seen the governor who
-who strayed too far from his dictares. By the early 1930s, the CROM
succeeded him choke off the land reform and attempt to dismantle his po­
had fallen from grace, militants on the left and the right of the política!
litical program, all with the blessing of Calles. Once Cárdenas became
spectrum were being persecuted, and the fate of the land reform itself
president, his continued acceptance of labor and agrarian militancy brought
seemed to be in doubt. 33
hirn squarely into conflict with the Supreme Chief in 193 5. Rather than
When, with Calles's guarded approval, Lázaro Cárdenas carne to the
accept his fate and resign the presidency, howeve1; Cárdenas skillfully used
presidency in 1934, the postrevolutionary state had clearly arrived at sorne
his contacts in the countryside, che labor movement, and above all the
---
36 Becorning Campesinos
anny to wrest control of the government from his onetime parran and be­
gin dismantling the Sonoran political machine. The following y ear, Cár­
denas sent Calles himself into exile. 34
The Sonoran State had displayed a deeply contradictory character. On
the one hand, Obregón and Calles carried out centralizing and increasingly
autocratic policies. They rhetorically praised revolutionary ideals and pop­
ular-class political mobilization, while at the same time setting tight limits
on popular militancy. They called upon the federal army to repress peas­
ants or workers who made what they regarded as unreasonable demands.
Even when the government did accede to popular groups' requests for land
or improved salaries, aspiring politicians often manipulated the land re­
form and labor unions to favor their followers and build political clien­
teles. On the other hand, the Sonorans had an ambitious postrevolution­
ary agenda. By promoting public education, unionization, land reform,
and the political activation of the popular classes, they radically expanded
the boundaries of the political nation and activated the popular classes.
This was particularly true of agraristas. During the Sonoran regime, a
growing though still relatively modest number of rural groups appropri­
ated elements of revolutionary ideology, acquired lands, and successfully
asserted their rights as citizens in the new postrevolutionary nation. Along
the way, they learned to think of themselves as campesinos.
CITIZENSHIP AND CLASS IN POSTREVOLUTIONARY MICHOACÁN
The Sonoran presidents contemplated rural people with a mixture of hope
and disdain. As they appraised the countryside where three-quarters of
Mexico's population lived, they saw a land of religious fanaticism, of
masses impoverished by their refusal to participate in modem economic
life, and of a people utterly unaware of their civic duties. The revolution­
aries' solution, as Calles succinctly stated in 1923, was to promote the
"econornic, imellectual, and moral improvement" of the popular classes.35
The Sonorans intended to use public education, land reform, unions, and
other postrevolutionary institutions to make Mexicans into revolutionary
citizens who would owe primary allegiance ro rhe secular state and the
ideals it embodied. Their civilizing project was colored by the ideals of a
nineteenth-century positivism that elevated rationality over religion and
f
Becorning Campesinos 37
economic development over "backwardness." Mostly, they intended to re­
place rural people's "traditional" allegiances-to the parish priest, to the
landowner, and to the village-with a sense of belonging in a new, "revo­ t/
lutionary" Mexican nation. 36 As a result, revolutionary citizenship was a
double-edged concept. lt not only conferred rights on the popular classes
\
but established a set of prescriptive behaviors and attitudes as well.
The privileges of revolutionary citizenship were most clearly spelled out
in the Constitution of 1917, which granted Mexicans sorne of the most ex­
tensive rights of any nation on the globe at the time. It guaranteed citizens
access to land, labor representation, education, and even health care. Yet
the constitution also served as a blueprint for social engineering. lts au­
thors (one of the foremost of whom was Francisco Múgica) hoped to
modernize and secularize society, and they paid special attention to limit­
ing the influence of the Catholic Church and curbing what they regarded
as popular religious fanaticism. The constitution barred priests from voic­
ing their opinions on affairs of state, reiterated the ban on public religious
processions, and gave state legislatures the ability to cap the number of
priests in their jw-isdjctions.
The revolutionaries took aim at the church for a number of reasons,
but they were especially disturbed at the thought that Catholic doctrine
offered up an alternative model of Mexican nationhood. Catholic ac­
tivists of the early twentieth century promoted economic modernization,
education, and other initiatives to "civilize" the lower classes, much as
the revolutionaries themselves did. Yet Catholic activists attributed the
basis of nationhood to Mexicans' shared devotion to Catholicism, not to
their collective experience of revolutionary struggle. According to Leo­
poldo Lara y Torres, Bishop of Tacámbaro, Mexico was unified by its
common faith in God, and its inhabitants had a duty to forge a homeland
that was both pious and peaceful; in other words, a nation that emulated
the divine social peace that reigned in heaven.37 Moreover, Catholic na­
tionalists imagined Mexico to be a harmonious community organized as
one all-embracing family, a concept far removed from the social vision of
leaders such as Múgica and Cárdenas, who accepted class struggle as a
naturally occurring phenomenon.
The Catholics' paternalistic vision of society resonated with people
th.roughout Mexico, howeve1; and nowhere more so than in western states
 p
38 Becoming Campesinos
such as Michoacán. Indeed, in northwestern Michoacán around the Za­
mora area, a particularly dogmatic form of religiosity took root, which his­
torian Jesús Tapia Santamaría has aptly described as "intransigent Catholi­
cism. " 38 In other areas of Michoacán as well, villagers elected to follow the
priests' injunctions in matters spiritual and material, even if it meant steer­
ing clear of the land reform, a project to which the church was implacably
opposed. Towns that later emerged as the focal points of agrarista mili­
tancy such as Naranja and Chilchota were no exception, and parish priests
continued to hold villagers' respect as long as they did not publicly sermo­
nize against the redistribution of land. Likewise, many hacienda field hands
continued to enter into paternalistic relationships with landowners, just as
they had done before the revolution. Indigenous people did not forget the
steps to their ancestral dances, and rhe yearly cycle of religious fiestas con­
tinued as it had for as long as anyone could remember. 39
To the revolutionary politicians in Morelia, the state capital, these con­
tinuities revealed the common people's "ignorance" and threatened to sub­
vert the entire project of creating a nation of enlightened citizens. As one
of the most influential public intellectuals in Michoacán stated in 1926,
In Mexico there exist a vast number of men who, because of their
coarseness [rudeza], lack of discernment, or illiteracy, do not real­
ize that their actions fall outside the law. There also exists a very
sizable class of pure Indians who do not even understand the
Spanish language. How could it logically be possible to consider
these people as citizens on a par with the much smaller population
of individuals who know their obligations and who understand
when they violare the law? 40
Or as another group of revolutionaries put it, revolutionary "moral val­
ues" would never become part of the national psyche "until the popular
masses are made aware of their rights and obligations." 41 Here was a man­
date for a revolutionary crusade to generate a new citizen, who would re­
ject the conservative social elites associated with the Díaz dictatorship, cast
off devotion to the Catholic religion, and freely give his or her prirnary al­
legiance to the new political nation that revolutionaries hoped to forge.
The single-mindedness with which political leaders and their rural al­
lies executed their postrevolutionary project of social transformation could
Becoming Camf1esinos 39
sometimes veer into narrow-minded demagoguery, political clientelism,
and perhaps even attempts at social control. Indeed, the process of revo­
lutionary state formation produced widespread popular backlashes, rang­
ing from the 1926-29 Cristero uprising to protest marches by anarchist
labor unions. 42 Nevertheless, many rural people chose to capitalize on the
potential benefits that revolutionary citizenship offered them, despite its
myriad imperfections. 43 The agraristas of Michoacán were one such group.
They recognized the immense potential for empowerment in the model of
citizenship that postrevolutionary governments held out to them. Agra­
ristas pressed for their constitutionally mandated rights to the land, of
course, but they staked their claims to the advantages of citizenship in
other ways as well. Mobilized rural folk joined local, regional, and na­
tional agrarian leagues and campesinos unions that emerged in the post­
revolutionary years. They marched in the streets, attended rallies, and
publicly announced their devotion to revolutionary heroes, political lead­
ers, and other icons of the revolution. They mustered to combat counter­
revolutionary social groups that opposed the Sonorans' model of state
formation and built schoolhouses and offered their protection to teach­
ers. In their own eyes, their actions earned them the rights to the benefits
that the constitution promised them.
The rights and privileges contained in the Constitution of 1917 therefore
became a key axis of negotiation between agraristas and the postrevolu­
tionary political class. Whereas agraristas tended to view their revolution­
ary partisanship and willingness to fight so-called counterrevolutionaries as
proof enough of their status as full-fledged citizens, lawmakers and intel­
lectuals wanted rural people to become more disciplined, enlightened, and
educated-in a word, more modero.
Citizenship was not the only source of contention between agraristas
and postrevolutionary politicians, however. By the mid-192os, the politics
of class had emerged as another critica! axis of conflict and negotiation.
When village revolutionaries encouraged rural people to join political or­
ganizations and press for their rights, they got swept up in unionization
movements and the ideological debates of their day. Like Mexico's populist
leaders, village revolutionaries began to conceive of rural people as "work­
ers" or "laborers," regardless of how they made their living. Village revo­
lutionaries also counterpoised rural people's class interest against those of
 p
40 Becoming Campesinos
landowners and other dominant groups, not only because these elites were
seen as counterrevolutionary and hence outside of the revolutionary na­
tion, but because they economically exploited the popular classes. The ex­
plicitly class-based understanding of campesino identity did not emerge
uniformly throughout the state or go unchallenged by sorne social groups.
Nevertheless, by the mid-r92os the discourse of agrarismo began to depict
the rural masses as an economically defined social sector that the postrev­
olutionary state had pledged to empower.
The metamorphosis of agrarismo from a series of more or less uncoor­
dinated community-level initiatives to recover village lands into a cam­
pesino class struggle could be seen in the changing language that village
revolutionaries used to characterize the social sectors that they sought to
confront. In the early 1920s, agraristas usually referred to landowners in
liberal-inspired terms, characterizing them as wrongdoers who had taken
over community lands through dispossession and fraud. By the middle of
the decade, however, they were describing landowners as "estate-awning
exploiters" in league with the Catholic Church, who together hoped to
undermine agraristas' collective interests. 44 At decade's end, terms like cap­
italist and bourgeois had become commonplace epithets for landowners in
agrarian rhetoric. The recasting of agrarismo as a class struggle was also
evident in the discourse that agraristas used to describe their own move­
ment. In the early 1920s, agraristas usually referred to themselves as mem­
bers of a "community," or in sorne cases "an indigenous community," that
sought the recovery of its lands. Within a few years, however, agrarista
leaders began to fashion themselves as leaders of a movement of "work­
ers" or "campesinos" who sought to wrest the wealth-producing land
frorn rural landlords and take charge of their own political and economic
destinies. By the end of the decade, even relatively uneducated rural folk
began to describe the land reforrn as part of the broader "social struggle"
taking place in Michoacán. 45
We have already seen that the postrevolutionary language of class and
citizenship ernphasized rural people's economic and political status over
and above other social solidarities such ethnicity or comrnunity of origin.
This is strange in a sense, because many agraristas were indigenous people
of Otomí or Purépecha descent who had lost their lands over the previous
decades and centuries, and many of thern placed great stock in comrnunity
Becoming Campesinos 41
solidarity and the rnaintenance of existing traditions. Nevertheless, agra­
rista discourse downplayed these social traits, not only because many rural
leaders were in fact mestizos, but also because they regarded their move­
ment as a form of class-based political struggle rather than as an attempt
to defend local autonomy or indigenous rights. As anthropologist Frans
Schryer discovered in the state of Hidalgo, class-based agrarian struggles
had the potential to conjoin people of different ethnicities and allow them
to unite against those whom they regarded as their common enemies, and
indeed something like that occurred in Michoacán as well. 46 Yet the cre­
ation of a class-based campesino identity did not make rural people's ex­
isting solidarities simply disappear. Instead, they inflected it with their own
understandings of ethnicity and community.
Nevertheless, agraristas' willingness to mobilize arnund their class in­
terests further alienated them from the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Ecclesiastical leaders had used the concept of class ever since the mid­
nineteenth century, but they regarded the mobilization of one class against
another as a recipe for social disintegration and condemned the land re­
form as state-sponsored theft of privare property. Church leaders denied
that richer and poorer social groups had irreconcilable differences, instead
offering up an amicable solution to the "social question." They proposed
to mitigate the ill effects of economic disparity and "concíliate" the differ­
ences between rich and poor. Yet to the agraristas, such attitudes merely
confirmed that the clergy intended to maintain the status quo. Village rev­
olutionaries accused the church of undermining revolutionary labor laws,
attempting to halt the land reform, and instigating an "internecine war"
among the working classes. 47 Their mutually exclusive worldviews virtu­
ally ensured a rupture between Catholic militants who upheld church doc­
trine and agraristas who embraced the banner of class struggle.
The polarization of rural society also accentuated the contradiction be­
tween politicians' desire to create a political clientele through popular mo­
bilization and their need to maintain the stability for capitalist develop­
ment. As agraristas learned throughout the 1920s, and particularly during
the 1926-29 Cristero rebellion, they often had to combar hacienda guards
and their own neighbors if they hoped to occupy their land reform parcels.
These local conflicts could leave dozens of people injured or dead. Yet vi­
olence conflicted with the need of agraristas to display their respect for po-
 p
42 Becoming Campesinos
litical leaders and hence their worthiness for the benefits of citizenship. Af­
ter ali, populists in the mold of Obregón and Calles found social disorder
deeply troubling, regardless of whether agraristas, Cristeros rebels, or any­
one else committed it. It made no difference that the government itself was
largely responsible for encouraging popular unrest by passing legislative
attacks on the Catholic Chmch and inviting the popular classes to mobi­
lize around their rights as proletarians and revolutionary citizens. Indeed,
the unstable situation in the Michoacán countryside was further compli­
cated by the rapid-fire succession of pro- and anti-agrarista governors who
held office in Michoacán between 1920 and 193 5. T hese governors rarely
coordinated their policies with the federal government, even under the
best of circumstances, and some of them openly feuded with the president.
As a result, one branch of government might attempt to repress agrarista
organizations, disarm peasant militias, and curb the land reform at the
same time as another armed peasants, prornised them lands, and promoted
agrarista leaders to important political positions.
In Michoacán, these contradictions remained unresolved until the late
1920s, when Lázaro Cárdenas struck upon a solution that simultaneously
established official control over the state's agrarista movement and prom­
ised to advance the collective interests of rmal folk as he understood them.
In 1929, Cárdenas created a mass organization-part labor union, part po­
litical party-and charged it with organizing campesinos as a political and
economic force. His institutional solution strongly appealed to village rev­
olutionaries and mobilized country people. The new organization (dubbed
the Revolutionary Labor Confederation of Michoacán) promised to col­
lectively empower "campesinos" and to ensure that the land reforrn and
the unionization of hacienda field hands would continue apace. Cárdenas
also acloptecl key elements of agrarista cliscomse ancl gave village revolu­
tionaries top positions within his organization. To many agraristas, Cár­
clenas's brand of populist politics augured the resounding validation of
their movement.
CARDENISMO ANO THE POLITICS OF CAMPESINO IDENTITY
When the community leaders of El Asoleadero (the village that had taken
on the North American mining company and developed a strong agrarista
Beconúng Campesinos 43
r/
tradition) wrote Cárdenas in the mid-193os to voice their support for his ''
plan to create a "united front of campesinos," their words therefore re­
flected the outcome of a fifteen-year progression in rural politics and iden­
tity formation in Michoacán. The particular terms in which the commu­ \
nity leaders expressed their support for Cárdenas's project were inflected
with notions of revolutionary citizenship and class consciousness that had
been hashed out through agrarian mobilization and local appropriations
of postrevolutionary ideologies. Moreover, it seems clear that the village
leaders' stated support for "the Revolution as incarnated by the [Cárde­
nas] government," did not refer in the final instance to military struggles
of the 1910s. Rather, it indexed a history of local struggles over such issues
as land reform, labor organization, and public education and in this sense
served to remind the president of his continuing responsibility to make
good on revolutionary promises containecl in the 1917 constitution. The
village leaders' explicit invocation of their "class interests" unambiguously
defined their political identity in economic and political terms rather than
ethnic or cornmunity-based ones. 48 In all, the villagers' self-identification
as campesinos marked them as members of an "imagined community" of
postrevolutionary political actors who were prepared to remake Mexican
society along new, revolutionary lines. 49
With an incredible economy of words, the petition that the leaders of
El Asoleadero and its sister communities sent Cárdenas succeeded in ap­
pealing to nearly every major element of postrevolutionary politics, with
one notable exception. The village leaders' letter made no mention of
agrarismo, nor did the writers ever refer to themselves as agraristas. They
had, in effect, cast off the trappings of agrarian politics, and they were
not alone in doing so. By the mid-193os, most rural people-including
those who sympathized with revolutionary values-hacl learned to asso­
ciate agrarismo with the most dogmatic and inflexible aspects of postrev­
olutionary politics. Although the land reform continued ro place land in
the hands of rural communities and more people than ever before had ac­
cepted the postrevolutionary concept that all poor rural folk were cam­
pesinos who had certain collective interests, it seems that country people
were no more inclined to accept potentially divisive ideologies than they
ever had been. As a result, they embracecl campesino identity but rejected
what they regarded as undesirable elements of postrevolutionary ideo!-
1
44 Becoming Campesinos Becoming Campesinos 45

ogy. Other rural folk went even further and explicitly severed the discur­ Catholic, or a campesino and indigenous, or a campesino anda resident
sive links that had once existed between agrarismo and campesino iden­ of such and such a village. Rural people therefore succeeded in fixing clear
tity. For example, one group of subsistence farmers who identified them­ limits on the reach of radical agrarian ideology. They undermined the
selves as members of the "campesino class" wrote to President Cárdenas proposition that campesinos have a unidimensional social essence based
expressing their outrage that they had suffered abuses at the hands of lo­ solely on their economic interests and replaced it with a hybrid sense of
cal "agraristas. " 5º In this way, they rejected the politics of agrarismo with­ campesino-ness that accommodated multiple and sometimes cross-cutting
out relinquishing their membership in the category of rural people that cultural values.
the revolutionaries had pledged to empower. If most rural people in Michoacán eventually accepted the postrevolu­
By the mid-193os, Campesino identity had transcended the agrarista tionary notion that people who work the fields constituted a collectivity
movement in the discourse of at least sorne rural people. In sorne instances of campesinos, regardless of ethnicity, origin, or economic relation to the
(such as the letter from the subsistence farmers above), it seems that peo­ land, it is presumably because campesino identity meaningfully represented
ple who described themselves as campesinos had never considered them­ sorne elements of what they carne to regard as their collective condition. As
selves agraristas in the first place. In other instances (such as the petition the following chapters demonstrate, this form of social consciousness was
from El Asoleadero), rural militants simply !et the words agrarismo and not an age-old outlook in Michoacán or, presumably, élsewhere in postrev­
agrarista drop from their political vocabularies. But the ultimate effect was olutionary Mexico. Neither was it an objective social category -a way that
the same. A definitive disjuncture had appeared between campesino iden­ rural people somehow naturally thought about themselves in regard to the
tity and the agrarista movement even though the idea of "the campesino" rest of Mexican society. Rathe1; campesino identity emerged through a his­
did retain something of its ideological heritage. Even today, people who re­ torical process in which rural folk turned to their own experiences, their
fer to themselves as campesinos are typically making an implicit or explicit local leaders, and the política! discourses that became available to them in
appeal to notions of popular-class solidarity and their right to the land they order to make sense of the circwnstances in which they lived.
till-notions that in Michoacán originally appeared in agrarista discourse
associated with class-consciousness and revolutionary citizenship.
Severa! factors explain why campesino identity seems to have outlived
agrarianism and broadened its appeal in this way, but perhaps the most
important is that rural people found ways to collaborate in the construc­
tion of their own cultural identity by selecting those components of post­
revolutionary ideology that they found useful and ignoring the ones they
found unattractive. Most rural people had little regard for the anticleri­
calism and secularism that agrarista discourse defined and reproduced.
They discarded the inflexible postrevolutionary mantras and saw to it that
campesino identity reflected their own ideals of class and citizenship, while
still articulating with theü· other política! cultures and social identities.
Whereas the ideals of agrarismo excluded alternative popular identities
such as those based on ethnicity or religion or place of origin, rural people
ensured that campesino identity did not. On the contrary, by the mid-
193os they were insisting that it was possible to be a campesino and
 p
2
Land, Community, and Memory in
Postrevolutionary Michoacán
IN 1920s MICHOACÁN, the question of who had the moral and legal right
to own particular lands was very much an open question. In the mid­
nineteenth century, liberal reformers had ordered an end to colonial-era
arrangements that allowed corporate institutions (that is, the church and
villages with common lands) to hold their property collectively. The re­
sulting scramble to privatize or retitle property favored the wealthy, the
perceptive, and the well connected, siphoning away the landholdings of
many rural communities and leaving them with a tenuous legal claim to
what remained. It is hardly surprising, then, that agrarian mobilization in
the early twentieth century nearly always originated with a local conflict
over land ownership or access to the sort of political power that could set­
tle a dispute over property rights. Rivalries of this sort cut in a number of
different directions. They could pit peasant communities against nearby
landowners or other rural communities, they could set one political fac­
tion or kin group against another within a single community, or they
could involve complicated regional alliances that set in motion both kinds
of conflicts at once.
To the extent that inequalities in the pattern of land ownership gener­
ated these agrarian conflicts, it is tempting to say that economic forces
propelled the history of postrevolutionary Michoacán (or at least that they
determined its history in the final instance). 1 Yet such a statement is mis­
leading, because people who lived and worked in the countryside regarded
land as something much more significant than a simple commodity. Land
conferred wealth and social status on hacienda owners. It guaranteed a
subsistence for country people and permitted social mobility in townships
made up of mestizos or Hispanicized indigenous people. In more tradi-
Land, Community, and Memory 47
tional indigenous communities, collective ownership of the land under­
1/
wrote an entire gamut of social traditions, ranging from the authority of
village headmen to the proper functioning of the annual cycle of religious
ceremonies. 2 Within a rural society such as that of early-twentieth-century
Michoacán, land meant power and cultural autonomy.
\
Among rural folk, the individuals and peasant communities who pos­
sessed land in sufficient quantities gained a measure of control over their
own lives. Peasants with guaranteed access to land could provide basic sus­
tenance for their families, sell their goods to earn some extra money, and
make up their own minds whether to supplement their incomes by work­
ing as hacienda field hands or whether to try to struggle through with the
help of extended family networks. Yet most rural people in Michoacán
lacked enough land to make a living like this. Haciendas both great and
small controlled most of the prime farmland, leaving the majority of rural
people with no choice but to take work as day laborers, though some also
sought out jobs in tbe city or sometí.mes in the United States.
In light of land's centrality in most Mexicans' lives, it comes as no sur­
prise that the question of land ownership was intimately bound up with
the revolution itself. By 19ro, most rural folk in Mexico-by which I
mean people whose families bad resided in the same village for genera­
tions and who made a modest living on the land-no longer possessed
enougb property to support their families. Tbe loss of economic autonomy
clearly play ed a role in prompting land-poor villagers to join revolution­
ary armies in the states of Chihuahua, Morelos, Durango, and (in the case
of Yaqui indigenous people) Sonora. The precise nature of rural people's
grievances varied dramatically from place to place, however. People in
central Mexico tended to bemoan the loss of ancestral landholdings and
the subsistence they provided; rural folk in nortbern states experienced the
alienation of land as a loss of autonomy and, for sorne, as a loss of mas­
culine honor as well. 3
Despite the diverse and sometimes unrelated origins of country peo­
ple's rebelliousness, rural leaders as well as revolutionary ideologues re­
garded the causes of popular discontent as self-evident: they believed that
rural Mexico had become an ocean of social discontent on tbe eve of rev­
olution because hacienda owners bad expropriated village lands during
the dictatorsbip of Porfirio Díaz. In fact, progressive intellectuals had
 f
48 Land, Community, and Memory
worried for years about rural people's loss of means to sustain them­
selves, and they could point to hundreds of haciendas that had swelled to
immense proportions by enclosing smallholders and appropriating indig­
enous communities' property. The revolutionaries' supposition was all
but confirmed during the revolution by the successes of agrarian revolu­
tionaries such as Emiliano Zapata, who raised entire armies of aggrieved
rural folk who had lost their community property to well-connected sugar
planters in the late nineteenth century. 4
The idea that the revolution had its roots in agrarian discontent cer­
tainly contains more than a grain of truth. The model of economic devel­
opment that Díaz followed during the Porfiriato clearly magnified the al­
ready inequitable distribution of land in the countryside. Díaz promoted
national economic integration, encouraged the growth of mining and rail­
roads, and passed a series of laws making it easier for landowners to ob­
tain property belonging to rural communities. The forced privatization
(disentailment) of community land could also mean a bonanza for local
landowners and unscrupulous peasant leaders because hacienda owners
often reached agreements to obtain the lands in return for payoffs to vil­
lage leaders, leaving the villages with nothing. Hacienda owners in south­
ern areas such as the Yucatán peninsula and the Valle Nacional of Oaxaca
established regimes of debt peonage that kept most peons perpetually in­
debted to plantation owners. At the same time, the expansion of well­
capitalized plantations in these regions created new pressures (and sorne
opportunities) for the inhabitants of peripheral peasant communities with
lands of their own. 5
Nevertheless, the revolutionaries' blanket denunciations of haciendas
masked what were in fact extremely complex social relations between
landowners and poor rural people. Peons in southern Mexico had few al­
ternatives to wage labor under harsh conditions, but even there rural peo­
ple sometimes arrived at symbolically paternal relations with their em­
ployers. In central Mexico, however, rural people sometimes had the
chance to work out more favorable economic relationships with hacien­
das. In states like Michoacán, villagers' subsistence strategies typically in­
cluded working in hacienda fields as casual or seasonal laborers to sup­
plement whatever they grew in their own cornfields. 6 As a result, rural
people in Michoacán typically developed multiple and ambivalent rela-
Land, Community, and Memory 49
tionships with landowners. Sorne peasants who rented or sharecropped
hacienda lands received access to the landowners' beasts of burden. Oth­
ers depended on haciendas for employment as mule drivers or artisans. A 1/
few found work as permanent field hands. A much larger group took sea­
sonal jobs as day laborers (jornaleros), the work of last resort for people
\
who could not produce enough to sustain themselves on their common
lands or privately held milpa plots. Whatever their circumstances, by
1910 or so most rural folk looked to the hacienda owner to provide such
necessities as wage labor, timbering rights, gleaning privileges, or pay­
ment for religious services.
Of course, rural people had plenty of reasons to resent landowners.
Hacienda overseers often beat laborers and threatened the lives of peas­
ant leaders identified as troublemakers. And most rural communities had
in fact lost their best lands to outsiders or rich members of the commu­
nity over the years. Historians have documented seores of cases in which
this sort of dispossession occurred during the Porfiriato. Yet in many
other cases, land expropriation took place far earlier, typically during the
colonial era. This seems to be the case for many of the land-poor indige­
nous communities in the Purépecha heartland in the Meseta Tarasca and
the Michoacán Bajío (see map of Michoacán on page 18). 7 Moreover, the
loss of land had paradoxical effects that deepened villagers' dependence
011 the "benevolence" of landowners.
Nor was the loss of village property the only hardship that peasants
endured in the nineteenth century. First, population growth in central and
western Mexico had placed unprecedented pressures on the land. The in­
digenous population had been devastated by European pathogens after
the conquest, but it began to rise again around 1680. Natural population
growth continued through the nineteenth century in west-central Mexico
(and presumably in Michoacán itself) at the same time as an influx of Eu­
ropean and mestizo immigrants moved into the countryside. As a result,
about twice as many people in western Mexico made their living on the
land in 1910 as in 1810. 8 Second, the process of econornic modernization
that had brought immense changes to Mexico's far north since the early
days of the Porfiriato had belatedly arrived in Michoacán during the early
1900s. The arrival of railroads helped to forge regional markets for in­
dustrial and agricultura! commodities, increased property values, and en-
50 Land, Community, and Memory
couraged the conunodification of the land. 9 Third, both subsistence farm­
ers and field hands had to endure the consequences of crop failures (such
as the ones that occurred in 1892, r896; and r9ro) as well as economic
downturns (such as the one that occurred in r907-8) that could jeopar­
dize their livelihoods. 10
Regardless of what revolutionaries claimed, then, the loss of village
lands to hacienda owners was neither uncomplicated in its effects 011
rural communities nor the sole cause of peasant discontent. Indeed, sorne
of the central figures in the revolution did not regard the existence of ha­
ciendas as particularly troublesome at ali. For example, the leaders of the
Constitutionalist movement that eventually won the war did not consider
the destruction of peasant livelihoods by the Porfirian system as the pri­
mary failure of Díaz's rule. Instead, they resented the way the Díaz regime
concentrated political power in the hands of cronies, favored wealthy,
and often foreign investors, and cut the tiny but growing Mexican mid­
dle class out of the most desirable elements of political and economic life.
The first generation of revolutionary leaders therefore had little inter­
est in pursuing land reform. Francisco I. Madero and Venustiano Car­
ranza were landowners themselves, and they had very little inclination to
tinker with the economic underpinnings of rural society. The Sonoran
presidents, in contrast, hailed from the middle classes, and even though
they did not object to the existence of haciendas per se, they often found
it useful to launch rhetorical assaults on the Porfirian landowning elite
and, at least at times, make real attacks on them as well. The Sonorans
and a number of peasant leaders recognized that old-regime landowners
could make ideal political adversaries. Sorne revolutionaries and an ever­
growing collection of rural people began to read their antilandowner at­
titudes back onto the history of the revolution, making the military up­
heavals of r9ro-r 5 appear less like a political uprising against Porfirian
governance and more like a broad-based popular movement against the
institution of the hacienda and organizations such as the church that ap­
peared to be aligned with the old order. 11
In other words, postrevolutionary olitics played a major role in struc­
turing the way that rural people and political leaders remembered the Por­
firian past. To define the revolutionaries' critique of haciendas as the forg­
ing of a collective memory is not to deny the very real atrocities sorne
Land, Community, and Memory 5r
landowners committed against villagers and hacienda workers throughout
Mexico during the Porfiriato. Rather, it suggests that while sorne rural folk
lost their lands and, in sorne cases, their basic human liberties during the 1/
Porfiriato, it also became commonplace in revolutionary circles of the \
r92os and r9 30s to assume that ali rural people had profound historical
reasons to despise landowners. This collective memory of hacienda-owner
oppression became detached from memories of the individual landowners
who conunitted specific atrocities against specific individuals and was re­
constituted as universal historical knowledge. 12 Indeed, the molding of
people's memories about the revolution was an integral form of postrevo­
lutionary state formation, as Thomas Benjamín and others have argued. 13
In Michoacán, it both conformed with the increasingly radicalized form of
postrevolutionary ideology that prevailed in local political circles and re­
flected the actual historical experience of seores, perhaps hundreds, of
peasant communities throughout the state.
MICHOACÁN IN r920: THE VILLAGES
The late r9ros and early r920s was a time of insecurity in Michoacán.
The revolution had broken down the structures of authority in the coun­
tryside, and banditry was spreading like a brushfire. Highwaymen made
travel on the roads and footpaths a risky proposition after r9r7 or so,
and villagers lived in constant fear that local toughs might ride into town
to demand food and drink, then beat them just for spite. Sorne villagers
kept an ancient shotgun close at hand for just such occasions, but most
lacked any weapons with which to defend themselves. 14 Apart from ban­
ditry, rural folk also had to worry about epidemic illnesses, which grew
particularly deadly after the revolution. The great influenza pandemic of
r9r8 that carried away thousands of souls was only the most spectacular
of a consistently high leve! of disease and hunger that afflicted the entire
nation in the postrevolutionary years. People in Michoacán often con­
tracted illnesses from drinking contaminated water, and malaria was ram­
pant in the steamy lowlands of the coastal southwest, a region known as
the hotlands, or tierra caliente. Even in rhe capital, residents complained
that stagnant water "fermented" and "poisoned" the air.'5
The r920s was also a time when supernatural events were a part of
 r
52 Land, Community, and Memory
everyday reality. Rural people, both the rich and the poor, often told of
malevolent spirits (duendes) who could cause rocks to hurl through the
air as if from nowhere or taunt villagers for no apparent reason. One for­
merly skeptical priest reported that he had visited a hot!ands village that
a whole troop of spirits had occupied. He informed his bishop that "the
truth of these facts is undeniable, since [the spirits) speak directly to the
people, strike them, and revea! occult things to them, so many people go
to ask them questions." 16 The fear of spirits could sometimes lead rural
folk to turn against the unknown, which sometimes included machines
that they had never seen before. Aspiring schoolteacher Salvador Sotelo
recounted that villagers attacked a water pump he had invented, shout­
ing, "This contraption must be possessed! Don't you know that [Sotelo]
doesn't go to Mass?" 17
Indigenous people such as the Otomís of the eastern highlands and the
Purépecha (also known as Tarascans) of the central Sierras enacted spiri­
tuality through their religious festivals. Most of these were alcohol­
infused festive events in which villagers paraded a religious icon such as
a miraculous statue through the streets accompanied by candles, musical
bands, and fueworks.The music, worship, and ritualized bouts of drunk­
enness attracted people from ali around, and the merriment often !asted
into the small hours of the night. 18 Sorne of these events got so rowdy
that municipal authorities had to call in contingents of police to keep
fights from breaking out, but the festivals also firmed up the bonds of
comrnunity and sustained indigenous people's cultural memories. 19 As the
members of one parish council explained, the "simple little public fiestas
in these distant pueblos" served the same social function as plays and
movies did "in other countries." The only difference, rhey said, is that
"these are our customs [that take place] once a year, not day to day."
Many indigenous people cherished their traditional dances and regarded
them as part of their heritage, relling uncomprehending outsiders that
they had performed them "since time immemorial" or because the dances
represented their "ancient customs." 2º
Mestizo townshi_ps staged religious celebrations of their own. Most
rural townships marked major events in the liturgical calendar with pa­
rades that became ali the more boisterous in the postrevolutionary years,
when celebrants often carried guns to discourage local authorities from
Land, Community, and Memory 53
trying to suppress the festivities.21 People in Morelia, the state capital, ob­
:]
served holidays such as Corpus Cristi or December 12 (the commemora­
1/
\
tion of the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe) with rockets, bell ring­
ing, a parade of floats, a dance/game based on bullfighting (toritos), and
music that the revelers played from three in the morning to eleven ar
night.22 And mestizos also had their own characteristic religious celebra­
cions.For example, many families erecced a privare altar known as anal­
tar de dolores in their homes during holy week and invited their friends
and family to visir them. Among the provincial eLte, religious observances
had a more exclusive air. Well-to-do people often invited priests to cele­
brare privare masses in their homes, for instance. The notable families of
mestizo townships were also fond of holding privare social gatherings such
as soirées (veladas) and religious charity events (kermeses). These gather­
ings, often attended by the local curate or even the bishop himself, helped
to confirm che social status of provincial elites who held them.23
The importance of spirituality was such that the parish priest stood
somewhere near the apex of auchority in most communities. Rural people
consulted priests on matters ranging from marriage counseling to financia!
dealings to whether they should take advantage of the land reform. One
small-town bureaucrat complained, "There is no higher authority here
than the 'padre,"' and said that the priest demanded che right to review
even minar details of village social life such as the terms of renta! agree­
ments.24 Clergymen who enjoyed such authority had typically eamed their
parishioners' trust by living in the community and becoming part of it, but
others were far less involved. Sorne priests could not stand che boredom of
rural life and abandoned their parishes for che relative excitement pro­
vided by provincial towns. Others felt too consumed with their duties to
play much of a role in village society. Indeed, sorne parochial districts en­
compassed as many as 150 villages (rancherías), making life for sorne
priests seem like an endless procession of baptisms, marriages, and funer­
als. As one priest told his superiors, perhaps with a wisp of disdain for his
congregacion, he had no time to socialize with his parishioners because he
had to make "ali kinds of missions .. . to keep the villagers [spiritually]
prepared, because they die ali the time." 25
Priest!y authority did have ics limits, however, even in the most devout
of communities.Both mestizo and indigenous villagers monitored priests'
.
r
 p
54 Land, Community, and Memory
behavior and rejected those who fell short of their expectations. They ini­
tiated letter-writing campaigns and made personal appearances at the
cathedral petitioning the bishop to remove clergymen whom they found
uncooperative,mettlesome,or simply unwilling to participare in the so­
cial life of the community.26 A small minority of the population gave up
on Catholicism altogether. Protestantism made some inroads in Michoa­
cán in the 1920s,borne along by immigrants returning from extended stays
in the United States and by a friendly political climate for non-Catholic
denominations. Of the 63 8 churches in Michoacán in 1930, 7 percent
were Protestant.27
In most rural communities, authority and personal prestige derived
from personal,face-to-face relations.The exercise of política! power typi­
cally depended to a greater or lesser extent upon the consent of commu­
nity members.This was particularly true in indigenous communities,where
informal leaders usually directed public life. These men most often re­
ferred to themselves as "community representatives," or as members of
the parish cabildo (a village council of elders).28 These village headmen
usually had to pass through village-level cargo (duty) systems,a custom in
which a notable resident agreed to fw1d a saint's day fiesta or severa! dif­
ferent fiestas over the course of the year.Holding a cargo generated the re­
spect of other villagers,whereas those unable or unwilling to do so risked
earning a reputation as "rabble [who] do nothing to help out with parish
upkeep ... ,don't form part of the pueblo's cabildo, nor hold a cargo for
any of the saints." 29 So even though not ali cargo-holders became com­
munity representatives, those who did often acquired the respect of their
neighbors. They helped to determine who could use common lands in
communities that still owned them and regulated the use of water,timbe1;
and other collectively owned resources. They also had the ability to rent
or sell community property to outsiders,a responsibility that brought with
it a commensurate potential for self-enrichment.30
The informal and sometimes autocratic character of village cabildos ex­
asperated many aspiring agrarista leaders, who often mixed revolutionary.
zeal and a predis osition for modern forms of governance with a healthy
dose of moralizing. For example, Manuel Tercero of Tingambato de­
nounced one village representative as "an individual habitually given to
the vice of drunkenness,for hardly a Sunday goes by when he doesn't get
Land, Community, and Memory 55
drunk." His "pernicious immorality and rejection of good customs," Ter­ 1
,,
cero charged,made him a bad example for the other villagers.Indeed,as­
piring agrarista strongmen such as Tercero tended to bypass the cargo sys­ f/
tem altogether and leapfrog into positions of authority previously reserved \
for community representatives.31 As a result, the appearance of these up­
starts often threatened to open up serious divisions between younger and
older generations, particularly in so-called ex-communities of indigenous
people that had been forced by mid-nineteenth-century legislation to di­
vide and privatize some or ali of their communal property. The loss of
communal lands typically had tarnished traditional leaders' authority and
prestige,while promoting the rise of Hispanic characteristics such as indi­
vidual property holding, acceptance of wage labor, and the consequent
need to learn Spanish.For this reason,Hispanicized indigenous villages of­
ten emerged as the most important agrarista strongholds in the 1920s.32
Even when a community with an indigenous heritage lost its lands,
though, village cabildos sometimes retained a considerable degree of au­
thority. Hacienda owner Ezio Cusí recalled that a village leader from the
Lake Chapala region regularly marshaled as many as one hundred people
to travel to the tierra caliente hotlands for hacienda work during the two­
month long harvest season.33 These community leaders also helped to
steer villages through the rivalries that often set one village against an­
other. Throughout Michoacán-and particularly in the highlands of the
Meseta Tarasca-a surprisingly large number of indigenous communities
had disputed the boundaries of their landholdings over the course of sev­
era! generations or in sorne cases even since the colonial era. These rival­
ries could have fatal outcomes. As one educator wrote, the residents of
two neighboring villages locked in a boundary dispute had come to regard
each other as "mortal enemies " and often made "incursions from one to
the other for the sole reason of fighting.... In one battle 17 individuals
lost their lives." 34
At least these communities owned enough land to fight over.Most rural
people in Michoacán lacked the means to support themselves without tak­
ing outside work.One observer estimated that more than 210,000 people,
almost 6 5 percent of the economically active rural population,made their
living as day laborers on haciendas.35 Sorne of the villagers migrated to the
hotlands and back,or even to the United States,but the majority found it
 - ---------- --�-----....
p

56 Land, Comnnmity, and Memory Land, Community, and Memory 57

necessary to work as casual laborers on nearby haciendas. It is not clear

what percentage of these people had access to their own lands, but it is
clear that sorne villages had been founded by outlanders who had imrni­
grated to the countryside specifically to find work on haciendas. 36 But in
any case the extreme inequality of landholding in Michoacán meant that
few people controlled the conditions under which they made a living, leav­
ing most people dependent to a greater or lesser extent on landowners.

MICHOACÁN IN 1920: THE HACIENDAS

Michoacán's haciendas were resilient institutions. Many of them had been

sacked during the wars of independence from 1810 to 1821 and then
again during the Wars of the Reform three and a half decades later. A
new generation of landowners built the haciendas back up in the late
nineteenth century and brought them through the revolution relatively
unscathed.37 Indeed, at least a few landowners took advantage of the rev­
olutionary instability to make their landholdings even more profitable.
Dante Cusí, one of the most prosperous hacienda owners in the state,
chose to buy a huge new hacienda in the hotlands in 1910, on the eve of
the revolution. He financed expensive irrigation projects even as the fight­
ing raged on. On the huge sugar-producing Taretan hacienda, the owners
imposed onerous new terms in 1914 that required their workforce of
sharecroppers to put more of their own resources into planting cane, even
as the hacienda reaped the benefits of sugar prices that had reached war­
time highs.38 Even the early phases of land reform in the 1920s left the
haciendas largely intact. As a result, nearly five hundred haciendas still
existed in Michoacán by 1930, and although they accounted for only r.6
percent of the total number of landed properties in the state, they collec­
tively held nearly 70 percent of its agricultmal land. 39
There was remarkable diversity of haciendas in Michoacán. The
largest and most modern lay either in the tierra caliente hotlands on the
southwest slopes of the central mountain range or in the Bajío, as the fer­
rile flatlands in the northeastern part of the state were known. These huge
agribusinesses boasted the mosr advanced technology available at the
time, including steam turbines for electricity, irrigation pumps, and, in
one case, a proprietary narrow-gage railroad. They employed hundreds
Working the fields in the Michoacán hotlands, r92r. Courtesy l!H-UMSNH.
of resident field hands and many more hundreds of temporary laborers
during planting and harvesting seasons. Yet these great estates with huge
territories and stable workforces were the exception in Michoacán. Most
haciendas comprised no more than one or two thousand acres and em­
ployed a few seores of field hands consisting mainly of day laborers, who
lived in nearby communities rather than in hacienda-owned housing. Some
day laborers worked in the fields more or less permanently, while others
took seasonal jobs to earn sorne extra money, but most rural folk tried to
avoid day labor if they could. It did not pay well in most places, and ha­
cienda administrators treated the workers "like slaves," as one ex-field
hand recollected. 40
Resident workers, known as acasillados, on the big haciendas had it
far better than day laborers did. It appears that most resident workers
were mestizos who had migrated to haciendas specifically to take jobs
there. They lived in company housing made up either of small houses
with a yard for keeping chickens or, in some cases, of long dormitory
buildings partitioned by thatched dividers into six to ten rooms for indi­
vidual families. 41 Resident workers sometimes received the right to a few
acres of their own, which they could use to plant with corn or to pasture
58 Land, Community, and Memory
a couple of cattle. On their occasional Sundays off or when there was lit­
tle work to do in the fields, they cut firewood to sell at nearby villages,
sold charcoal, or picked wild fruit. The resident field hands, like the day
laborers, often received part of their pay in corn or sorne other foodstuff.
Sometimes they received chits for use at the company store, the tiendas de
raya, which in Michoacán served more as an outlet for a few overpriced
goods and an occasional source of credit for laborers rather than as the
agent of debt peonage it was in parts of southern Mex.ico, where it turned
hacienda peons into virtual slaves.42
Renta! agreements and sharecropping arrangements between hacienda
owners and members of neighboring communities seem to have been very
common in Michoacán. 43 Sorne haciendas were entirely given over to
renta! or sharecropping, but most often hacienda owners devoted only a
part of their lands, perhaps the less desirable fields, to one or the other.
Sharecroppers were field hands or villagers who planted crops on hacienda
lands, then paid half (or sometimes two-thirds) of the harvest to the land­
owner as a usage fee. On rare occasions, sharecroppers received wages in
addition to their portion of the harvest. 44 So while sharecropping was
common throughout the state, particularly in the Morelia region and in the
flatlands around Zacapu, the terms of sharecropping agreements varied
quite a bit. In sorne circumstances, the sharecropper provided his own
beasts of burden and sometimes agreed to buy goods from the company
store as well.45 Other times, the landowner provided the plowing animals
and seed, and, in at least one case, a labor contraer between a hacienda and
its permanent laborers gave sharecroppers nearly equal footing with the
permanent workforce. 46 Indeed, a small sharecropper elite emerged in sorne
communities during the nineteenth century made up of people who earned
enough to hire their own day laborers. These well-to-do shatecroppers
often became influential members of peasant communities, with enough
money to fund commw1ity religious fiestas and to lend cash to less fortu­
nate peasants.47
More modest than the hacienda owners but better off than field hands
and most sharecroppers were the small landowners known as rancheros.
They constituted an important social group in the central highlands and in
the northwestern Bajío around the Zamora area. Sorne rancheros, whom
anthropologist Franz Schryer aptly labels a "peasant bourgeoisie," had
Land, Community, and Memory 59
enough wealth to hire agricultura! laborers to help in the fields or even to
contraer with sharecroppers of their own. However, other rancheros de­
picted themselves as "absolutely impoverished [people] who dedícate our­
selves to farming our privare property [pequeñas propiedades]." 48 What­
ever their circumstances, most had started out as immigrants into rural
areas who patched together their lands in the nineteenth century and ei­
ther purchased or swindled lands from indigenous leaders and individual
villagers. Other rancheros were homegrown, having emerged from within
peasant communities, perhaps by appropriating community lands for
themselves. In still other cases, they acquired their lands when a local
landowner broke up his or her hacienda and sold parcels to field hands
and other locals.49
Rancheros were also famous for their social and political conservatism,
at least part of which derived from their economic circumstances. They
formed a united front against land reform and the politics of agrarismo
generally. Unlike hacienda owners, who could lose a portion of their lands
to the land reform and continue to remain in business, the loss of even a
small amount of land could spell disaster for a ranchero. 50
Haciendas and ranchos did more than give their owners a way to earn
a living. Most landowners felt that their property conferred pride and a
social status to which average villagers could never aspire. This sense of
honor was often coded in terms of ethnicity as well. For example, a
ranchero whose property abutted the indigenous village of Zurumútaro
explained that an order to turn sorne of his lands over to the villagers as
an ejido carne as a terrific blow to him. Making his case to the president
of Mexico, he wrote that while he and other local rancheros lacked enough
farmland, the "Indians" of Zurumútaro had received more acreage than
they needed. "lnstead of giving them more land," he asked rhetorically,
"wouldn't it be better to teach them to work, so that they can learn to ap­
preciate and therefore save the money that they earn honestly?" He con­
cluded on a darker note, threatening that his mestizo sharecroppers might
take up arms against the "unruly" villagers of Zurumútaro and predict­
ing that
perhaps it will lead to a caste war [guerra de razas] that will be
hard to put out.... l can no longer find anyone to watch my
 p

60 Land, Community, and Memory Land, Community, and Memory 6I

cornfields because these people threaten my employees and ment that the Señores decide not to let others use it, there will be no place
sharecroppers.Yesterday a watchmen was in the cornfield next to hold services.Tbe ornaments and utensils also belong to the hacienda
to their land ...and they fired four shots at him while hiding owner, and he can take them back any time he wants." In this way, too,
in the corn.Is it wise to give arms to these people who make che good patrón attempted to earn the respect, if not the affection, of his
such bad use of them? 51 dependents, leading many observers to comment on field hands' great
"affinity" for their employers. 54
The racialized notion that landowners exercised a civilizing influence on
Yet paternalism also had a domineering, violent, and in a sense macho
the otherwise disorderly behavior of agrarista "Indians" appeared again
side as well, which makes it difficult to distinguish field hands' apparent
and again in the discourse of rancheros and other landowners. Many of
fondness for the boss from their more immediate need to act submissive
these people believed that that their ability to make the land produce
in order to make a living. 55 Landowners often expected their workers to
wealth bestowed on them the right to hold it, and they consistently ex­
make clear demonstrations of their filial orientation.On many haciendas,
pressed bewilderment that the government would actively attempt to
field hands had to look clown and doff their hats while talking to the
meddle with what they saw as the natural order of things.
boss, and those who refused often got a slap in the face or a whipping for
Hacienda owners confirmed their superiority by establishing symbolic
thei.r insolence.56 It was risky to anger the landowner or his administra­
links of domination with their dependents, often by situating themselves
tors, who could always order workers to pack their things and leave the
as symbolic father figures. One hacienda owner reminisced in his memoirs
company-owned houses.In other words, the symbolic paterfamilias could
that "great harmony reigned between the workers ...and the owners,
literally kick his dependents out of their homes.57
whom they regarded as good friends, as parents." 52 Despite its self-serving
Field hands' apparent tolerance of paternalist relations <lid not mean
nature, landowner paternalism <lid have a benevolent side. Hacienda own­
that they meekly accepted their circumstances, however.Haciendas were
ers often became the godparents of their laborers' children, thus establish­
violent places and probably always had been.In the unlit lanes in labor­
ing a link of ritual kinship (compadrazgo) with their employees. They
ers' camps, men and women got drunk, sang songs, and fought among
threw fiestas to celebrate the successful conclusion of a harvest or a reli­
themselves.58 Sorne of this disorderly behavior shaded into sheer insubor­
gious holiday such as Christmas. Furthermore, many hacienda owners
dination. Drunken or simply obstínate laborers sometimes refused to
tried to keep from getting personally involved in disciplining their depen­
show respect to their superiors, regardless of the consequences. Field
dents. When problems did crop up with the field hands, it appears that
hands often filched extra corn or wheat from the fields or stashed sorne
they preferred to lie low and !et their foreman mete out the punishment. 53
crops aside during harvest time.They also knew how to time their labor
That way, the landowner directed field hands' hatred toward his subordi­
action for maximum effect by waiting to make demands for better pay
nares and maintained the appearance of good will toward his people, ali
until harvest time, when hacienda owners needed to bring in the crops or
without giving up the threat of physical coercion.
face the prospect of losing them.59 By the 1920s, these thinly veiled acts
Hacienda owners also provided for their dependents by funding cha­
of resistance to landowners' authority sometimes took a more overt
pels and covering the salaries of priests who officiated on the haciendas.
form, as field hands began to unionize and declare strikes. Even so, most
Thjs arrangement not only guaranteed them sorne influence over the sorts
of Michoacán's hacienda workers continued to cast their lots with ha­
of messages that field hands received from the pulpit; it gave them direct
cienda owners when the government threatened to redistribute hacienda
control over religious practice on their property. As an episcopal envoy
lands and crack clown on religious practice.lndeed, this is just what they
discovered on the sprawling hacienda of Guaracha, "the church adjoins
had done during the revolution of the previous decade.
the central complex and is part of the great house itself ...and the mo-
 p

62 Land, Community, and Memory Land, Community, and Memory 63

IN RETROSPECT: THE REVOLUTION staunch the demands for reform that had built up in political circles and
among some middle-class groups and sectors of the peasantry.
One historian called the revolution a "wind that swept Mexico," but Mi­
choacán experienced only a few gusts compared to the gale that ravaged
Conservative elements of society soon regrouped and took a bold step 1/
some other regions of the country. 60 Western Mexico never became a ma­
that initiated the second phase of the revolution. In 1913, army chief of
staff Victoriano Huerta won the blessing of U.S. arnbassador Henry Lane
\
jor theater of operations in the wars of r9ro-r 5. Revolutionary leaders
Wilson and led a military coup against Madero in which the president and
in the state of Morelos, a few hundred kilometers to Michoacán's south
vice president lost their lives. As Huerta labored to consolidare an updated,
and in the northern states of Chihuahua, Sonora, and Durango raised
Díaz-like dictatorship, pockets of resistance formed throughout the nation.
great armies of rural people that eventually proved capable of decimating
In the state of Morelos, directly to the capital's southwest, Emiliano Za­
the federal army. In contrast, the middle- and upper-class leaders of Mi­
pata's peasant army vowed to resist the reimposition of policies that fa­
choacán's revolutionary factions rarely mustered more than severa! hun­
vored sugar plantation owners. The Zapatistas had originally mustered in
dred troops. With the exception of the infantry unir that the Constitu­
1910 to protest the imposition of a proplanter governor and declared
tionalist general Joaquín Amaro raised in the northwest highlands and
themselves Maderistas. But, once in of ice, Madero had disappointed them
f
deployed beyond Michoacán's borders, these rnodest outfits typically skir­
by violently rejecting their demands for land reform. At one point Zapata
mished on the periphery of major rnilitary movements without getting di­
proclaimed that he would never "stop hoping to see [Madero] hang from
rectly involved in any of those actions. This secondary role suited rnany
the tallest tree" in Mexico City's central park if the president failed to keep
people in Michoacán very well. Revolutionary leaders in the state hoped
his "promises to the people. " 61 The Zapatistas did eventually rebel against
to avoid a social upheaval that could threaten social order, and most
Madero, and once Huerta came into office, they were even less inclined to
rural folk saw no reason (or at least no opportunity) to rise in arms 011
accept the domination of outsiders. In 1913, they vowed to fight on.
their own. The revolution in Michoacán did bring dislocation, scarcity,
Huerta faced a more serious threat in the nation's far north from
and banditry, but rnost people simply tried to ride out the storm.
Venustiano Carranza, the wealthy, liberal-minded governor of Coahuila.
On the national leve!, the violence of revolution unfolded in three dis­
Carranza headed up a shaky coalition of reformist northerners who de­
tinct phases between r9ro and 1915. lt opened when Francisco I. Madero,
manded Huerta's removal, a return to the rule of law, and a vaguely de­
the reformist landowner who had dared to run against Díaz in the flawed
fined suite of political reforms. The northerners' assault on Huerta and
presidential election of r9ro, appealed to "ali the towns in the republic"
the federals was spearheaded by Francisco "Pancho" Villa, whose army
to rise against the dictatorship. Madero's call to arms was the first serious
-filled with peasants, cowboys, and others-marched steadily south­
challenge in years to the aging dictator, who had originally fought his
ward and forced Huerta to resign in July 1914. This victory set the stage
way to the presidency in 1876, turned it over to a crony for one term, and
for the third and definitive phase of revolution. The long-standing ten­
then "won" an uninterrupted series of carefully orchestrated eiections ever
sions within the revolutionary coalition rore it apart, leaving Carranza 011
since. Madero's appeal did not spark a general uprising, but small bands
one side, and Villa and Zapata on the other. In the final phase of warfare,
of revolutionaries soon appeared in northern border states. Within a few
a stunningly short but bloody round of fighting broke out between the
months they coalesced into a troop that dealt a major blow to the federal
erstwhile allies. By the spring of 1915, Carranza's most brilliant general,
army encampment at Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. With the army's ability
Álvaro Obregón, had effectively ended any hope that Villa and Zapata
to stem the rebellion suddenly- in doubt, Díaz resigned on May 25, and
would win the war. When the fighting finally ended around 1919, perhaps
Madero won election to the presidency five months later. During fifteen
one million people had either lost their lives or been displaced.
months in office, however, he carried out bland policies that did little to
In Michoacán, Governor Aristeo Mercado had occupied the seat of
64 Land, Community, and Memory
power for eighteen years by the time Madero issued his call to arms in
1910. He had earned the trust of most the state's nouveau riche landown­
ing class by turning a blind eye to their methods of acquiring land. If the
villagers put up a fuss about haciendas encroaching on their land, the
governor could always turn to the detachment of the federal rural police
(the hated rurales) stationed in Morelia.62 The collapse of the Díaz dicta­
torship sent Mercado scurrying from the state in 1911 and gave rise to
two contradictory impulses in the countryside. On the one hand, politi­
cally moderate landowners and old-regime politicians raised modest col­
umns of troops and sought to bring an orderly close to the Porfirian era.
Over the next four years, they aligned with Madero, then Carranza 01; at
times, with Villa. They mounted cautious military campaigns that did not
cal! for the active support of the rural folk or the stirring up of trouble in
the countryside. On the other hand, a sprinkling of rural communities
seized on the instability of the revolutionary years to invade land, harass
the hated federal army, or declare themselves partisans of Zapata's agrar­
ian revolution. Yet these rebellions in the countryside never really gath­
ered much momentum, and Michoacán's upper-class military leaders had
little trouble steering the course of Michoacán's revolution. 63
Straddling the two forros of revolutionary mobilization was Michoa­
cán's political leadership, made up nearly entirely of urban professionals.
The state's first revolutionary legislature, for example, comprised seven
lawyers, three doctors, and two pharmacists, ali of whom belonged to the
liberal party. 64 Dr. Miguel Silva, a respected physician who belonged to
one of Morelia's most distinguished families, became Michoacán's fust
revolutionary era governor. 65 Once Yilla's cavalry began to batter Huerta's
federal arrny, Silva left the state, eventually to be replaced by the state's
Contitutionalist rnilitary commander, Gertrudis Sánchez. Although the leg­
islature had been dissolved by that point, the bureaucracy functioned nor­
rnally throughout 1914. Public schools remained open in the capital, and
Sánchez found enough rnoney to sustain the state militia, and even to pro­
vide a rnodest stipend for the widows of fallen soldiers. To keep the state's
econorny afloat (and perhaps to keep on the good side of the state's most
powerful families) he also rnade occasional disbursements to help hacien­
das meet their payrolls. 66
Around this time, a number of grassroots rebellions broke out in the
Land, Community, and Memory 65
northeastern part of the state. Popular-class revolutionaries mobilized in
perhaps a dozen communities. They ambushed federal troops from time
to time and developed a proclivity to invade hacienda lands if they could.
In the Purépecha community of Cherán, for example, Casimiro López
Leco organized a band of a few hundred people who had lost their forest­
lands to a foreign timber company. He declared himself a Constitutional­
ist and drove the foreigners out of the hills. In 1919 he led his followers
in a new invasion to recover village lands lost in 1879 to the Bravo fam­
ily and the rancheros allied with them. 67 In a similar development not far
from there, village leaders Juan Madrigal and Miguel Regalado of At­
acheo led villagers to occupy sorne woodlands they had lost to a neigh­
boring landowner, and they raided bis cattle herd for good measure. Af­
ter the assassination of Madero, Regalado and his followers joined forces
with the Constitutionalists, and from that point onward, the villagers
took potshots at federal soldiers whenever they saw thern. If the federals
returned fire, the villagers disappeared into the bilis, accompanied by the
parish priest, who was an ardent supporter of the revolution. 68
The few country people who actually fought in the revolution usually
did so in irregular military units, however, not in village-based rebellions.
Local leaders such as General José Rentería Luviano raised their forces by
convincing their field hands, sharecroppers, and family members to don
uniforms and fall in behind thern. Outsiders such as JoaquÚ1 Amaro (who
later became one of Cárdenas's closest allies within the revolutionary army)
sent their lieutenants into peasant villages to recruit new followers. In this
way, Amaro raised five soldiers in one village, ten in another, and eventu­
ally he collected enough men to constitute a credible army. Sorne of these
units were quite effective in major batt!es in central Mexico. 69 But sorne of­
ficers sent their men into battle under false pretenses. For example, Amaro
managed in the sumrner of 1916 to dupe a group of pro-Zapata peasant
revolutionaries frorn La Cañada into marching to Morelos and attacking
the Zapatistas. The military leaders "really made asses [pendejos] out of
us," remernbered one veteran of the expedition sadly. 70
Popular mobilization was relatively rare during the revolution, and
peasant enlistrnent in regular units was only slightly more comrnon, but
outlaws cropped up just about everywhere. Banditry fust appeared around
1912, as rancheros and relatively wealthy sharecroppers organized their
,---
f
66 Land, Community, and Memory
A revolutionary vereran, Morelia area, circa 1917. Courtesy CERMLC.
followers to raid nearby villages and haciendas and perhaps to resist gov­
ernment intrusions into their lives as well. On at least one occasion, so­
called bandits attacked a town when it appeared the municipal authorities
planned to conduct a draft for the federal army.71 The scope and goals of
banditry changed dramatically in late 1915, after Villa's massive army dis­
banded in central Mexico. War-hardened men such as Inés Chávez García
returned to Michoacán to find that political authority had virtually disap­
peared in the countryside but that highwaymen, displaced villagers, and
veterans of revolutionary armies abounded. Soon Chávez as well as other
bandits with names like the Badger or the Enchanted Goat crisscro$sed the
countryside with gangs of severa! hundred men. They rode through Mi­
choacán sacking villages, pillaging haciendas, and more or less indiscrim­
inately destroying villagers' lives. 72
Land, Cominimity, and Memory 67
By late 1917, the situation had grown desperate in the entire eastern half
1/
of the state. Drought had cut into food supplies, and in at least one case
rural people resorted to eating insects and wild plants to survive. To make
matters worse, Chávez García had managed to muster nearly a thousand
men, árawn mainly from the Michoacán Bajío.73 His raiders overran vil­
lages and wealthy hotlands haciendas and sometimes tried to invert the ex­
isting social order along the way. For example, they twice rode into the
Nueva Italia hacienda and set themselves up in the big house; on one oc­
casion they brought in tow a mariachi band they had kidnapped hundreds
of miles away. While Chávez's men may have enjoyed the chance to live
like kings, it was probably hunger and drought conditions that most
strongly facilitated Chávez's efforts to recruit followers. His men probably
found robbery a surer way of putting food on the table than farming or
day labor in the parched fields of a hacienda, and Chávez would always
order food for his men when he rode into town. Then he would pasture his
remuda of three thousand horses (on hacienda lands, if possible) and en­
courage his followers to raid stores of food and drink. 74
Chávez's actions were characterized by random acts of viciousness over­
laid on a consistent impulse to ridicule local powerholders. At sorne mo­
ments he behaved like a "social bandir," chasing away hacienda owners
and opening the way for villagers to invade their ancestral properties. In La
Cañada, La Piedad, and elsewhere, he sent mestizo landowners scamper­
ing away and encouraged villagers to claim the emptied lands for them­
selves. In Cherán, he forced merchants to dance in front of a crowd of vil­
lagers, and in the Zacapu area (which would later become a center of
agrarismo in Michoacán), indigenous people are said to have regarded him
as a "savior." 75 At other times, though, he wrought indiscriminate carnage
that wrecked families and entire townships. His men often took towns by
force and spent their first hours systematically raping women and young
girls. He killed the poor as well as the rich, sometimes after personally
guaranteeing their safety. His men destroyed stores and government offices
to be sure, but they also sacked the houses of "humble people." In late
1917 and early 1918, Chávez and his men leveled parts of at least a dozen
townships, often while killing at random.76
At the peak of Chávez's rampage, a particularly mortal strain of the
so-called Spanish flu hit central Mexico. The influenza pandemic in the
 68 Land, Community, and Memory
Inés Chávez García, right, with a compañero, circa 1917. Courtesy IIH-UMSNH.
fall and winter of r9r8-r9 killed well over half a million people in the
United States and probably between three hundred thousand and five hun­
dred thousand in Mexico. It disproportionately affected young adults in
their twenties and thirties, who often died within days of contracting the
illness. The flu carried away around 2. 3 percent of the population in the
provincial capital of Puebla, 77 and tens of thousands of people appear to
have lost their lives in Michoacán. Priests scurried from house to house
and cof in makers struggled to meet the demand for their wares. The epi­
f
demic killed Chávez García and enough of his men that his army dis­
solved into smaller and less destructivc bands of criminals. 78 The death of
the greatest bandit chieftain, along with the slow reemergence of the state
government, effectively ended the armed phase of revolution in Michoa-
Land, Community, and Memory 69
cán. According to one woman who lived through the hard years of the
late r9ros, the upheaval in Michoacán ended only when "everyone got
sick and had to quit fighting. " 79
REVOLUTIONARY LIBERALISM
Historians have long recognized that Mexican revolutionary leaders did
not have the all-encompassing ideological vision that their counterparts in
France or Russia did. 80 Yet most revolutionaries in Mexico did share a
common outlook based on their collective rejection of the Díaz regime,
which they believed to have betrayed the liberal political principles that
Díaz claimed to uphold. Relatively conservative leaders such as Madero
and Carranza differed from modernizers such as Obregón and Calles in the
nature of the reforms that they intended to carry out and in the nature of
the relationships that they established with the popular classes, but ali these
leaders embraced sorne form of what could be called revolutionary liberal­
ism. In essence, revolutionary liberalism promised to reform the practices
and institutions associated with Porfirian nepotism, corruption, and social
stasis, and to create new ones capa ble of bringing about long-cherished lib­
eral ideals of republicanism, individualism, and social mobility. 81
Variants of the European doctrine of liberalism had been the center­
pieces of Mexican política! thought for decades. Liberalism gained traction
in Mexico in the early nineteenth century because it prorn.ised to replace
colonialism with individualism, personal liberties, and the free exchange
of goods and ideas. In its most emancipatory form it promised that grant­
ing individuals greater political and economic liberty would break clown
the collectivist and hierarchical order created by Spanish absolutism and
bring Mexico into the modern world-that is, it would make Mexican
society more dosely resemble an idealized form of European society. Lib­
erals intended to wipe away three-century-old colonial institutions such
as guilds, a powerful and intrusive Catholic Church, and collectivized in­
digenous communities and replace them with a free, more egalitarian re­
public of citizens. 82
Although Mexican liberalism shed most of its utopian luster over the
course of the nineteenth century, it remained the dominant political para­
digm throughout the revolutionary era. According to Antonio Navarrete,
 p
70 Land, Community, and Memory
the foremost postrevolutionary liberal thinker in Michoacán and a pivota!
player in state politics during the 1920s, liberalism guaranteed key "pub­
lic liberties," including political and civil equality and freedom of expres­
sion (conciencia). It aimed to implant the ideas of "individualism and prí­
vate property" in what had been a "feudal" world. In the end, Navarrete
explained, liberals intended to ensure the "growth of public wealth, indi­
vidual well-being, and peace, without harming the rights of others. " 83
Most landowners and merchants in Michoacán became tentative par­
tisans of liberalism soon after independence, or at least they warmed to its
promises to promote agricultura! production, reduce their economic de­
pendence on the church, and place collectively held indigenous lands on
the rnarket. To realize these ends, the Michoacán state legislature had
voted in 1827 to begin the division and privatization (reparto) of com­
munity lands, and a few hacienda owners in the Morelia region used these
provisions to expand their holdings at the expense of village property dur­
ing the 1840s and 185os. 84 Still, the time had yet to arrive when the gov­
ernment could force indigenous communities to make a general reparto of
their property. That began to change in 1856, however, when Reform-era
statesmen enacted the Ley Lerdo that prohibited corporate entities from
awning agricultura! land. The law aimed to abolish mortmain property,
(that is, lands that corporate groups such as ecclesiastical orders and in­
digenous communities held as common property and could therefore keep
frorn circulating in the free market). Church properties presented the eas­
iest and perhaps most desirable target, and within a few years most ec­
clestiastical landholdings ended up in the hands of prívate landowners,
merchants, and other social climbers. On the other hand, rnost villagers
initially managed to duck the reguirement to privatize their communal
lands. They employed sucl, time-honored techniques as foot dragging, ig­
noring the law, and transferring the legal title of common property to a
trusted community leader, ali the while continuing to farm their fields as
they always had. 85
The political climate of Mexico changed dramatically in the last guar­
ter of the nineteenth century. Porfirio Díaz carne to power in 1876 and
soon began to restructure the national economy. Railroads began to stitch
together Mexico's domestic market, and foreign capital flowed into agri­
culture, mining, and manufacturing. The Porfiriato transformed all realms
Land, Community, and Memory 71
of society, but perhaps nowhere more so than in the countryside. 86 In 1883 1
1/
the federal government passed the Law of Vacant Lands (expanded in
1894), which allowed land companies to survey unclaimed property that,
¡ 11 theory, would subsequently be sold in relatively small parcels to indi­
vidual owners. In exchange, surveyors received one-third of the land they
mapped. It now appears clear that this process did not arouse nearly as
much popular resentment as historians once thought, but the fact remains
tbat the Vacant Lands law did allow speculators to acquire more than ro
percent of the national territory. 87 Moreover, it was only one part of a
more generalized assault on village lands by an entire panoply of means,
both legal and illegal, that the Porfirian state either actively abetted or pas­
sively tolerated.
In Michoacán, it was this general climate of coziness between political
leaders and the landowning class, rather than a specifü: law or institution,
that made it possible for hacienda owners to appropriate village lands. Per­
haps the most common method was also the most insidious. Many com­
munities in the nineteenth century agreed to rent their communal property
to relatively well-to-do outsiders, many of whom had recently filtered into
the countryside to plant cash crops on village-owned fields or log village­
owned woodlands. These newly arrived landowners often managed to ac­
quire these village lands in the 1880s and 1890s by "denouncing" them as
vacant and clairning them as their own. In such cases, villagers had no al­
ternative but to defend their ownership through the courts. 88
Another problem arase when village leaders, sorne of them calling them­
selves community representatives, gave outsiders the rights to communally
held cornfields, pastures, or timberlands without informing their fellow
villagers about it. The occasional venality of community leaders was noth­
ing new. Outsiders who took an interest in villagers' wealth or labor
power had often attempted to suborn local powerholders in the past, but
tbe Porfirian-era push to privatize rural lands may have exacerbated the
problem even more. In any case, these shady sales and lease agreements
netted village headmen sorne extra cash, but they left the villagers with
nowhere to plant and few means of legal recourse. (Rural folk were not
the only ones who had to worry about dubious land transfers: on one oc­
casion, a Michoacán businessman "sold" an unsuspecting gringo a stand
of timber that he did not really own; the North American lumberman only
72 Land, Communit:y, and Memory
realized that he bad been hoodwinked when armed villagers chased him
off their land.) 89
Not all land transfers were fraudulent or coerced, though. Many vil­
lagers apparently chose to sel! their land of their own free will and may
even have felt attracted to the prospect of entering the cash economy. But
if so, their unfamiliarity with market relations put them at a distinct dis­
advantage in the new order. Observers reported that villagers who sold
their properties during the Porfiriato often received a pittance for what
were sometimes quite valuable properties. 90
Villagers' loss of land during the Porfiriato occurred over a relatively
long period of time and on a piecemeal basis. More than anything, the dis­
possession of village lands seems to have fit into the antipopulist, procom­
merce spirit of the times. The new generation of landowners who carne of
age during the Porfiriato cast aside their predecessors' symbolic acts of ex­
change-such as funding village religious services as a way of paying
"rent" on community croplands-with indigenous communities whose re­
sources they used. Instead, the Porfirian landowners disregarded these
quaint gestures, aggressively transferred land titles to themselves, and re­
lied on the cold rule of law to deal with upset villagers. Porfirian laws and
institutions allowed them to do so, of course, but it also seems that the eco­
nomic boom of the late nineteenth century led landowners to seek out new
land in ways that drastically contravened the existing "moral economy"
that had governed relations between haciendas and villages for centuries. 91
Without a doubt, the Porfirian system offered the elite of Michoacán
a uniquely pleasing combination of social order and economic growth.
Moreover, in a major break from the previous generation of liberal re­
gimes, the Porfirian governor tolerated the Catholic Church. 92 Relations
between church and state had warmed to the point that a future Micho­
acán archbishop, Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores, regarded Díaz as a personal
friend. When popular discontent began to swell in Monterrey, where he
was posted in 19ro, he published a handbill admonishing his flock not to
disturb the peace and reminding them of the "Catholic principies of re­
spect and obedience to Established Authority. " 93
The fact that the Díaz regime had provided social elites with such am­
ple possibilities for advancement also gave revolutionary leaders an obvi­
ous target . Ali revolutionary factions denounced the elitist spirit of Por-
Land, Community, and Memory 73
firian governance, and none did so more emphatically than the Constitu­
tionalists, whose leaders insistently condemned Díaz and his cronies for
hijacking the national economy and turning it over to foreign investors. As
Antonio Manero explained, the revolution aimed primarily to extirpare
old-regime autocrats who had achieved a "monopoly of wealth" by gain­
ing control of the nation's land, finances, commerce, and industry. 94 Even
Francisco Múgica, who made vague references to socialism during Ma­
dero's failed run for the presidency in 19ro, worried most about the break­
down of liberal ideals that Díaz had presided over. He cited politicians'
lack of respect for the "rule of law," along with the "mockery" that "plu­
tocrats" made of the "middle class's" aspirations for democratic chaoge.
These violations appeared serious enough to him to overthrow the regime
itself. 95
Such critiques did not really condemn liberalism as such; instead, they
charged the Porfirian government with failing to live up to its own liberal
credentials . They criticized Porfirian practices, not the ideology that un­
derlay them. Constitutionalist intellectuals therefore concluded that the
revolution should not take the nation in a completely new direction but
rather return it to the liberal course that it seemed to be following before
the Porfiriato. Ali the major institutions associated with the Díaz regime
therefore came under scrutiny. The Porfirian autocrats known as científi­
cos, hacienda owners, the federal army, the rural police corps known as
rurales, local political bosses known as jefes políticos, and, for sorne, the
Catholic Church all began to seem like the rotten foundation on which
the Porfirian edifice had been built. Over the course of the Mexican Rev­
olution, nearly ali of these entities met their demise in one way or an­
other. The Constitution of 1917 even placed the prerogatives of hacien­
das and the church in check. In bringing land and religion into the realm
of politics, however, the revolutionaries opened the door to a new and
potentially more radical form of ideology.
LAND REFORM ANO THE LIMITS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY
The Mexican land reform had a complex heritage that included both lib­
eral critiques of the economic ill effects of overlarge landholdings as well
as more radical denunciations of the hacienda owners as exploiters of the
 74 Land, Community, and Memory
popular classes. About the only point on which pro-land reform groups
agreed was that the Porfirian hacienda system needed a major overhaul.
Serious criticisms of Porfirian landowners began to appear in the early
1900s, when moderare public intellectuals began to write books and news­
paper arrides exposing the threats that haciendas posed to the economic
viability of rural communities. Around the same time, the increasingly
radicalized Mexican Liberal Party, led by political dissidents Ricardo and
Enrique Flores Magón, issued a cal! for land reform. By the eve of the
Mexican Revolution, journalistic criticisms of the Porfirian hacienda were
quite pointed. Andrés Molina Enríquez's book Los grandes problemas na­
cionales excoriated the concentration of land into the hands of a tiny elite,
and John Kenneth Turner presented a scathing exposé of labor conditions
in southern Mexico the following year. But none of these critiques reached
broad audiences, and they played a marginal role in setting the tone of
opposition to the Díaz regime. 96 Instead, the revolutionary process itself
brought the land question to the fore. In 19rr, Emiliano Zapata seized on
the relatively vague program of the revolutionary movement to insist that
villagers receive lands, and a few years later Pancho Villa proposed an
agrarian reform project of his own. Country people and revolutionary
leaders, not crusading journalists, made land reform a central problem of
the revolution.97
Carranza was more reluctant than the otber revolutionary leaders to
accept the idea of redistributing wealth, although sorne of the more radi­
cal members of his Constitutionalist coalition strongly advocated the idea.
Once Villa and Zapata had split off from the Constitutionalists, however,
Carranza understood that he needed to propose sorne sort of land reform
if he intended to retain the support of mobilized rural folk. In January
1915, having vacated Mexico City in the face of Villa's offensive, Car­
ranza's advisors drafted legislation that nullified any land transfers that
had come about through the misapplication the 1856 Lerdo Law or
through fraud tolerated by the Díaz regime. Insofar as these provisions re­
lated solely to illegal land transfers, they simply reaffirmed the liberal doc­
trines demanding the rule of law. But the 1915 law also went a step be­
yond traditional liberalism and opened the door to the possibility of a
radical restructuring of property rights because it stipulated that even those
pueblos that had been legally divested of their property or lacked adequate
Land, Community, and Memory 75
titles could petition the government for a grant if they could prove that
they needed the land.98
The following year, after his armies had dealt his enemies a series of
crushing blows, Carranza called a convention of elected delegares from
throughout the nation to write a constitution and usher in a new era in
public life. He presented the convention a proposed draft that for the most
part reiterated the existing, liberal constitution of 1857, though it did con­
tain sorne new reforms such as the ratification of his 1915 land reform law.
But a radical circle of delegares led by Francisco Múgica and a few others
soon gained control of the convention and produced a more ambitious
document than Carranza had ever intended, particularly in the matter of
property rights. Under the close guidance of intellectuals sucl1 as Pastor
Rouaix and Molina Enríquez, Arride 27 of the new constitution declared
that ownership of "lands and waters within the natiorial territory belong
to the nation in the first instance" and the nation had the right to "impose
on private property . ..in the public interest." In other words, the consti­
tution diluted liberal ideals of absolute property rights and overlaid them
with nationalist, collective ideals intended to benefit the rural masses.
Article 2 7 called for the breakup of the greai: haciendas in order to pro­
mote "the development of small landholding" and ordered state legisla­
tures to take steps to give rural people "inalienable" rights to work the
land. It also contained provisions that invested the nation with ownership
of subsoil mineral and petroleum deposits and restricted foreigners' access
to them . These measures provided the juridical basis for the land reform
(as well as establishing the constitutional basis that Cárdenas later invoked
to nationalize Mexico's petroleum reserves in 1938) but not by promising
individual peasant smallholders free and clear ownership of their fields. 99
Rather than simply turning plots of land over to rural people, revolution­
ary intellectuals envisioned the land reform as an updated and institu­
tional mechanism that would re-creare the best aspects of collective and
comrnunity-based landholding. The main vehicle of land reform was to be
the ejido, a colonial-era term that had been used to describe indigenous
communities' comrnon lands ever since the colonial period. 11
In practice, the postrevolutionary ejido was to be held and adminis­
tered by a specific group of beneficiaries (eiidatarios) who constituted a
so-called agrarian community. Early advocates of land reform hoped to
76 Land, Community, and Memory
redistribute federal lands to rural folk, but they also recognized that little
publicly owned land existed in the most densely populated parts of the
nation, which was also where the demand for agrarian reform was great­
est. In these circumstances, the constitution gave the government the right
to nationalize priva te property and turn it over to peasants. Initially land
reform beneficiaries were expected to reimburse landowners with their
earnings, but this often proved unworkable. The government's plan of re­
imbursing property owners with a specific category of bonds fared little
better because the bonds rarely traded at their face value. A substantial
proportion of landowners ended up receiving cash for their property, but
those who did not do so typically received only a fraction of the true
value of their land.
The architects of land reform elected not to give land reform beneficia­
ries an outright title to their ejido plots because they wanted to prevent
peasants from selling their property and ending up in the same straits as
befare. Yet this technicality had an unforeseen consequence. Since land re­
form beneficiaries did not hold the title to their lands, they could not use it
as collateral for agricultura! credit, meaning that the state itself would have
to provide rural credit to the land reform sector. Government lending agen­
cies therefore achieved an immense and often unwelcome foothold in most
agrarian communities. 100 While nothing could be done about this aspect of
the land reform's overall structure, postrevolutionary governments did
rnake sorne important legislative tweaks over the years. One law ain1ed to
ensure that only existing cornmunities, rather than small peasant settle­
ments, would receive land grants. Another excluded hacienda field hands
from participating in the land reform program, a move that theoretically
assured hacienda owners of a landless and·hence stable workforce (not to
menrion one that typically opposed the land reform) , until this prohibition
was modiiied in 1934.
Yet ali of these laws could be bent, and in practice most rural commu­
nities were at least potentially eligible to petition for the grant (dotación)
of an ejido. In most cases, the process of receiving a land grant commenced
when community leaders or political activists wrote a petition to the gov­
ernor accompanied by the signatures of community members who hoped
to receive a land grant. The governor then turned the request over to a
state board of overseers (the Local Agrarian Commission, or CLA), which
Land, Community, and Memory 77
determined whether the petition should move forward. If the commission
decided favorably, the governor had the ability to approve the creation of
a provisional land grant, send surveyors to mark its boundaries, and give
the beneficiaries the right to move onto their lands. Frorn there, the paper­
work went to the National Agrarian Commission and ultimately to the
president, who had the final say on the definitive creation of an ejido. 101
In rnost comrnunities, the land reforrn's institutional structure served
to confirrn sorne existing social relations while tempering others. For ex­
ample, it reinforced men's role as the family patriarch, because only male
heads of household could be inscribed as foil members of land reform
communities (although women could receive that status upon the death
of their husbands). Ir also tended to reproduce informal village power
networks (caciquismo) and deepen peasants' political subordination to
political outsiders such as governors, presidents, banks, and the govern­
rnent surveyors who mapped out ejido lands. On the other hand, the land
reform reordered the power relations between landowners and the land­
less. While sorne of the old mutual dependency and mutual animosity re­
rnained, land reform beneficiaries began to find political allies in state and
federal governmerits that had formerly catered to hacienda owners alone.
Land reform beneficiaries discovered that they no longer needed hacienda
day jobs once they had their own lands to farm. For the lucky few who
received ejido parcels in the 1920s, an epoch had come to an end.
REVOLUTION ANO THE l'OLITICS OF MEMORY
The revolution shattered the political suprernacy of the landowning class
in Michoacán and yet deepened its importance in the econornic life of rural
areas. Challenges to landowners' political and social status carne from a
number of directions. Bandits occupied haciendas and mocked their own­
ers, peasants invaded fields that adjoined their village lands, and politi­
cians passed laws that rescinded the absolute right to privare property.
Nevertheless, most rural people continued to rely on day labor to sustain
themselves, probably ali the more so in the tumultuous postrevolutionary
years. Moreover, the revolution itself may actually have impr oved the eco­
nomic condition of Michoacán's haciendas, as we have seen. A few land­
owners had managed to increase the profitability of their haciendas dur-
78 Land, Community, and Memory Land, Comnnmity, and Memory 79

ing the r9ros, sometimes ar the expense of their field hands or neighbor­ r92os started to remember the Porfiriato as the historical fountainhead of
ing villages. In such cases, the revolution as ir unfolded in Michoacán ac­ rural injustice. lt seems reasonable to assume that many or even most did.
After all, the collective memory of Porfirian oppression squared with a 1/
\
tually helped to cement haciendas' centrality to rural people's subsistence
strategies. major component of most people's lived experience: most people lacked
These facts did not square with the more radical variants of revolu­ enough land to sustain themselves without taking sorne sort job on a ha­
tionary ideology. Revolutionary leaders of the r92os and r93os tended to cienda, and whatever its other failings, agrarista discourse contained a
regard-and, increasingly, to remember-the revolution as a movement compelling argument about the historical roots and fundamental injustice
to redeem rural folk from the backwardness and poverty that they asso­ of their condition. To the extent that rural people began to remember the
ciated with the Porfirian order. Ir was simply unacceptable to believe that specific histories of their specific conununities in the generic terms that vil­
the revolution had actually benefited haciendas in sorne ways. In Michoa­ lage revolutionaries propounded, they adopted a particular historical ren­
cán, the solution to this seeming paradox initially carne from Francisco dering-a memory-about their collective past. As village revolutionaries
Múgica, who took office as governor in 1920. Múgica and his followers soon recognized, an imagined collective heritage of this sort can be a pow­
held landowners responsible for reducing rural people to poverty during erful platform on which to build a new social identity. Like the indigenous
the Porfiriato, a stance that helped to deepen their politicized, collective way of knowing history that Joanne Rappaport has studied, this form of
memory of hacienda owner dispossession of village lands. But historical mernory functioned as a symbolic system that helped to constitute campe­
arguments about hacienda owner rapacity were not enough, and Múgica sinos as a social group based on their shared historical knowledge. 102
began to promote a still more radical form of thought that depicted
landowners as the exploiters of rural people as a class. In essence, he em­
ployed rural people's landlessness as the ideological basis of a major ini­
tiative to reorder property ownership in the countryside.
At first, most rural people rejected Múgica's solution even if sorne of
them did tentatively begin to echo his historical vision of the Porfiriato. In
a handful of villages, however, community leaders recognized the attrac­
tion of the revolutionary project and Múgica's understanding of recent
history. Agrarista leaders in communities that had had sorne sort of trou­
ble with nearby landowners were particularly open to Múgica's version of
events, and soon a rising generation of rural activists began to solicit lands
and mobilize villagers to occupy them. These village revolutionaries nearly
always portrayed their movement as an attempt to recapture village lands
from landowners who had expropriated them during the late nineteenth
century. In this way, they began to accept the increasingly ideological his­
tory of the Porfirian past. Eventually, village revolutionaries helped to
forge a collective memory of the Porfiriato as a period of exploitation and
to counterpoise it with the promise of campesino empowerment in the
postrevolutionary era.
It is impossible to tell with any precision how many rural people in the
 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 81

3
Francisco Múgica and the Making of
Agrarian Struggle, 1920-1922

♦
IN THE EARLY M0RNING DARKNESS of September 21, 1920, a few dozen
volunteer militiamen silently took up defensive positions around the colo­
nial palace that housed the state legislature. A few more stationed rhem­
selves on the cathedral towers overlooking ir. The militiamen had arrived
from two villages on the distant outskirts of Morelia and wore their tra­
ditional broad-brimmed peasant sombreros, prompting the town's lead­
ing newspaper to describe them as "anonymous men of the pueblo.'' 1 Un­
hindered by the federal troops stationed nearby, they posted lookouts and Francisco J. Múgica, center, ai:riving to take the oath of office in Morelia,
settled clown to wait for the man they hoped would become Michoacán's Sept. 21, 1920. Courtesy llH-UMSNH.
next governor.
As expected, Francisco J. Múgica appeared a few hours later, flanked
parties. His campaign promises included the protection of markets and the
by supporters. The militiamen, backed up by a community brass band
guarantee of individual property rights. The other was Múgica, whose
from the town of Uruapan and a growing crowd of well-wishers, flocked
core of support carne from the small but highly dedicared cadre of radical
around the doorways and balconies of the legislature trying to catch a
idealists who made up the Socialist Party of Michoacán. The final con­
glimpse of Múgica as he hurried into the legislature and took the oath of
tender was a conservative landowner from Zamora who had campaigned
office. 2 Later, they marched across the main square to the city hall, aimed
with the thinly disguised support of the Catholic Church but who had ad­
their guns menacingly at Múgica's opponents who had been holed up
mitted defeat soon after the election.
there, and drove them out of the building. Again, the federal troops did
This wide array of candidates had not inspired much interest among
nothing to stop them, no doubt because their commander, the twenty­
the populace, however. Most eligible voters either ignored the election or
five-year-old General Lázaro Cárdenas, was one of Múgica's staunchest
prudently chose to keep away from polling places on election day, per­
friends. 3 In a matter of hours, the show of force had settled a political
haps because they suspected that the balloting would turn into a patch­
standoff that had disrupted daily life in Morelia for more than a month.
work of partisan brawls. In the end, it did. Partisans took over polling
At issue was the succession to the governorship of Michoacán. Three
places in perhaps a dozen townships and refused to !et their opponents
very different candidates had run for office in the summer of 1920, and
vote. Sorne ballot boxes mysteriously disappeared, while others arrived at
two of them had claimed victory. One of the self-declared victors was a
the tabulation tables stuffed with fraudulent ballots. In one district, a vil-
political moderare, a wealthy civil engineer aligned with the state's liberal

80
82 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
lage police force arrested the entire committee charged with counting
votes and sent its members off to jail befare it could submit any returns
at ali. Credible evidence suggests that partisans of each of the three can­
didates committed irregularities of sorne sort or another. 4
When the state congress met in August to certify the election results and
announce the final tallies, legislators split along party lines, and the state
soon found itself with two rival legislatures, each of which declared itself
sovereign and denounced the other as illegitimate. One "congress" sup­
ported the liberal candidate. The other was made up of Múgica's sympa­
thizers and two Catholic party congressmen who cast their lots with him
at the last minute. Daily rallies on behalf of one candidate or the other
converted Morelia's plazas into política! staging grounds as national lead­
ers in Mexico City prepared to intervene and name a winner. President­
elect Alvaro Obregón, who had just staged a successful coup of his own,
distrusted Múgica and preferred the moderare who had the liberals' sup­
port. But Obregón had not actually taken office yet, and interim president
Adolfo de la Huerta favored Múgica. In the end, that was ali that mat­
tered. Múgica effectively laid claim to the governorship the day his peas­
ant supporters occupied the legislature, though months would pass befare
the federal government officially recognized his right to hold office. 5
Múgica's brand of politics appeared dangerously ill-conceived to
president-elect Obregón as well as to most other political leaders in Mi­
choacán and Mexico City. Múgica believed that peasants were locked in
an epic struggle against property owners and their ideological allies, and
he intended to remedy the situation by educating peasants and giving them
the property they needed to gain control of their own lives. In practica!
terms, this meant promoting land reform and secular, government-nm ed­
ucation. These were not inherently radical propositions in the postrevolu­
tionary context; after ali, the liberal and Catholic candidates also agreed
that something needed to be done to address the agrarian problem, and
they too had said that rural folk should be taught to adopt more modern,
sanitary, and rational behaviors. Yet Múgica's plan for wholesale social re­
form departed from traditional Catholic and moderare-liberal ideologies
on two basic issues: he regarded the relationship between peasants and
landowners as a class struggle in which property owners exploited cam­
pesinos, and he believed that the postrevolutionary government's moral
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 83
obligation to ally with the country folk in this conflict gave him the right
to overrule hacienda owners' property rights and turn land over to the
people he called the "rural workers."
Catholics and liberals found these ideas profoundly disturbing. Cath­
olic political thinkers tended to believe that society more or less reflected
God's design and that setting one social class against another infringed
upon divine will. On the other hand, political liberals believed that well­
organized markets would structure society equitably and generare wealth
in the most efficient and orderly way possible. So even though Catholics
and liberals disagreed on many points, they both had their own reasons
for regarding individual property rights as sacrosanct, and they readily
agreed that Múgica's brand of politics served to provoke resentments be­
tween rich and poor that would eventually undermine social order and
engender needless social discord.
Múgica's class-based worldview departed so completely from Micho­
acán's traditional political culture that his ideas would not have met with
a favorable reception even w1der the best of circumstances. As things ac­
tually srood, nearly every influential social group opposed his policies,
making it nearly impossible for him to realize any but the most modest re­
forms. Landowners stymied his initiatives to tax and divide their hacien­
das, voters in the state's principal cities consistently elected anti-Socialist
city councils, and Catholic activists vehemently protested official anticler­
icalism. Obregón cut off the federal remittance to Michoacán's state bud­
get and placed one hostile general after another in command of federal
troops in the region. More damaging still, Múgica failed to win over the
one group he regarded as his core constituency, because marginalized rural
folk refused to play the role that he scripted for them. A few agrarista
communities did respond to the governor's initiatives, but most country
people tried to avoid the whirlwind of agrarista politics. Indeed, when lib­
eral politicians and small-time landowners organized a modest revolt to
demand Múgica's resignation a mere eighteen months after he had taken
office, very few rural people rallied to his defense. Still, a tiny but critically
important cadre of agraristas did stand and fight. These villagers had al­
ready adopted their own localized versions of Múgica's ideology, and they
had determined to mount a struggle against those people whom they were
beginning to regard as the enemies of their social class.
 f
84 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
LAND AND BOOKS: CONSTRUCTING AGRARISMO AS
CLASS STRUGGLE
Múgica and his followers thought of the countryside as a world divided
between the rich stratum of landowners and the villagers who toiled on
hacienda fields that had once belonged to them.The Mugiquistas (as Mú­
gica's followers were called) did not regard agrarismo as generic conflict
between peasants and landowners but instead as a class struggle between
landless campesinos and all-powerful property owners. Moreover, they
considered ali poor country folk-whether wage laborers on haciendas,
sharecroppers, or villagers with their own lands-as members of the pro­
letariat or, as sorne of them put it, "the working public" (el pueblo tra­
bajador). 6 They did not yet use the term campesino to characterize vil­
lagers who petitioned for lands but rather referred to them with phrases
such as "rural workers who have banded together to shake off the abuses
of landowners" or "laborers [labriegos] who have raised their voice to
demand justice and economic progress." 7
The Mugiquistas rarely identified country folk as "indigenous people"
or as "members of rural communities" because these terms seemed to
conjure up images of a passive, backward, and ignorant rural multitude,
whereas mobilized workers might band together, fight for their rights,
and actively transform society along more equitable and modern li�es.
This idealistic vision of a class-conscious and politically mobilized coun­
tryside underlay nearly ali Mugiquista ideology. "The workers in fields
and the workshops ...live hungry and in tatters," proclaimed one of
Múgica's supporters, "but more than hunger for bread, the masses [la
gleba] thirst and hunger for j ustice! " 8
lf peasants could be viewed as workers, then it took only a small leap of
logic to think of landowners as exploitative capitalists.The Mugiquistas
reasoned that hacienda owners had usurped villagers' lands in the nine­
teenth century and had oppressed them with low wages and intimidation
ever since.The political newspapers through which the Mugiquistas man­
ifested their ideological discourse typically referred to haciendas as "great
estates" (latifundios) cobbled together through the "plunder" of village
lands.9 They insistently denounced "bourgeois" hacienda owners as the
"exploiters" of rural people.The newspapers often published reports of
landowners' mistreatment of laborers and attempts to intimidate agrarian
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 85
communities that had requested ejido parcels.Sometimes they editorialized
about certain hacienda owners' "rich and opulent" lifestyles as well.'º
Michoacán's other political actors also found the inequity between land­
owners and peasants to be a cause for concern. Liberal politicians and
Catholic activists clearly recognized that social and economic inequities di­
vided the rural populace, and they often used class-based language to dis­
cuss the so-called agrarian problem posed by rural poverty. Few of these
traditionalists regarded the relationship between rich and poor as inher­
ently conflictive, however.Most Catholics and politically moderate liberals
regarded class differentiation as an unfortunate by-product of economic
development and something that should somehow be assuaged, but they
certainly did not regard it as the most pressing issue in Michoacán, much
less something that right-thinking individuals should ever try to accentuate
in political discourse. Instead, they proposed to uplift poor people through
sorne combination of personal benevolence and judicious political reforms
that would not undermine the status of the rich.
The Mugiquistas saw no hope that incomplete reforms, much less in­
dividual goodwill, could ever achieve social justice or bridge the gap be­
tween social classes.To Múgica and his followers, the "objective" fact of
proletarian exploitation placed a moral imperative on the government to
ally with the villagers in the struggle against their class enemies.Writing
to a well-wisher a few months after taking office, Múgica asserted that
the agrarista movement would "free" rural people by giving them land
and education.
Agrarismo will redeem the dark, abandoned, and tormented
masses that toil hard but end up with nothing other than a straw
mat on which to gasp their final breath....The nation's future
depends upon [giving rural people] two supreme factors: Land
and Books. The former, to stimulate and develop the economy,
thus improving the economic system and the environment for
the needy.The latter, to tear clown and destroy the walls of
ignorance and teach the people about humanity's true condition.11
Rural people had no way to obtain land and education 011 their own,
though, and that is where the government carne in. Múgica believed that
his agrarian reform would create a new class of peasant landholders, spur
 p
86 Múgi ca and the Agrarian Struggle
economic growth, and narrow the gap between rich and poor. Yet he also
knew that many peasants might resist the idea of petitioning the govern­
ment for land and were even less likely to regard their petitions as acts of
agrarian radicalism. Thus, education was needed to teach rural people
to see their actions as part of a wider struggle between the powerless
"masses" and their "ferocious overseers." 12
Before Múgica's time, most politicians in Michoacán and elsewhere in
Mexico regarded land reform as a limited initiative that would return vil­
lagers what was legally theirs already: the lands that unscrupulous specu­
lators had swindled from them over the preceding fifty years or so. In this
sense, Venustiano Carranza's initial decision in 1915 to approve the land
reform was intended as a measure to strengthen villagers' right to hold
landed property, not as an attack on the institution of private property it­
self. But Múgica's insistence on agrarismo's basis in class struggle placed
property rights in an entirely new light. If the land reform's chief purpose
was to achieve social justice by divesting exploitative landowners of their
property and turning it over to the "rural workers" who needed it, as the
Mugiquistas insisted, then it meant scrapping the liberal notion that prop­
erty inalienably belonged to whomever held legal title to it. It also meant
infringing on the Catholic doctrine that government seizure of prívate
property constituted an immoral act of "plunder" (despojo). 13
Múgica's enemies often seized upon his attitudes toward property to
denounce his ideas as foreign or even Bolshevik, but in fact Mugiquista
philosophy derived from a well-established Mexican intellectual tradition
that bore little resemblance to Marxian ideology imported from Russia.
The Mugiquistas drew most of their ideological inspiration from the eclec­
tic mixture of progressive and left-wing discourses that emerged just prior
to the Mexican Revolution and became enshrined in Article 27 of the
1917 constitution, which stipulated that the nation's right to dispose of
property for such purposes as land reform superceded individual rights.
Thus, when Múgica argued that his government should expropriate prí­
vate property and give it to the peasants in order to fulfil the "promise of
redemption that the Revolution has made to the __proletariat," his words
pointed to a homegrown political tradition rather than to exotic European
imports. 14 He essentially envisioned a radical and collectivist form of in­
corporating the masses into a revolutionary republic. This was neither lib-
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 87
eralism nor Marxism but something more homegrown. It was a form of
politics aimed at achieving social justice-and one that presupposed that
the existing political class would continue to direct the body politic­
rather than a blueprint for the dictatorship of the working class. 15
Múgica's political worldview may have derived from a pastiche of Eu­
ropean and Mexican intellectual traditions, but ali the social theory in the
world would not help him with the day-to-day tasks of governance. Múg­
ica needed to make bis vision work in Michoacán, not in Zapatista More­
los or in the rarified air of the Constitutional Convention. This presented
something of a problem because up to Múgica's time Michoacán's state
government had generally upheld the liberal principie of individual rights
to prívate property. Likewise, the majority of villagers who requested eji­
dos before 1920 employed liberal discourse by asking for the return (resti­
tución) of their property, rather than by appealing to agrarista ideology
and requesting an outright grant (dotación) of land. Múgica concluded
that in these circumstances rural people themselves would need to be con­
vinced that a class struggle in fact existed and that it gave them the moral
right to petition for lands even if they could not prove they had once
owned them.
Múgica and his followers were caught in the quintessential revolution­
ary dilemma: most of the people whom they hoped to empower had the
inconvenient quality of failing to recognize their own oppression, at least
in the same terms as the revolutionaries did. 16 How to account for peas­
ants' apparent lassitude and inability to perceive their own exploited con­
dition? The Mugiquistas reasoned that rural folk had a choroughgoing
"unawareness" of the social basis of their degradation. One newspaper re­
garded rural people's "ignorance" of their own oppression as "the root of
ali [the nation_'s] troubles. " 17 When Múgica wrote that villagers needed
books to surmount the "walls of ignorance," he meant that education
would enlighten rural people about the ways in which property owners
oppressed them and thus make them alive to the transformative potential
of class conflict. But tearing down those walls and educating rural people
about the "true" nature of social relations entailed more than simply es­
tablishing a few rural schools and staffing them wich progressive school­
teachers. It meant taking on the Catholic Church and most of its teachings
about property, justice, and social order.
 f
88 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
Ecclesiastical leaders and Catholic politicians in Michoacán disagreed
with nearly every major point of Múgica's political philosophy. Most fun­
damentally, Catholic leaders rejected the notion that class struggle was
both inevitable and desirable. Far from seeking to politicize and intensify
conflicts between the rich and the po01; Catholic activists sought to concíl­
iate class differences, create a more pious society, and promote "harmony
between capital and labor." 18 To be sure, they understood that Mexico's
nineteenth-century economic development had placed rich and poor at
odds with each other, but they fervently believed that Mexicans should set
aside their class differences and collaborate in the formation of a better so­
ciety based on the "sublin1e ideals" of Catholic doctrine. Together, r.ich and
poor could forge a new "social order" stipulated "by divine providence in
the pages of the New Testament." Church leaders insisted that a harmo­
nious social order entailed respecting privare property and guaranteeing the
right of individuals to keep what belonged to them-both of which they
described as the fundamental pillars of civilization.19 This principie ex­
tended to the agrarian question. The Catholic gubernatorial candidate who
opposed Múgica in 1920, for example, explained that radical agrarian re­
form served only to "pillage from the rich [and] suppress prívate property."
The solution to rural inequality lay instead in the promotion of "small, pri­
vate agricultura! landholding. " 2º An evenhanded and moral social policy,
he argued, wouJd reconcile the needs of the poor with those of the rich, cre­
ate balanced economic development, and benefit the nation as a whole.
To the Mugiquistas, the utopian promises of Catholic ideology dis­
guised two ugly facts: on the one hand, uphoJding the right to prívate
property meant leaving the existing hacienda-dominated social order in
place; and on the other, peasants could never achieve power and revolu­
tionary redemption if they tried to harmonize their interests with those of
their oppressors. The Mugiquistas therefore regarded Catholic ideologues
and property owners as functionally interchangeable. Church doctrine,
they believed, abetted property owners and served to maintain a status
quo that "victin1iz[ed] workers. " 21 Yet the great majority of Michoacán's
populace remained faithfu] to the church and its precepts, which, in the
Mugiquistas' view, kept them ignorant, "fanatical," and unable to break
away from their backward ways.22 The church had a substantial advan­
tage in bringing its principies to the people, because priests could use
l
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 89
their sermons to advance the Catholic outlook on society. Parochial schools
far outnumbered government-run secular schools in Michoacán and gave
the church an i. nsuperable advantage in the battle over the hearts and
minds of schoolchiJdren. In the Mugiquistas' view, this situation clearly
called for curbs on Catholic institutions and for the implementation of
secular education.
Tbe liberals concurred with Múgica's complaints about tbe church and
his faith in the transformative potential of secular education (although
they disapproved of his "priest-baiting" tactics), but most other aspects
of his ideology troubled them deepJy. 23 In the first place, they believed
that Múgica's ideas threatened the existing social order. Most moderate­
liberal politicians carne from wealthy Mordía families and had successfu1
careers to worry about, and they certainly did not applaud the idea that
the poor should combar the ricb. The liberal party éandidate who ran
against Múgica in 1920 articulated the standard line when he decried
Múgica's "anarchist theories that seek the dissolution of society. " 24 The
moderate-liberal politicians recognized that ricber and poorer groups ex-·
isted, of course, but they intended to narrow the gap with reformist solu­
tions such as selling small hacienda parcels to individuals who could make
them productive. A central tener of liberalism was the desirability of cre­
ating markets in which land could be bought and sold freely. Yet Mú­
gica's proposals imperiled market relations because their "extreme radi­
calism" had stirred up the resentments between rich and poor to such an
extent that sorne hacienda owners refused to sell any land to peasants
who wanted to buy it.25 Liberals in Michoacán had labored for nearly a
century to creare social order, a jurídica! regime of prívate property, and
well functioning markets, and it seemed to them that Múgica rhrearened
to dissolve ali their work with one stroke.
Considering tbe enormity of the task that the Mugiquistas had set for
themselves, they could ill afford to alienare potenrial allies such as the lib­
erals. The governor and his followers did make overtures to moderare
politicians, and even convened a conference to rry to hash out an alliance,
but in the end the delegates could only agree on their common dislike of
the Catholic Church. Otherwise, rhe meeting carne to naught.26 With the
liberaJs went most of the state's landowners, who cared lirtle for land re­
form in any case. Most Catholic activists were even less predisposed to
11
 p
90 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
collaborate witb tbe Mugiquistas, and they grew increasingly hostile to
the government as time passed. Obregón's federal government would not
help either. T hus, Múgica's ideology and política! style gave every major
política! group in Michoacán its own reasons for detesting him, leaving
the governor with almost nowhere to turn for political allies who might
want his project to succeed.
MÚGICA IN POWER
Múgica intended to put bis ideas into practice by creating as many ejido
land reform communities and rural schools as possible, thereby giving the
people their land and books. To counteract the influence of landowners
and clergy, he levied taxes on hacienda owners and tried to close clown
parochial schools in Morelia and elsewhere. Such a broad assault on Mi­
choacán's traditional institutions stood little chance of success, but Múgica
was not the only idealist at the time who believed that a tremendous social
transformation lay just around the comer. Once Obregón's rebellion ended
Carranza's lackluster regime in 1920, it seemed that the revolution might
fulfil its potential as a catalyst of social transformation. In the provinces, a
number of radical populist experiments cropped up in states such as Yu­
catán, Veracruz, Tabasco, and Tamaulipas. In Mexico City itself, an en­
tirely new generation of leaders carne to power, including visionaries such
as José Vasconcelos, a brilliant politician and statesman. As the newly in­
stalled rector of the national university, Vasconcelos began to issue calls for
a massive campaign of rural education and nation-formation that captured
the imagination of progressive intellectuals througbout Mexico. These de­
velopments gave Múgica and bis followers every reason to regard them­
selves as part of a nationwide rejuvenation of revolutionary idealism.
Nearly anything seemed possible in September of 1920.
Múgica had plenty of experience to draw upon. The son of a liberal­
minded schoolteacher, he bad earned a reputation as an idealistic trou­
blemaker while still in secondary school. He had attended the Catholic
seminary in Zamora, at the time western Michoacán's most modern and
rigorous institution, and despite his teachers' constant threats to expel
hirn for refusing to take theology classes, he managed to receive a solid
classical educarían. After graduating, he spent bis free time writing for lo-
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 9r
cal and regional newspapers critica! of the Díaz dictatorship. Sorne of bis
writing appeared in Regeneración, the voice of Mexico's left-wing oppo­
sition during tbe Porfiriato.27 When the revolt against Díaz began in
1910, Múgica boarded a train to Texas and joined Francisco I. Madero's
revolutionary movement. Thus began his long career as a revolutionary
officer. Although his official responsibilities usually involved firing off
memos and official correspondence rather than aiming guns at the enemy,
Múgica took the field when the federal army revolted against Madero
and assassinated him. He entered Venustiano Carranza's Constitutional­
ist army with the rank of captain. Soon afterwards he grudgingly added
bis signature alongside sixty-five others to the ideologically unambitious
Plan of Guadalupe, the guiding manifesto of the Constitutionalist fac­
tion's three-year bid to place Carranza in the presidency. 28
Múgica emerged as one of the leading lights on the political left during
these years. In 1913 he seconded his commanding officer's unauthorized
decision to carry out the Constitutionalist movernent's first redistribution
of hacienda lands. Although Carranza quickly took precautions to ensure
that other officers did not follow suit, the event won Múgica so mucb no­
toriety as an advocate of land reform that even the Zapatistas knew about
hirn. 29 Once the figbting ended, Múgica served as a delegate to the r9r6-
r7 Constitutional Convention, where he led the so-called Jacobin faction
of radical reformers who left a deep mark on the final document. Múgica
personally oversaw the passage of Article 3, which secularized public ed­
ucation and challenged many of the traditional prerogatives of the church.
Most of his other efforts ar tbe convention also hinged around grand pro­
posals for transforming Mexican culture through secular education. As he
explained at the time, he intended to use schools to modernize society, in­
still healthy habits, and break the church's capacity to propagate "anti­
quated and backward ideas" in the popular rnentality. 30
As governor of bis home state, Múgica füled his administration with a
small group of dedicated friends, most of whom had come of age during
the revolution and had known eacb other for years. His collaborators
were young firebrands in their early thirties who (like Múgica himself) had
grown up in lower-middle-class, small-town families headed by school­
teachers or clerks. They typically had received sorne formal education but
not enough to qualify as professionals. 31 Múgica also persuaded a bandful
 p
92 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
of slightly more educated activists such as María del Refugio "Cuca" Gar­
cía and Torcuato Lemus, to travel around rural Michoacán and drum up
popular support for the government. Lemus organized villagers to petition
for ejido parcels and worked to deepen popular support for Múgica's gov­
ernment in the conservative La Piedad area. García operated around the
eastern mountain town of Zitácuaro, where she organized Socialist Party
affiliates, wrote land reform petitions for villagers, and "traveled freely"
through the area founding rural primary schools.32 Personal dedication to
the progressive cause doubtless motivated ali these idealistic crusaders, but
their similar economic backgrounds also must have helped to shape their
common political outlook. Unlike the relatively well-heeled politicians who
belonged to Michoacán's liberal parties, the lower-middle-class apostles of
Mugiquismo had little to lose from tinkering with the inviolability of pri­
vare property or promoting class struggle against the rich.
Land redistribution topped Múgica's administrative agenda. His prede­
cessor, Governor Pascual Ortiz Rubio, had initiated land refarrn and ush­
ered through the definitive establishment of faurteen ejidos. Múgica took
a far more aggressive approach to the agrarian question. He charged Isaac
Aniaga, a young intellectual and the leading voice in Michoacán's Social­
ist Party, with overhauling the Local Agrarian Cornrnission (CLA) and tak­
ing quick action on villagers' petitions for land. Múgica also created the
Office of Indian Affairs to give free assistance to villagers who wanted to
petition far an ejido, explaining that the new bureau allowed rural "work­
ers" to vouchsafe their "sacred interests" by facilitating access to the land
f
reforrn bureaucracy.33 The Indian Affairs ofice, like the high-profile efforts
of Arriaga, García, and Lemus, produced rapid results. Petitions for ejidos
jurnped from an average of fifteen per year between 1917 and 1920 (dur­
ing the Ortiz Rubio administration), to more than sixty in the first year of
Múgica's term.34 Within a year Múgica's government had created twenty­
faur provisional ejidos, though no more than half were located in munici­
palities with a strong indigenous presence. 35 At the sarne time, Múgica be­
gan to enfarce a 1919 state law that allowed the governrnent to nullify
Porfirian-era tax concessions on certain haciendas, reevaluate their de­
clared value, and demand far higher rernittances frorn their owners.36 To­
gether these initiatives amounted to a two-pronged attack on hacienda in­
tegrity and profitability.
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 93
Hacienda owners had no intention of letting Múgica's challenge to their
property go unanswered. Many of them had initiated legal proceedings
against the government's "capricious" initiative to increase hacienda taxes
even befare Múgica carne to office, and they redoubled their efforts once
they realized that he would continue the policy. 37 They also attacked his
land reforrn in the courts and denounced it to President Obregón. Sorne
claimed that the government's ideological assault on individual property
rights bothered them even more than the loss of the land itself. As one
ranchero explained, his lawsuit to stop the creation of an ejido meant
much more than merely defending a piece of land. What really mattered
was the "right to prívate property," which Múgica's regime of "ruinous
socialism" (socialismo disolvente) threatened to abolish. 38 Although self­
interest may have motivated this rhetorical flourish, there is no rnistaking
the landowner's alarm at the breakdown of liberal governance.
At the same time as Múgica was taking on the landed interests, he also
tried to expand secular education, particularly if he could do so at the ex­
pense of the church. Befare 1921, when the federal Department of Public
Education (SEP) began to send schoolteachers into rural areas, only the
state government provided public education in rural Michoacán. Múgica
nearly doubled the number of primary schools in his first year in office,
boosting the number from 170 to 3 22, although the chronic lack of funds
and teachers' typically poor preparation limited their effectiveness. 39 Even
when adequate personnel could be found, most teachers probably did not
find their pupils eager to receive secular education. Most rural school­
teachers probably went through something similar to the experience of
one young man, who arrived in an indigenous community in 1923 only
to discover that the villagers "completely detest[ed]" outsiders and "in­
sulted [him] horribly" at every turn. He cornplained that the villagers
somehow failed to perceive that his lessons were "for their own good."
Like many rural teachers who would follow him in the coming years, he
soon realized that secular education would not quickly change rural cul­
ture, or, as he put it, overcome villagers' "depravity and preconcep­
tions." 4º In light of the resistance that Múgica's policies inspired in most
parts of rural Michoacán, the use of primary schools to instill revolu­
tionary values would have to wait for another day.
Revolutionary education did not fare much better in urban areas.
 p \
94 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
Múgica succeeded in chasing clerical elements out of the state university,
but his attempt to secularize Catholic schools in Morelia failed spectac­
ularly. In March 1921, the government acquired the lease to the building
occupied by the Colegio Teresiano, the capital city's preeminent paro­
chial school for girls. Armed with a federal order, four of Múgica's allies
marched into the school and evicted the nuns who taught there. W ithin
hours, a large crowd of angry townspeople surrounded the building and
trapped the would-be reformers inside. The mob probably would have
taken the school by storm if a detachment of federal soldiers had not ar­
rived to keep the peace, though not before its commander had advised
Múgica to "ignore the clan of Bolsheviks" who surrounded him and give
up hope of closing clown the school. 41 In the end, Múgica followed the
general's advice and !et the parochial school remain open rather than risk
emaging the populace still more.
The tenor of politics in Michoacán also rankled President Obregón,
who took office in late November 1920. Múgica had placed himself in a
delicate situation with the president by waiting until the last possible in­
stant to accept Obregón's rebellion against Carranza, whereas Micho­
acán's liberal politicians (such as Ortiz Rubio) numbered amongst the
movement's earliest and most enthusiastic supporters. More to the point,
Obregón disliked Múgica's ideas. Although the president's política! out­
look was far more progressive than his predecessor's, he was nonetheless
a staunch liberal who intended to see peace maintained in Michoacán. 42
He wanted Múgica gone, but he could not risk antagonizing the nation's
governors by brazenly removing one of their number from office. Instead
he mounted an obligue campaign against the Mugiquistas and posted a se­
ries of conservative generals as the state's regional military commander.
Múgica believed these generals belonged to a military oligarchy that rnain­
tained "unhealthy" ties with Enrique Estrada, Obregón's military chief of
staff. 43 Adding to this pressure, Obregón deferred payment of Michoa­
cán's federal tax remittance, a disbursement that ali state governments
were supposed to receive. By the end of 1921 the economic pinch com­
_Qelled Múgica to shoot off a des erare letter to his friend Adolfo de la
Huerta, the federal minister of finance, pleading for the fifty thousand pe­
sos owed to the state treasury. The funds, he wrote, would "save me from
the turmoil that buffets me here." 44 By then it was already too late to save
Múgica and the Agmrian Struggle 95
his floundering government, however. By early 1922, the mobilization of
Catholic activists, federal army units, and certain landowners had reached
such heights that the regime was beginning to teeter.
Múgica <lid recognize the importance of smooth relations with the pres­
ident, and he went to Mexico City no fewer than three times to negotiate
with various federal officials. Yet these interviews apparently failed to win
over Obregón, who made no move to extricate Múgica from his deepen­
ing troubles. Worse, these journeys kept Múgica away frorn the statehouse
for extended periods, leading one pro-Múgica newspaper to gripe about
the "anarchy" that reigned whenever the governor left the state. 45 One by
one, Múgica's initiatives ran up against a wall of popular discontent, <:>ffi­
cial antagonism, or elite resistance. It <lid not take long for the Mugiquis­
tas to realize that agrarian reform was the only majar component of their
political program that might attract a modicum of popular support. But
land reform posed sorne complicated problems of its own. Ir was relatively
easy for the state agrarian c01m11ission to publish edicts that granted ejido
parcels to peasant communities, but it was guite a different proposition
for villagers to actually occupy their parcels. Many rural people doubted
that the land reform could succeed in the long run, and most priests,
landowners, and army officers considered it a morally dubious attack on
prívate property. To get at least some peasants onto their lands and make
the land reform work in these circw11stances, Múgica had no choice but to
authorize agrarista cornmunities to arm themselves and begin moving
onto their ejido lands. Once he had given weapons to the villagers, how­
ever, he found them difficult to control.
AGRARISTA MOBILIZATION
Few villagers in rural Michoacán had any interest in Múgica's political phi­
losophy of class struggle, anriclericalism, and rearranged property rights.
Only a thin segment of the rural populace showed much enthusiasm for
his political agenda or even his promise of land reform, ali of which helps
to explain why no more than seventy-five communities petitioned for land
during Múgica's administration. 46 Rural folk had good reasons for side­
stepping the politics of agrarismo. Sorne villagers did not feel they needed
more land. Others held off from requesting an ejido until they saw other
__,---- -
96 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
villages receive one, and still others seem to have rejected the idea of land
reform on moral and religious grounds. 47 Nevertheless, a few groups of
villagers did begin to test the waters of agrarian politics. Twenty commu­
nities petitioned for lands in the first six months of Múgica's administra­
tion, and forty-six did so in the next six months. 48 Even so, the reform was
a partial success at best. Most of these communities did not receive a land
grant during Múgica's term in office, and Múgica often had a difficult time
arranging for the actual transfer of lands to the communities that were
supposed to receive them.
One of the first villages to receive a grant of ejidal lands was a hamlet
just outside of Zitácuaro, the chief city in the rugged eastern mountain
range. The village of San Miguel Chichimeguillas was comprised mostly
of acculturated Otomí indigenous people who grew crops on their own
small parcels and worked as day laborers on the adjacent La Encarnación
hacienda .49 A few years before Múgica took office, village leaders had con­
tacted a sympathetic state congressman to ask for help in acguiring an
ejido. In March 1919, Múgica's predecessor awarded the village's 26 5 pe­
titioners a grant of 836 hectares (1,839 acres) of land expropriated from
La Encarnación. The government never actually implemented this order,
though, and the villagers had no way to take possession of what was tech­
nically their land. The village's "representative," Jesús Aguilar, brought
the matter up again when Múgica became governor. Aguilar was a stone­
mason whose sons had served with Múgica during the revolution, and his
personal relationship with the governor probably helped him to obtain an
order allowing the villagers to occupy an even larger parce! of La Encar­
cación than the original grant had contemplated. Following the Aguilar
family's leadership, the villagers armed themselves in early 1921 and pre­
pared to take over their fields.50
The villagers had followed established protocols up to that point. They
had officially reguested an ejido from the government, and after a brief in­
terval the government had assented to the possession. It soon became ap­
parent that the villagers and the Mugiquistas had vastly different under­
standings of land reform, however. When the villagers moved onto their
new lands, they immediately overstepped their boundary map and occu­
pied a nearby irrigation dam as well. The surveyors may have mistakenly
told them that their ejido would encompass the dam, or the villagers may
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 97
simply have taken it because they wanted to-accounts varied. Whatever
the case, the land reform beneficiaries posted armed guards on the dam
and refused to !et the hacienda owner's cattle drink at the reservoir. They
also cut off the irrigation water to sorne of the hacienda's fields, including
a couple of tracts that the field hands used to raise their own crops. The
hacienda owner brought a series of increasingly frantic lawsuits demand­
ing that the villagers abide by the ejido's approved boundaries and turn
over the reservoir.
At first Múgica encouraged Aguilar and his followers to ignore court
orders to evacuare the dam, and the agraristas dutifully refused to budge.
Aguilar soon cut a deal with the hacienda that would allow both sides to
share the irrigation water, but what happened next must have surprised
him just as much as it did the governor. The villagers refused to follow
Aguilar's directives and insisted on keeping the dam, ignoring even Mú­
gica's personal exhortation to "abide by the judicial orders made by this
government" and share the water. 51 To make matters worse, they moved
onto Iands claimed by another indigenous village because their ejidal map
included sorne fields that most Iocals understood as belonging to the
neighboring community. The land reform beneficiaries would not re­
nounce their claim to the disputed field even when their neighbors threat­
ened to unsheathe their machetes and recover it by force. On the contrary,
the Chichimeguillas group tried to "humiliate" their neighbors into re­
nouncing their claim, leaving Múgica's lieutenants scrambling to prevent
a brawl. 52 The villagers continued to defy the authorities even after Mú­
gica left office and his successor had once again ordered them to disarm (al­
though by this point Múgica was again counseling them not to lay clown
their weapons "under any circumstances"). 53 They threatened the new
governor's brother when he arrived to negotiate a resolution to the water
rights dispute, and they occupied the dam for another four years until the
governrnent finally gave in and awarded them unconditional possession. 54
By encouraging the villagers of Chichimeguillas to take the land re­
form into their own hands, Múgica had uncorked a popular radicalisrn
that was surprising to find in a religiously devout indigenous village that
had not even supported his candidacy a year earlier. Yet such transfor­
rnations occurred again and again in Michoacán when local circum­
stances exposed rural people to the politics of land reform and the dis-
98 Múgica and the Agrarian Strugg/e
course of agrarismo. In Chichimequillas, the boundary dispute did that.
Aguilar used his personal ties with the governor to acquire the contested
lands for Chichirnequillas, whereas the neighboring villagers ended up re­
jecting Múgica's government and declaring their allegiance to his politi­
cal rival. 55 In sorne cases (again, like Chichimequillas), village leaders
used the land reform not simply to achieve their community's economic
autonomy, but as a means of gaining an advantage over neighboring
communities as well. Other times one faction within a village embraced
agrarismo as a way to cut their local adversaries out of village politics. In
still other instances, the loss of village territory to neighboring landown­
ers or the intrigues of a particularly backward-looking priest served to
radicalize village leaders and turn them toward the politics of agrarismo.
Regardless of what precipitated it, however, these sorts of dynamics em­
bedded agrarismo within local politics and village political cultures.
Villagers who elected to solicit an ejido or test out the discourse of
agrarismo did not blindly consent to follow the directives of populist
leaders, however. The villagers in Chichimequillas proved perfectly will­
ing to ignore judicial orders, the exhortations of governors, and even their
own leader's directives if it suited them to do so. They domesticated agra­
rismo by creating local traditions that were linked to, but not determined
by, the ideological project of outsiders such as Múgica. When the vil­
lagers stormed the dam, took over their neighbors' territory, and ignored
orders to desist, they created practices that they regarded as the stuff of
agrarismo. 56 Thus, rural people had many different motivations for re­
questing an ejido, ancl each incidence of agrarista activism had its basis in
the specific histories of particular villages.
The idiosyncratic and locally specific basis of peasant mobilization in
the early r92os therefore makes it misleading to consider agrarismo a co­
herent, full-fledged cultural form in those years. It was still under con­
struction as a political project and had yet to acquire a uniform connota­
tion in Michoacán. On the other hand, most land reform beneficiaries did
share at least two common attributes. First, they accepted ejidos from the
government that nearly always had to be carved out of hacienda lands. In
this sense, poor rural people really did receive property at the expense of
the rich, just as Múgica's class-based ideology envisaged. Second, the
physical occupation of an ejido often entailed a great amount of risk, be-
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 99
cause few hacienda owners parted with their lands peacefully. Violence or
the threat of violence nearly always constituted an inherent part of agra­
rista mobilization.
Múgica's policies indirectly promoted the mounting violence in the
countryside. Soon after taking office, he appointed 249 commanders of
community militias and authorized them to "put clown rebellions and re­
spond to other emergencies. " 57 These units reported directly to him and
bypassed federal army commanders altogether. The militias gave villagers
much-needed protection against banditry and a first line of defense against
landowners' threats, but Múgica also regarded them as partisan fighters
who could help prop up his ailing government. Not ali officially sanctioned
militia units actually mustered, and even fewer received any weapons. Still,
the number of country people who received permission to carry arms
alarmed many local landowners and galled army officers, who disl.iked
having to <leal with popular militias that they did not command. One re­
gional commander said the militias instigated so much "disorder and re­
bellion" that he had no choice but to arm his own paramilitary corps.
These army-sponsored units, he explained, would consist only of "individ­
uals of well known honor, especially those who need to protect their own
lives and [material] interests." 58 Thus by mid-r92r, both Múgica and re­
fractory military commanders were furiously arming their supporters in
the countryside.
The creation of a community militia often aggravated existing divisions
within villages. These rifts usually arose from rivalries between kin groups
or (what was often the same thing) between ethnic- or class-based diques
within the community. As village factions vied for control of the militia,
minor slights could easily escalare into gunplay. In one foothills commu­
nity, for example, a mestizo mi.liria commander mustered his soldiers (most
of them his kinfolk) and ordered them to take potshots at the home of the
local indigenous leader. When his opponent complained to the authorities,
the commander justified his actions by pointing out that the indigenous
leader had recently shot and killed the commander's horse. In fact, the at­
tack derived from a long-standing village rivalry with ethnic undertones
that divided the two leaders' families and most of the rest of the commu­
nity as well. 59 Elsewhere, class differences between militiamen and village
elites carne into play. For example, the propertied residents of the town of
 roo Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
Charapan complained that the local militia was made up of the "most un­
healthy [nocivo] elements" in society. The regional military commander
agreed and pointed out that the militia endangered ali "respectable peo­
ple" in the region.60
In the complicated world of village politics, it was often impossible to
constitute militias in a way that did not favor one group to the detriment
of others, and often these differences were coded in racial terms. In May
r92r, for example, the residents of an ethnically mixed village near More­
lia invaded the fields of a neighboring hacienda. When the villagers sent the
government a formal petition demanding these fields and severa! others as
well, the hacienda owner turned to the army. A detachment of federal sol­
diers soon appeared and traded shots with the militia. Eventually they cap­
tured the agrarista leader and assassinated him in the town square. 61 A few
months later, a different column of federal soldiers descended on the village
of Naranja, which had formed a community militia of its own. Accompa­
nying the soldiers was a trio of mestizo sharecroppers who lived in rhe
l 1 community, along with the owner of the Cantabira hacienda, whom the
agraristas regarded as the "sworn enemy of the working class." The feder­
als could not locate the village's agrarista militia, so they staged a mock ex­
ecution of the municipal authorities, beat a young woman, and jailed the
agraristas' daughters and wives.62
Not ali village mi lirias espoused the most radical aspects of the agrarista
movement, of course. The militia units around La Piedad, for example, es­
corred the bishop of Zamora on a pastoral visir to the area and took part
in a "gargantuan" rally in his honor. 63 But even so, militias typically func­
tioned to galvanize villagers who were prepared to organ.ize, to petition for
ejidos, and to fight for their lands. Theú- presence also made it more likely
that communities that received a grant of new lands would acwally be able
to occupy them. Sometimes, howeve1; even the presence of armed agraris­
tas was not enough to guarantee the success of land reform initiatives.
In early r92r, the state agrarian commission discovered that a request
for the restitution of village land filed by the residents of Opopeo had lan­
guished in the state bureaucracy for four years. Most of the petitioners
were acculturated Purépecha indigenous people who worked as day la­
borers at the nearby Casas Blancas hacienda and planted a few crops on
the village's tiny communal plot.64 Located in the heart of the Sierra
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 101
Madre range in the center of the state, Opopeo had a long and conflictive
relationship with the hacienda, which had been founded a few kilometers
away in 1716 but which did not begin to encroach on community lands
until rhe mid-nineteenth century. In r8 59 a mestizo named Miguel Laz­
cano moved to the village, built a house on its outskirts, and arranged
with village leaders to rent sorne community-owned fields and woodlands
in exchange for subsidizing the parish church. Soon other outsiders began
ro arrive. They planted crops or logged trees on small parcels that they
bought or rented from the locals. Meanwhile, the Lazcanos steadily gained
control of more and more village lands over the next few years, sometimes
by buying parcels from village leaders, other times by fencing off land that
rhe family claimed as its own. In 1867 Miguel Lazcano's son leased the
Casas Blancas hacienda a large tract of Opopeo land that by then he ap­
parently considered to form part of b.is family's property.
A few years later the Lazcano family purchased the hacienda and began
to rent it out to other large-scale planters. Although the Opopeo villagers
resisted Reform-era laws to divide the remaining communal lands into pri­
vately held plots, common lands became increasingly fragmented. Subse­
quent generations of Lazcanos succeeded in consolidating more and more
property through purchase or coercion. By 1920, Miguel Lazcano's great­
grandchildren owned and operated two great tracts of Casas Blancas land,
but word soon began to spread that the government would nationalize a
sizable parce! of the hacienda and turn it over to Opopeo as an ejido. 65
About thirty villagers who hoped to receive land had already formed a
militia under José Vásquez Alcalá, a mestizo from Opopeo who had be­
come a prominent lawyer, community leader, and advocate of agrarismo.
So when government surveyors arrived in January r92r to take measure­
ments of hacienda lands, everyone knew the score. Vásquez's militiamen
accompanied the surveyors as they worked in the fields. At night, the mili­
tia guarded the surveyors, who had taken up residence in the house of Fe­
lipe Tzintzún, a carpenter and also a local leader of the drive to recover
the village lands. Careful though these precautions were, they did not go
far enough.
A landowner named Ladislao Molina commanded the army-approved
paramilitary in the region, and he had already decided to break the back of
the local agrarista movement. On January 9, Molina arrested Vásquez in a
 r
102 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
Pátzcuaro barbershop pursuanc to a warrant signed by che regional mili­
tary commander. Two days later, Molina removed Vásquez from jail and
subjected him to che ley de fuga, a collllnon subterfuge that lawmen used
to shoot prisoners as they allegedly tried to "escape." Early che next morn­
ing, Molina organized his troops, most of whom were rancheros and
sharecroppers, and marched to Casas Blancas. A few hacienda employees
joined him chere for che final leg of che trip into Opopeo. As dawn started
to break, Molina divided his men inco four columns that surrounded Tzin­
tzún's home from ali sides. The shooting began without warning, though
investigators could not agree Jacer whether agraristas or paramilitaries
fired first. L1 any case, bullets rore through che wooden walls of che house
and killed four miliciamen. Tzintzún soon surrendered, and Molina's men
seized him, along with his brother and nephew, and dragged them outside.
Molina's men chen exclaimed, "We'll give you your lands!" and shot them
where they stood. Tzintzún's sister-in-law also died a few days later from
wounds she had received during che battle. 66
Apologists for the massacre justified che paramilicary action on che
grounds that it preserved social integrity as well as property rights.Federal
army officers (and some civilians) in Pátzcuaro regarded Vásquez and his
men as an affront to social order. According to the regional military com­
mander, the conflict originated from "antagonism" between che agrarista
milicia and Molina's army-sanctioned paramilitary corps.The commander
explained that che village militiamen "ignore their duty and adhere to a
political creed, whereas [Molina's roen] simply try to keep che peace
[prestar . ..garantías]. " 67 Molina's mission in Opopeo, according to sup­
porters, was merely to disarm Vásquez and his fellow "bandits" in che vil­
lage militia.68 Furthermore, che owner of Casas Blancas considered che cre­
acion of an ejido in Opopeo an assault on both his propercy and his
values. A few months after che gunfight, che hacienda owner (Luis Ortiz
Lazcano) wrote chat agrarian reform was nothing other than che outrighc
"plunder" of his lands and that the parcels that che Opopeo agraristas had
requested "produce very good yields that efficiently contribute to che
progress and develo_pment of che society in which we live....The Indian
is lazy by nature.The Indians of Opopeo lack incentive and will abandon
chese fields just as they have already abandoned and completely ceased to
work che immense traces of land that they now own." 69 To judge by bis
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 103
letter, Ortiz Lazcano held che desiderata of liberalism-production, prog­
ress, and (market) incentives-every bit as dear as bis property itself.Nor
was he che only liberal who felt outraged by agrarista politics. Ladislao
Molina's family history and political beliefs closely paralleled che Laz­
canos' own. Unlike them, he had che inclination and the men to cake on
che agraristas directly.70
In che case of Opopeo, che landowners' gambit ultimately failed.
Tzintzún's son took up his father's cause and led villagers onto their eji­
dal lands in 192 3. Bue strong-arm tactics did succeed in derailing che land
reform process in many other villages, despite che efforts of agrarista
militiamen. The impunity with which gunmen such as Molina operated
served to intimidate functionaries in che state agrarian commission, while
che rash of executions such as che ones in Opopeo and elsewhere elimi­
nated key agrarista leaders throughout che state. 71 Paced with these con­
ditions, many villagers simply chose not to risk their lives in che hopes of
winning an ejido in che early 1920s. Clearly, Múgica had little hope of
changing chis situation. He could not bring paramilitary leaders or che
federal army to heel, much less control landowners' behavior. He did not
even exercise ali that much influence over his supposed supporters, as
cases such as Chichimequillas demonstrated.Agrarismo had evolved into
a semiautonomous movement undertaken by a patchwork of village lead­
ers who lay just beyond che governor's grasp.
THE DEFEAT OF RADICALISM
Múgica had hoped to transforni Michoacán by giving rural people land
and books, bue both of these undertakings faced stumbling blocks.Land­
owner resistance severely limited Múgica's ability to place land at the dis­
position of che small number of rural folk who requested it. Hacienda
owners and rancheros used every means at their disposal to block che tax­
ation or forfeiture of their property. Moreove1; Obregón's unwillingness to
abet Múgica's government, coupled with country people's reticence to pur­
sue land reform and che army's outright aggression toward agrarista mili­
cias, meant chat only a handful of ejidos were permanently established
during Múgica's term in office.In ali, 2,981 beneficiaries received eighteen
ejidos totaling slightly less than twenty thousand hectares. 72 This modest
...,.
104 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
redistribution did not even make a dent in the pattern of land tenure, and
it certainly posed no threat to the hacienda as a viable institution. Yet even
this modest success carne ar the cost of seores of lives and the militariza­
tion of the countryside. Nor did the "books" side of Múgica's equation
fare much better. The government lacked the funds to creare a truly effec­
tive primary school system in rural areas, and townsfolk blocked the
Mugiquistas' efforts to secularize Catholic schools in the cities. Far from
rendering the notion of class struggle intelligible to the people of Micho­
acán, the Mugiquistas undermined their own project by politicizing reli­
gious belief as well as by giving rural folk reason to doubt whether rl)ey
would really benefit from the redistribution of property. By the summer of
1921, not even a year after its inception, it began to appear that Múgica's
government had failed to generare enough social approval to survive.
Because the lack of funds and reliable personnel stymied the educational
project, left-wing Mugiqistas organized a major political spectacle to pop­
ularize the ideal of class struggle. In May 1921, the Morelia chapter of the
Mexican Regional Federation of Labor (CROM) organized a belated La­
bor Day rally intended as a tribute to international labor solidarity and as
a protest against "depraved assaults committed by clergy and landowners"
against peasants. Delegations of villagers and peasant leaders arrived in
Morelia from ali over the state, making ir the first occasion in Michoacán's
history that agrarista leaders had gathered together in one locale. Repre­
sentatives of the CROM arrived from Mexico City along with four "inter­
nationalisrs" affiliated with anarchist, communist, and left-wing workers'
organizations. 73 The rally began on the morning of May 8 with speeches
by Nicolás Ballasteros and Isaac Arriaga, Múgica's right-hand men. Then
two CROM delegares made their opening remarks. The speakers cele­
brated the rise of agrarismo, which they predictably characterized as a
"workers' struggle," and made special mention of the murders in Opopeo
a few rnonths earlier. After the speeches, the agraristas and sorne out-of­
work craftsmen took up black and red socialist banners and followed the
rally's leaders in a procession through Morelia's central plazas.74
As they passed through the central plaza, the protestors carne to a halt
in front of the cathedral. A few demonstrators broke from the crowd,
rushed inside and hung a banner out of one of the twin towers. In the
sympathetic words of a socialist newspaper, the "flag of liberty" had been
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle IO 5
planted "on the highest rampart of that center of intrigue against orga­
nized workers." 75 Having made their point, the intruders soon left the
cathedral. Before long, however, someone inside the cathedral took the
banner clown. Outraged, a group of around fifteen protesters, apparently
led by a Spanish-born anarchist from Mexico City, stormed back inside,
collared rhe sacristan, and demanded the return of their standard. The
sacristan said he had no idea where ir was, nor did he have the key to the
tower, which had mysteriously gotten locked. The protestors briefly scuf­
fled with him, but they withdrew after a group of priests arrived and or­
dered them out of the sacristy. 76
These events alone would no doubt have scandalized public opinion,
but an even more sensational report soon began to circulate in the streets.
After the protesters left the cathedral, the priests announced that someone
had slashed the sacristy's portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Even the
most sralwart socialists in Múgica's camp would not admit to hanning
Mexico's beloved patroness. The rally's organizers denied responsibility
for the defacement and suggested that the damage occurred when a can­
dlestick accidentally fell on the icon . 77 Whatever the case, the socialists'
1
excuse carne too late to staunch a rising sense of outrage in the capital. 1
Word of the revolutionaries' putative sacrilege spread quickly, and Cath­ ¡¡¡
olic leaders called for decisive action to lay claim to Morelia's public spaces •¡
111
in the name of religious freedorn and the Virgin of Guadalupe. They called
for a massive "pilgrimage" from the church of San Diego to the cathedral
on May 12. One group of "Catholic señoras" jumped the gun and tried
to parade the desecrated icon of the Virgin the day before, leading to a
brief streetside scuffle with Morelia's chief of police.78
Alarming rumors began to fly everywhere. Catholic activists suspected
that the Mugiquistas had installed a machine gun in front of the capitol
building to mow them clown as rheir pilgrimage passed by. Múgica's lieu­
tenants apparently thought that the Catholics planned to slaughter che
city's public school teachers in retribution. 79 As nerves began to fray, Mo­
relia's mayor decided to head off any trouble. He summoned Catholic
leaders to his office OILthe morning of the twelfrh and ordered them to
cancel the march. The mayor, who clearly sympathized with the Catholics,
explained that he had declared a ban on rallies of any sort "for the dura­
tion of the unrest," and posters to that effect were soon plastered through-
ro6 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
out the city. But the lay leaders already doubted their ability to derail the
march. 80 When one organizer told the crowd gathering at the church of
San Diego about the mayor's decree and suggested putting the march off
for another day, angry protesters accused him of caving in to the govern­
ment. 81 At four o'clock in the afternoon, the crowd began its trek clown
the Guadalupe causeway and toward the cathedral, carrying banners that
read "Long live Christ the King!" "Long live our Sainted Mother of Gua­
dalupe!" "If there is democracy in Mexico, then you must respect our
rights!" and "Respect the will of the majority!" Catholic leaders later
claimed that the pilgrims strode forth silently, but even sorne participants
agreed that the protesters shouted slogans similar to the banners they car­
ried. According to sorne versions, they also chanted "Death to the Gov­
ernment! Down with the Socialists!" 82 A few among their number had
armed themsel ves. 83
To Múgica's lieutenants, the pilgrimage looked like a popular rebel­
lion.84 Morelia's police chief gathered sorne officers as well as sorne anar­
chist militants from the Casa del Obrero Mundial who had remained in
Morelia after the May 8 rally, and he positioned them at the mouth of the
causeway through which the pilgrimage would have to pass. When the
marchers carne into sight, the chief ordered them to halt while he read the
mayor's order banning the demonstration.Isaac Arriaga, the well-regarded
head of tbe state agrarian commission, climbed on a pedestal and pleaded
with the crowd to disperse.As the pilgrims in the rear pushed those in the
front forward, the chief commanded them to disperse or he would open
fire.Still the mass surged forward. Finally, the chief fired off a rifle shot.
Sorne witnesses described it as a warning volley over marchers' heads, but
others said he fired directly into the crowd. Shots rang out on ali sides, and
at least sorne of the Mugiquistas shot to kili. In the middle of the fracas, an
ex-soldier approached Arriaga and gunned him clown point-blank. 85 Once
the smoke had cleared, a dozen or more pilgrims lay dead, along with A.J:­
riaga and three other Mugiquistas.As many as forty others were wounded,
some fatally. 86
The. massacre markecl the beginning of the..Múgica .regime's ten-month
slide into collapse. In the short term, it served to further politicize Catholi­
cism and set the faithful even more squarely against the government. In
one Bajío township, for example, priests admonished their congregations
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 107
that the time had come to overthrow the "Bolsheviks" and exclaimed that
rhey had no use for "frightened little Catholics.... [Now] everyone
should buy himself a rifle and resolve to fight." 87 Throughout the state,
Catholic activists staged massive protests against the government. More­
over, the tragedy placed Michoacán in a very unfavorable light in the na­
tional capital. The Mexico City press reported the events in lurid detail
and demanded an accounting. 88 President Obregón dispatched General
Enrique Estrada, Múgica's greatest political nemesis, to Morelia on a fact­
finding mission. Estrada arrived to much popular acclaim, made a cursory
investigation, and returned to Mexico City to write a scathing report that
placed the blame for the tragedy squarely at the governor's feet.The find­
ings sealed Obregón's detennination to cashier the Múgica government.
In the longer term, it marked the beginning of a period of slowly mount­
ing tensions in the countryside as militia units and army-sponsored para­
militaries squared off against each other.In November, Obregón went so
far as to summon Múgica to Mexico City and demand that he disarm
agrarista militias. 89 The governor temporized and refused to take the bait,
since by that point the agraristas were among the few people who still
seemed to support his administration. In the cities, too, Catholic activists
kept up the pressure. In December 1921 it seemed that the events of May
might repeat themselves when Catholic protestors convened a major rally
coinciding with the commemoration of the Virgin of Guadalupe. When
the police arrived to break up the rally this time, a local newspaper re­
ported that the protesters "scattered in a panic. " 9º
By early February 1922, a number of liberal landowners in the central
mountains decided that they had seen enough. The rebels rose up in the
mountains of the Meseta Tarasca under the leadership of Pátzcuaro mayor
José María Guízar. The mayor coordinated efforts with Ladislao Molina
(the same gunslinger who had terrorized peasants in Opopeo), Melchor
Ortega (then a liberal schoolteacher posted in Uruapan), and Francisco
Cárdenas (an ex-colonel in the army with a penchant for banditry and a
history of resisting Múgica's policies). Columns of insurgents appeared al­
most overnight in the mountains around Pátzcuaro as rancheros and own­
ers of small haciendas mobilized their friends, families, and dependents.
Like most of the rebellion's other leaders, Guízar owned a small ha­
cienda. He led a column made up of a few small-time rancheros as well
 108 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
as a hundred or so dependent laborers, probably drawn from the resi­
dents of his hacienda. Malina also owned a modest hacienda and drew
support from his renters and laborers, as well as from a few independent
rancheros. As the insurgency started to make headway, some haciendas
in the highlands suspended work. In at Ieast one case, but doubtless not
the only one, hacienda peons who suddenly found themselves out of a job
decided to join the rebellion. 91 After ali, hacienda dependents such as res­
ident laborers (acasillados), renters, and administrators made ideal and
time-honored rebel soldiers. Their economic position gave them every
reason to resist the government's land reform alongside their hacienda
owner-employers, because they could lose their livelihoods if the govern­
ment turned parcels of hacienda lands over to rural communities. Ha­
ciendas in the Meseta were especially vulnerable in this regard, because
their relatively small size meant they had less land to trim off befare eco­
nomic necessity forced layoffs in personnel. Furthermore, the restiveness
of agrarista groups in the mountains and foothills may have appeared
like the precursor of a wider indigenous rebellion that could threaten ha­
cienda owners and field hands alike. 92
Starting from these roots, the rebellion quickly acquired a religious
tenor. Priests goaded Guízar's men into what one local official called a
"fanatical frenzy" against the Múgica regime, and landowners and Cath­
olic activists of the Association of Mexican Catholic Youth (or ACJM, a
middle-class lay organization) apparently led the rebellion in the vicinity of
Tacámbaro, where its religious facet achieved its clearest expression.93 The
rebels there not only attacked the visible apparatuses of government power
such as municipal offices and pro-Múgica militias, they also broke into the
local Protestant church with the intention of lynching the pastor. Failing to
find him, they ransacked the place. Elsewhere, a few rebels rode into a
small town near Morelia and climbed the church tower to ring in the bells,
while others trooped through the streets yelling "Long live our Lady of
Guadalupe!" "Long live Mexico!" and "Death to the Bolsheviks!" After
remaining in the town for an hour, during which they did little more than
occupy the main plaza, they rode back_out again. 94
The federal government could not just ignore an armed rebellion in one
of the nation's most populous states, but Obregón did not want to put it
clown too quickly either. So he decided to send the wolf to guard the sheep
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle 109
and placed Enrique Estrada in charge of combating the rebellion. Within
days of arriving back in Michoacán, Estrada declared that the rebellion
was "not a product of discontent with the National Government, for no
[such discontent] exists." Since the rebellion posed no military threat to
the federal government, he declared it a purely local problem between
Múgica's government and the people of Michoacán. Finally, he predicted
that "if sorne responsible party (and I have no idea who that might be) put
forth an effort to alleviate this discontent, the [problems] in Michoacán
would be absolutely resolved. " 95 Newspapers in Michoacán reprinted his
comments, which were nothing short of an invitation for the rebels to top­
ple the state government. The federal army's refusal to directly engage the
rebels made Estrada's intentions ali the more clear, and rumors persistently
flew within the Múgica camp that Estrada surreptitiously provided the
rebels with money and military intelligence. 96
A few agrarista home guards rose to combar the rebellion in largely
uncoordinated stands. In one of the few instances of federal troops' col­
laboration with agrarista home guards, soldiers and peasants dislodged
Guízar's rebels from Ario de Rosales. Guízar then attacked Tacámbaro,
where home guards and municipal employees staged a long and ulti­
mately futile defense of the town square. 97 The militia commander of Zu­
rumútaro also campaigned against the rebels. 98 Few other militia units
showed such discipline, though, and no more than five or ten made any
move to combat tbe rebellion. Sorne no doubt failed to mobilize because
they disagreed with Múgica's policies, particularly his anticlericalism.99 In
other cases, guardsmen appear to have considered it futile to put up a
fight and just tried to lie low.
In the northern Bajío community of Panindícuaro, agraristas capital­
ized on the rising tide of anarchy to settle one score. Múgica had ordered
the creation of Panindícuaro's ejido in early 1922, prompting local land­
owners to fund a paramilitary unir and put it under the command of pis­
tolero Ladislao Molina. The agrarian leader in Panindícuaro, José Zavala
Cisneros, responded by arming an agrarista home guard. So when the re­
bellion broke out later that year, Múgica ordered the Panindícuaro mili­
tants to disarm Molina's men stationed at the El Botello hacienda. The
agraristas fell upon tbe hacienda in search of its hated Spanish adminis­
trator, who had attempted to irnpede the creation of their ejido. They
 r ro Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle
José Zavala Cisneros, agrarista leader in the Panindícuaro and Puruándiro
region, on horseback. Despite observations typewritten on che phocograph,
che man scandmg to Zavala's left is che surveyor who laid out the Panindícuaro
ejido in r923. Courtesy llH-UMSNH.
could not find him, but they did assassinate two of his Spanish subordi­
nates and touch off an international diplomatic scanda!.IOO Once they had
dtspatched the Spaniards, however, the militiamen refused to take any
further action. One of Múgica's lieutenants wrote that "the propaganda
being made in favor of the rebels ...has stirred up a feeling of panic
[among Panindícuaro militiamen], and in these circumstances it is im­
possible that they will prevail." 101
Faced with this situation, Francisco Múgica sent word to the Micho­
acán state congress on March 9, 1922, to announce his intention to step
down. His farewell message made virtually no mention of the massive
popular discontent with his regime but instead blamed his troubles 011
Enrique Estrada. He complained about battles in which "Federal forces
always wound up being vanquished and leaving their ordinance in the
enemy's hands " and cursed Estrada's unwillingness to garrison the cap­
ital w1�h Joya! troops.Nowhere, however, did the governor explain why
h1s reg1me needed to be propped up by force of arms in the first place.
As for Obregón, Múgica wrote that "the tyrannical nature of the rela-
Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle rrr
tionship between the state Government and the Presidency has reached
such a point ...that it impedes me from continuing on ac the head of
Government." 102
The following day, the congress met in the legislative palace to consider
the governor's resignation.Múgica and a few of his most faithful comrades
had barricaded themselves one floor above them armed with rifles, dyna­
mite bombs, and a tripod-mounted machine gun because a small column
of rebels had recently entered town.The column included cowboys and
field hands from the hotlands township of Carácuaro, led by rancheros
Jesús Gutiérrez and Estanislao García. Federal soldiers looked idly on as
the rebels rode to within a stone's throw of the legislative palace, lost their
resolve, and turned back around to ride out of town.Meanwhile, the con­
gress voted to grant the governor a license to leave his post for one year,
and Múgica boarded a train that night to take refuge in his villa in Mix­
coac (then a mere suburb of Mexico City), where he almost immediately
began to lay plans to regain his post.103 He kept up contacts with the dwin­
dling number of his allies who remained in the state government, many of
whom filed a series of lawsuits on his behalf, as well as with agrarista
groups in Chilchota, Curimeo, Naranja, and elsewhere.104 Even so, the po­
lítica) structure of Mugiquismo quickly began to wither on the vine.
MÚGICA'S LEGACY
By almost any measure, the Múgica administracion in Michoacán ended
in failure. The governor's anticlericalism and his attacks on landowners
prompted a backlash from broad sectors of sociecy, rnaking him increas­
ingly dependenc on armed retainers to keep his government afloat.Yet this
strategy just added to his troubles.The militarization of politics and the
arming of political partisans soon led to a series of bloody encounters in
che countryside and in Morelia, al! of which left him vulnerable once
Obregón and che federal army moved to neutralize the peasant milicias.
Moreover, che procession of crises scotched the governor's plans to recon­
stitute the nature of rural property holding and to inculcare the ideology
of class struggle in the popular consciousness.By 1922, even sorne of Mú­
gica's supporters appeared relieved when he finally stepped down frorn of­
fice to stem the tide of anarchy. 105
rr2 Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle Múgica and the Agrarian Struggle rr3

Even though Múgica's experiment in government-led social revolution as militants. 106 In this sense, villagers' acceptance of ejido grants consti­
did not transform Michoacán in the way he envisioned, some of his ini­ tuted a first step in the construction of campesino identity.
tiatives left behind enduring and sometimes unintended legacies. First, the Despite Múgica's failures, then, h.is government laid the foundations of
arming of peasant militias in support of the land reform set in motion a agrarismo in Michoacán. The Mugiquistas succeeded in establishing the
series of events over which Múgica exercised little control. Villagers in­ notion that agrarismo was a movement of proletarian campesinos to whom
vaded lands that the government had not approved for their occupation the revolution promised education and redress for the loss of land. Fur­
or assaulted people whom they considered their enemies, such as hacienda thermore, the Mugiquistas demonstrated rhe possibility (if not the advis­
administrators, landowners, or neighboring villagers. These instances of ability) rhat a progressive government could take on liberal landowners
mobilization and contention occurred dozens of times during the course and the church on behalf of the "workers." Their government broke clown,
of Múgica's administration. He did not authorize them beforehand, but but it nonetheless represented the logical limits of state intervention on be­
neither usually did he denounce them once they had occurred. By extend­ half of agrarista struggle. This romanticized view of the Múgica regime
ing his tacit, rerrospective approval to these disparate acts of peasant rad­ captured the imagination of schoolteachers and peasant bosses who car­
icalism, Múgica made it possible for peasants to adopt the banner of ried on and deepened the agrarista movement in the years after Múgica
agrarismo as an explanation and justification for their actions. To the ex­ himself left office. In a handful of villages throughout the state, these local
tent that sorne people carne to regard their behavior as pan of a broad­ leaders picked up the threads of agrarismo that the Mugiquistas had spun
gauge popular movernent of oppressed country people in general, the ele­ and began to weave them into the texture of local life. They began the
ments of a new form of peasant identity began to take shape. process of domesticating postrevolutionary ideology and articulating it
Second, although the land reforrn did not progress very far, it did ex­ with the existing solidarities and political cultures in the countryside.
tend agrarian politics into the daily life of a dozen or so peasant comrnu­
nities. Slightly more than three thousand villagers received defin.itive ejido
grants during Múgica's administration, and even if they did not accept
the Mugiquistas' notions about class struggle and the need to reconcep­
tualize the moral basis of property rights, their actions did conform with
Mugiquista ideology on these points. Their enactment of the revolution­
ary script seerned to ratify the political outlook of ideologues such as
Múgica and probably encouraged later populist leaders to think of mo­
bilized peasants as class-conscious campesinos who would fight for the
property of their oppressors. Furtherrnore, ir rnade the discourse of class
struggle available to a relatively broad number of villagers. Even if their
original motivations for requesting lands had little or nothing to do with
engaging in a workers' struggle against capitalist landowners, it would al­
ways be possible for village leaders to claim at sorne future point that vil­
lagers had always considered their actions a.§._jlilrt of the larger campesino
movernent. In orher words, villagers' participation in land reform opened
the possibility that an agrarista tradition could be invented even within
comrnunities whose members had not originally conceived of themselves

�
' e •

4 the door to a group of women and men who led local struggles for land
Village Revolutionaries
♦
MICHOACÁN'S POLITICAL CLIMATE took a conservative swing as Múgica's
incipient socialist movement sputtered and died during the administrations
of governors Sidronio Sánchez Pineda (who finished out Múgica's term,
1922-24) and Enrique Ramírez (1924-28). Most agraristas sudclenly found
themselves under pressure from politicians, federal army officers, and
landowners to demobilize and curtail their demands for land. While Mex­
ico City did not have the capacity to directly control local politics in Mi­
choacán or most other states, the governors' curbs on agrarismo fit in well
with the moderare agrarian politics of Álvaro Obregón and his successor,
Plutarco Elías Calles.
In turning their backs on the politics of agrarian populism, Michoa­
cán's governors cut short the development of agrarismo as a statewide
movement. Ir was not hard for them to do. Only the governor could ap­
point committed reformers to the state's Local Agrarian Commission or
provide armament to village home guards or give rhetorical and military
support to villagers who chose to take on influential landowners. Only rhe
governor had the prestige to unify headstrong and refractory agrarista
leaders in the postrevolutionary years, and few politicians really wanred to
try in the wake of Múgica's fiasco. The unfavorable political climate in the
mid-192os fractured Michoacán's agrarista movement into a myriad of
village and subregional assemblages that for the most part acted inde­
pendently of one another. Even when activists such as Primo Tapia (who
headed the radical agrarista movement in the Zacapu region) tried to
unify agraristas throughout the state, their efforts met with failure.
The restraints on peasant activism and the consequent atomization of
agrarismo allowed local leaders to attain a commanding influence on the
11
Vil/age Revolutionaries I I5
cultural politics of Michoacán's incipient agrarista movement. Ir opened
or labor rights. These local militants included schoolteachers, local labor
leaders, communist activists, and, perhaps most importantly, the peasant
political bosses known as headmen, representatives, or (disparagingly) as
caciques. The political void created by Múgica's departure allowed these
village revolutionaries to mold agrarista practice and discourse on the lo­
cal leve!. Village revolutionaries stood with one foot in the community
and one in the outside world of regional politics and revolutionary ide­
ologies, a stance that allowed them to function as cultural brokers, peo­
ple who occupied the social interstices between peasant communities and
Michoacán's political leadership. 1 They orchestrated the civic rituals and
community meetings in which agraristas participated .. They articulated
the revolutionary discourses that proposed to make villagers see agrarian
mobilization as a class struggle, and they encouraged their followers to
1: ¡
demand their due as revolutionary citizens.
Village revolutionaries' strategic location gave them an unparalleled
ability to guicle the political ancl cultural dynamic of agrarismo during the 11
years in which more powerful political actors regarded the peasant move­
11
ment as a nuisance at best and as a dangerous threat to stability at worst. ,,
Yet they did not mouth an unadu!terated copy of the revolutionary dogma.
:I'
that governors, presidents, and ideologues propounded in the mid-1920s.
Instead, they created a form of class-based, and therefore "revolutionary," I'
discourse that was both intelligible and compelling to rural folk who par­ ¡¡ji
',,
ticipared in tbe land reform. Village revolutionaries' personal histories­ •I
'¡
'!
their ideologies, political agendas, and biases of class and local culture­
also colored the ways in which they presented "official" postrevolutionary
discourses and practices. As a result, the local variants of postrevolution­
ary ideology that appeared in communities with strong agrarista traditions
differed in important ways from the official versions articulared by politi­
cal leaders in Morelia and Mexico City.
Village revolutionaries did not simply materialize out of the blue, of
course. Most agrarian leaders had initially risen to positions of local no­
toriety during the revolutionary wars, and others had gained practica!
knowledge during extended stays outside of their home communities.
Schoolteachers also had valuable skills and knowledge to offer villagers.
 u6 Village Revolutionaries
Nevertheless, they would probably never have influenced the course of
agrarian struggle in Michoacán nearly as rnuch as they did had Múgica
managed to stay in Michoacán and direct its revolution frorn above. Iron­
ically, his failure laid the groundwork for their success.
THE EMERGENCE OF VILLAGE REVOLUTIONARIES
The final blow to the ill-fated Socialist project in Michoacán carne 111
1923, when Múgica returned to Michoacán, arrned with a supreme court
ruling that authorized hirn to reassurne his post as governor. Two and a
half weeks after this hornecoming, General Adolfo de la Huerta and two­
thirds of the Mexican arrny rose up in rebellion against President Obre­
gón. Though Múgica did not help to plan the uprising, he almost certainly
knew sorne sort of rebellion was in the works. De la Huerta had already
broken with Obregón by the time Múgica had returned to Michoacán,
and the Mexico City press was speculating that army generals in central
Mexican states had already decided to rebel. Múgica and de la Huerta had
allied with each other in the past, and it is likely that they had sorne sort
of arrangement worked out in 1923. But whatever Múgica's plans were,
they failed to materialize. Loyalist army officers arrested him soon after he
arrived in Morelia and allegedly planned to execute him pursuant to secret
orders from President Obregón himself. Only the syrnpathy of one of his
captors allowed Múgica to flee back to Mexico City, where he lay low un­
til the rebellion fizzled out a few months later. 2
Well-known Mugiquistas such as peasant leader Primo Tapia and pol­
itician Luis Mora Tovar supported the rebellion even after Múgica himself
had abandoned the state, clinging to the slim hope that the rebel generals
would defeat Obregón and Calles and make good on de la Huerta's be­
lated promise to return their man to power. 3 But as it turned out, the rebel
military commander in Michoacán was none other than Enrique Estrada,
the conservative general whom Múgica blarned for having forced him
from office in the first place. Estrada 's forces gained control over most of
the state by January 1924, but instead of reinstating Múgica to office they
harassed the Mugiquistas and appointed a reactionary polirician to the
state's highest post. Once it became evident that the rebellion would fail,
Múgica's supporters prudently changed their allegiance, although too late
Village Revolutionaries u7
to avoid the wrath of president-elect Calles, the very man whom the rebels
1/
had hoped to supplant. 4
Even if the 1923 rebellion had succeeded, there was little chance that
Múgica's strategy of using peasant militias and radical politicians to take
power by storm could duplicare even the modest successes of two years
\
earlier. As soon as Múgica left office in 1922, his successor began to dis­
mantle the rickety Socialist apparatus in Michoacán. Interim governor
Sánchez Pineda was a political moderare whose relationship with President
Obregón dated ali the way back to 1914. He replaced most Socialist politi­
cians and administrators with moderare liberals as soon as he took office,
and (with the exception of a twenty-minute shoot-out in the main square
of the town of Uruapan) the Mugiguistas left without much of a fight. 5
Sánchez Pineda wasted no time in initiating what one observer called
a policy of "conciliation" with landowners and Catholic activists. 6 In the
weeks after Múgica's resignation in 1922, he enlisted military comman­
der Enrique Estrada (who still enjoyed Obregón's confidence at the time)
to step up the disarmament of agrarista home guards. Sorne socialists sus­
pected that Sánchez Pineda and Estrada even turned a blind eye to the
anti-Mugiquista rebellion that remained afoot in some parts of the state
in the hopes that the insurgents would liguidate the few remaining hot­
beds of political radicalism. If so, the strategy paid off when the rebels
sacked the agrarista militia and municipal government of Tacámbaro,
one of the last bulwarks of Múgica's political network. 7
In yet another effort to reverse Múgica's project, Sánchez Pineda­
himself the scion of a landowning family from Huetamo-set out to un­
dercut agrarista organizations and contain their militancy. He met with
the owners of the sprawling Lombardía hacienda a few days after taking
office and assured them that the era of state-sponsored peasant rnobiliza­
tion and rapid-fire creation of ejidos had come to an end. 8 The govern­
rnent indeed slowed the pace of land reform considerably during 1922
and most of 1923 and only picked up the pace when the de la Huerta re­
bellion made it seem expedient to form a few new ejidos in key districts. 9
Primo Tapia's statewide agrarista organization also came under pressure
to disband. Tapia complained to the exiled Múgica that "the general sir­
uation with respect to us indigenous people is disastrous, since both po­
litical and social initiatives have failed completely due to the traitorous
 II8 Village Revolutionaries
actions of your triumphant former friends,who were nothing more than
a bunch of Judases."'º
The federal army and its paramilitary allies in fact posed a far greater
threat to the agraristas than did Sánchez Pineda's conciliatory policies to­
ward landowners. Throughout 1922, army units continued their offensive
to disarm agrarista home guards, leaving peasant groups in the Zamora
area, among others, vulnerable to attacks by landowners.The most far­
ranging of these retributions were carried out by Rafael Cuadra,a personal
friend of Enrique Estrada and the commander of a landowner-financed
civil guard (a so-called guardia blanca) based in Zamora. Cuadra, whom
army commanders praised for his "important services to the Govern­
menc," ranged throughout northwestern Michoacán killing agrarista ac­
tivists by the score.Even Sánchez Pineda repeatedly tried to bring Cuadra
to heel,but without success. 11
Sorne of these political pressures on agraristas attenuated a bit in 1924.
First,the defeat of the de la Huerta revolt disposed of sorne of the most ar­
dent anti-agraristas in Michoacán.Estrada had backed the losing side and
left for exile in the United States,and Cuadra died in the fighting.Second,
Enrique Ramírez,who replaced Sánchez Pineda as governor in September,
had learned how to collaborate with mobilized peasants while leading
agrarista home guards against bandir leader Inés Chávez García in 1918
and against Estrada's rebel troops in 1924. Furthermore, he enjoyed the
trust of bis comrade-in-arms Lázaro Cárdenas,whom many agraristas al­
ready regarded as their surest political patron.12
Still, Ramírez was no agrarian populist.He did not show any particu­
lar sympathy for agrarismo until the Cristero rebellion forced him to re­
arm peasant home guards in early 1927. His foremost policy concern was
to follow the dictares of Calles,who had assumed the presidency in 1924
and who had !et it be known that he had no interest in encouraging agra­
rismo or land reform, both of which he had come to regard as temporary
nuisances on the road to creating a class of smallholders in the country­
side . Calles had stated as early as 192 5 that his foremost goal was to mod­
ernize agriculture,not to reimplant campesino production in central Mex­
ico.As he put it,he hoped to "end the land reform ... and form a class of
modero,small property owners with the help of policies favoring irriga­
tion,credit, [and] technical assistance. " 13
Village Revolutionaries II9
r/
Faced with such a political climate, Ramírez kept up a plodding pace of
''
land redistribution until the Cristero rebellion of 1926 prompted him to
\
establish more than a score of ejidos in the vain hope of short-circuiting
the uprising. On the other hand,Ramírez took no particular steps to re­
press peasant militancy either, unless villagers threatened the lands of
sorne well-connected family or another. For the most part, Ramírez and
the liberal politicians who surrounded him simply tried to ignore the
agrarian issue unless they faced a sudden need to appeal to the voters or
to rnilitiamen.14
The failure of Múgica's socialist revolution from above and the ensuing
years of state repression and benign neglect frustrated the establishment of
a statewide peasant agrarista movement like the ones that existed else­
where in the Mexico at the time.No great individual leader along the lines
of Úrsulo Galván in Veracruz or Saturnino Cedillo in San Luis Potosí
emerged in Michoacán. Nor did populist leaders attempt to creare a re­
gional political machine on a par with the contemporaneous socialist par­
ties in Yucatán and Tamaulipas.15 Instead,between 1922 and around 1927,
agrarismo in Michoacán was primarily a village-level phenomenon.Sorne
village leaders did join Primo Tapia's organization and,after 1926, the Na­
tional League of Campesinos,founded by the Veracruz-based duo of Gal­
ván and Adalberto Tejeda. Likewise,the nation's largest labor union (the
CROM) organized agrarista activists in the eastern part of the state as well
as hacienda field hands around Morelia,yet these organizations had little
influence on the way local agrarian movements actually played out.16
Tapia's agrarista league (the Liga de Comunidades y Sindicatos Agra­
ristas de Michoacán) was primarily an informal grouping of a dozen or
,,1:,¡
so village leaders from the Zacapu area in the northeastern Bajío. They
11
shared common bonds of kinship,friendship,and outrage at the acts of the
powerful hacienda owners who had drained the marshlands that villagers
had depended upon for their livelihoods. The league's effectiveness rose
and fell in tandem with the fortunes of the Zacapu-area agraristas who
constituted its core members, along with a few sympathetic politicians in
the state legislature.The league never attracted many supporters elsewhere
in the state,however,and in any case it began to founder after federal sol­
diers and hacienda field hands assassinated Tapia in April 1926. 17 Most of
its members eventually found their way into Galván's National League of
..,..

I 20 Village Revolutionaries Village Revolutionaries I 2I

Campesinos, but because most of them hailed from the Bajío, the "na­ ''
1/
tional" league had a difficult time establishing itself in other regions. In any
case, its influence depended on intricare power politics that played out in
Mexico City, Veracruz, and within the Mexican Communist Party much \
more than on its Zacapu-area affiliates. 18 The CROM organized field
hands' unions 011 a few haciendas and staged some strikes, but its influence
did not extend much beyond the vicinity of Morelia. Ali of these organiza­
tions encouraged agraristas to regard their movement as a form of class
struggle, but they were litt!e more than paper tigers in Michoacán.
Nor did Michoacán's governors try to build populist coalitions by pro­
moting controlled mobilizations of the lower classes. Politically ambi­
tious governors Salvador Alvarado of Yucatán, Adalberto Tejeda of Vera­
cruz' or Tomás Garrido Canabal of Tabasco intended to build statewide
coalitions of peasants and rural workers around government policies. 19 In An agrarista militia unit in the Bajío region, circa 1925. Courtesy lIH-UMSNH.
contrast, Sánchez Pineda, Ramírez, and their respective ministers had no
desire to open the door to the kind of agrarian radicalism that had cost
brief administration, Múgica had given rhetorical support, political posts,
Múgica his position. Michoacán's política! leaders did not send envoys
and armament to a number of rural leaders. He had also put considerable
along the lines of Alvarado's famous "propaganda agents" into the coun­
effort into organizing and financing rural education, and sorne of the
tryside to energize the peasantry. The idea of organizing even a limited
teachers and administrators he had hired found positions with the federal
peasant mobilization by sending política! organizers to peasant villages
government's newly created Department of Public Education (SEP). 20 Yet
was simply out of step with the increasingly conservative politics of the
as Múgica's government crumbled, most schoolteachers and peasant lead­
Sonoran state.
ers lost their jobs and privileged political connections. Deprived of their
Regardless of what Obregón, Calles, or Michoacán's governors desired,
official positions, village revolutionaries came to depend like never before
however, village revolutionaries continued to mobilize peasant groups and
on their informal stature as community leaders.
to propagate revolutionary ideas. Being more or less independent of the di­
rect bureaucratic control of the política! class, they continued to press for
villagers' right to petition for the land and to till it without fear of reprisal. CACIQUISMO ANO THE MEANINGS OF RESPECT
They advocated the notion of class struggle and marshaled peasants to Agrarista leaders' stature depended in large part on their ability to earn re­
take part in civic celebrations and agrarista meetings. While sorne of these spect (respeto) in their communities, or at least within village agrarista
peasant leaders shared formal ties with one another-a number of them diques. This sort of respect could be earned in severa! ways, but three
belonged to or at least knew of Primo Tapia's agrarista league, for exam­ stood out in particular. First, many rural leaders gained preeminence within
ple-the lack of a centralized revolutionary project in Michoacán meant preexisting social institutions such as family networks and civil-religious
that they usually acted on their own to build agrarismo up within the rural cargo hierarchies. Second, many had particular skills or political know­
communities themselves. how. For example, an agrarista headman's capacity to engage the land re­
Many village revolutionaries had already achieved local prominence form bureaucracy often proved invaluable in obtaining a land reform par­
during Múgica's period in office, and sometimes even earlier. During his ce! or rural credit. Finally, many rural leaders augmented their stature by

122 Village Revolutionaries
dint of force and intimidation. They often demonstrated their willingness
to use violence to maintain their positions as village chieftains. 21
Villagers frequently claimed to respect community leaders whose ac­
tions they approved of and to lack respect for those whose actions they
rejected. The village council (cabildo) of one indigenous community ex­
plained to the mayor of Morelia that it was "indispensable" for village
authorities "to have the respect of the citizens" if they hoped to govern
effectively. The current set of community leaders had lost people's re­
spect, the villagers said, so the mayor should replace them. A group of
rural folk from a different community took this point a step further in a
letter they wrote to the bishop of Zamora. They explained that there was
a close link between "subordination, unity, and respect" (sumición unión
y respeto). Respect for authority in these people's understanding was not
only the basis of legitimare leadership but also of their social cohesion.22
' ''!t
Agrarista bosses were not the only ones to frame their authority in
terms of respect: most local notables understood it as the common idiom
of power in �ural Michoacán . For example, a priest interpreted the 1931
rise of agrarismo and the corresponding waning of his religious authority
in Taretan as a process by which the "ignorant and simple" field hands
"have begun to lose respect for the priest." 23 Similarly, a schoolteacher
explained that her attempt to found a night school in Ario Santa Mónica
had floundered because of the male students' "lack of respect" and "dis­
dain" for her.24 Her words also signaled the fact that many people con­
sidered a public display of disdain, or even outright mockery, as a pri­
mary way to express their opposition to local leaders. One well-to-do
young woman, Juana Serrato, even turned the notion of respect on its
head during a 1924 protest in Zamora against the mayor's anticlerical or­
der against ringing church bells. Moments befare she climbed the tower
and sounded the bells herself, she reportedly taunted a municipal official
by asking him, "See how much respect your Mayor inspires in us?" 25
Nevertheless, peasant leaders strove to achieve respect in a markedly
different way from schoolteachers and other village outsiders. Agrarista
headmen such as Primo Ta_pia of Naranja and Ernesto Prado of La Cañada
initially enjoyed a measure of popular acclamation and prestige for hav­
ing led agrarian revolts in their communities, and their local standing al­
lowed them to cement their positions as regional leaders. They also relied
l
Village Revolutionaries I 23
upon friendship with powerful politicians, kinship ties, and occasional
r/
displays of violence in village streets to shore up their status.
Teachers also made use of their contacts within the political establish­
ment in the 1920s, of course, and they too played a leading role in the
struggle for land. But unlike peasant headmen they usually lacked farnily
\
ties in the villages where they worked, and they did not arrive at their post­
ing through the sort of village winnowing process that village headrnen
typically did. They owed their stature to their unique status as educated
outsiders residing within rural communities and had to gain villagers' re­
spect by putting their literacy skills, their knowledge of government bu­
reaucratic channels, and their familiarity with official ideology at the .ser­
vice of agrarista groups.
In contrast, agrarian caciques inhabited a world in which violence was
cornmon currency. In rnost villages in the r92os, two or more diques of
kin and associated "política! friends" vied for political and economic su­
premacy. Many intravillage rivalries dated at least from the Porfiriato,
when the arrival of land speculators and the church's renewed presence in
village life created new schisrns and amplified existing ones. 26 As a result,
few agrarista leaders could hope to unify ali cornmunity factions behind
their rule, and the rise of a community leader often provoked disfavored
groups to cornplain that a cacique had established a new and illegitimate
dominion within their communities. Many such complaints undoubtedly
had sorne justification, because the pathways by which local leaders rose to
prominence nearly always involved the threat or prosecution of violence
against village opponents.27 Even well-respected agrarista leaders sorne­
times faced villagers' charges of corruption and venality. One piqued politi­
cian wrote that a respected agrarista indigenous leader considered himself
"imrnune to punishment for ali the infractions he commits" (in this case,
shaving off a bit more profit from timber sales than he deserved).28
It would be a rnistake to regard ali agrarista leaders as tin-pot auto­
crats who routinely ignored their followers' will. While few formal de­
mocratic structures existed in most villages and most caciques took an in­
formal route to power, villagers did have sorne voice in what went on in
their communities. They often repudiated people who proved unworthy
of their respect and dispatched them with a greater or lesser show of
force. 29 Caciques rnight prevail for a while with coercion alone, but be-
 124 Vil/age Revolutionaries Village Revolutionaries 125

fore the advent of durable state institutions in the 1930s, few could en­
dure for long without the respect of "their" people.
VILLAGE REVOLUTIONARIES, PART I:
THE AGRARISTA LEADERS
The existence of relatively powerful community leaders had been a feature
of rural life in Mexico for centuries. In the colonial period, royal adminis­
trators ratified or appointed the leaders of indigenous communities and
gave them broad authority to handle matters of day-to-day administra­
tion. After independence, republican governments instituted reforms that
had the potential to undermine traditional leadership structures, although
it appears that most rural communities experienced relatively few changes
at first. Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, appointed mu­
nicipal authorities and regional política] administrators known as political
supervisors (jefes políticos) supplanted the influence of community cabil­
dos and village headmen. 30 Revolutionary leaders dismantled the system
,·
of political supervisors in the 1910s and thus ended one of the most de­
11
spised artifacts of the Porfirian system. But the supervisors' demise also
1 left rural communities without a formal cadre of authorities to mediare
"'
with Mexico's new political leaders and thus opened a political space for
a new generation of revolutionary political rniddlemen. 31
The leaders who eventually played a central role in Michoacán's agra­
rista movement first appeared during the wars of 1910-15, when in many
villages one or two people raised small contingents of their compatriots
to serve in one revolutionary faction or another. In other cases, strong
community leaders did not emerge until years late1; when agrarista bosses
began the tortuous process of obtaining ejidos. These individuals often
achieved their status by cajoling groups of landless villagers to request the
restitution or outright grant of community lands, though it was not un­
heard of for aspiring agrarista bosses (or schoolteachers) to try to fabri­
care an agrarista movement by duping recalcitrant villagers into signing
petitions for land. For example, the local militants from a hamlet near
Zitácuaro obtained petitioners' names for severa! different ejido requests
by posing as census takers, and Primo Tapia himself tricked villagers into
signing an ejido petition by telling them they were signing a letter to the
bishop asking for a resident priest. 32 But more often then not, it appears
that villagers understood very well who agrarista leaders were and what
they stood for.
//
That is not to say that agrarista headmen always respected the wishes
of their followers. Some particularly tyrannical headmen ensconced them­
\
selves in power as unpopular, petty caciques little different from the
Porfirian-era political supervisors whom they had replaced. For example,
José Alcántara, the headman of the hamlet of Laguna Verde near Zitá­
1
cuaro, had led the local agrarista faction from the time Múgica had been in
f
of ice until 19 2 7, when the federal government finally created an ejido
there. 33 He soon earned a rninor position in the local Revolutionary Agra­ 1
rista Party, itself an affiliate of the powerful political machine in Zitácuaro,
and he probably organized an anti-Cristero home guard as well.
Alcántara took advantage of his position to hoard 15 percent of the
ejido lands and give the best of what remained to members of his family.
He monopolized the supply of planting seed, controlled ali the key ejidal
and municipal positions, kept for himself the harvest from the school's
cropland, and, it was said, exercised the right to sleep with brides on their
wedding night. Outright domination of this sort often proved a brittle and
1
often unsuccessful way to consolidare power, though. Alcántara's extrem­
ism divided villagers in Laguna Verde in the early 1930s, and his allies
11:
11
within the community dwindled to a minority. Agrarista sympathizers in
¡t
the neighboring village began to complain about the cacique's attempt to
I'
domínate the region with his henchmen. Even his supposed supporters in
Laguna Verde secretly voiced dissatisfaction with his behavior. By 1933,
the land reform beneficiaries had dislodged him from his ejidal offices and
had dismantled his cacicazgo, or political fiefdom. 34
Most agrarista leaders found it profitable to maintain a more amicable
relationship with their followers, often by mobilizing extended family net­
works. Indeed, in most villages with agrarista movements, one or two men,
aided by family members or ritual kin (compadres), determined whether
and when to mobilize the home guard, how to settle differences with
neighboring villages and haciendas, and eventually how and in whose in­
terest to administer ejido grants. These leaders' influence made them prized
allies for ambitious politicians in search of clienteles, meaning that head­
men quickly became indispensable political mediators between mobilized

1
1
1
 126 Village Revolutionaries
peasants and local políticos. By the mid-r92os, nearly every majar politi­
cian in Michoacán had established his own informal organization to coor­
dinate a patronage network in which headmen instructed their people how
to vote and which rival groups to chase away from the polling place. In ex­
change, agrarista bosses received political perks such as preferential treat­
ment within the agrarian bureaucracy and the right to exercise power
within their villages without the interference of outsiders.
The linkages between politicians and agrarista headmen were often
maddeningly complex. In Zitácuaro, for instance, politically active shop­
keepers, artisans, clerks, and musicians aligned themselves with powerful
politicians such as Carlos Riva Palacio and, later, General Arturo Berna!.
These politicians cobbled together an unusually well-oiled political ma­
chine known as the Junta Liberal Benito Juárez that controlled municipal
offices on and off for decades. The junta opened its own school, main­
tained formal records of a membership that numbered in the hundreds
(the petit bourgeois leaders listed first, villagers and field hands second),
and, like most political parties, published its own newspaper.
The junta drew into its orbit headmen sucl1 as Jesús "don Chuchito"
Aguilar, who had led the fight for land and water in the village of Chichi­
mequillas, and the autocratic José Alcántara of neighboring Laguna Verde.
Both men backed up the junta's candidates with the votes and guns of their
followers. The junta also contended with a rival clientelist network headed
by General Neftalí N. Cejudo and his Partido Agrarista Revolucionario,
which attracted the leaders of villages that vied against junta-allied com­
munities for disputed lands.35 Similar personalist entities existed through­
out the state in an anarchic and labyrinthine web that would only knir into
a single, overarching network with the creation in r929 of Cárdenas's po­
litical organization and ex-president Calles's official revolutionary party.
Headmen's function as mediators overflowed the strictly economic
sphere of patronage relations to encompass the cultural realm of identity
politics as well. As the bosses of village agrarista cadres, most headmen
embraced components of the postrevolutionary cultural politics that Mex­
ico's political class and Michoacán's schoolteachers promoted, although
in a piecemeal, contingent, and idiosyncratic way. In addition to leading
their followers into conflicts with putative counterrevolutionaries such as
landowners or anti-agrarista country people, headmen summoned their
Village Revolutionaries I2 7
followers to take part in new, revolutionary practices, ranging from elab­
1/
orare patriotic festivals to modest village rallies and organizational meet­
ings. They composed, or ar least put their names to, letters, speeches, and
flyers that discursively situated local events as part of agraristas' great
postrevolutionary class struggle against property owners. Events like the
\
creation of an ejido, or a skirmish with hacienda owners' retainers, or an
assault on religious icons became campaigns in the struggle berween "the
exploiters" and "the exploited."
In other words, caciques forged local variants of "official" revolution­
ary ideology. This was a profoundly creative process, for alrhough they
were strongly influenced by "official" concepts, they were not unquestion­
ing mannequins who parroted every speech or notion they came upon. 36
They selectively appropriated and reformulated the lexicon of agrarismo
so that it articulated with existing cultural norms and yet gave coherent
meaning to the events that transformed the political landscape of rural
Michoacán in the postrevolutionary years. They took it far granted that
rural folk had been the main protagonists in the Mexican Revolution and
that agrarismo reflected villagers' collective struggles againsr the abuses
of landowners and their allies. They also tended to ignore abstraer revo­
lutionary discourses concerning secularism, modernity, and enlighten­
ment. In other words, their discourse drew upon the material, class-based
component of official revolutionary ideology rather than its more ab­
straer and culturally intrusive aspects. The caciques took revolutionaries'
offer of both land and books, but they consistent!y favored the former
over the latter.
What kinds of people were these agrarista headmen, these caciques? As
cultural brokers who dwelt on the social borderlands between rhe village
and the outside world, it is perhaps unsurprising that most of them were
not really "campesinos" in a strict sense at ali. Very few of them made
rheir living primarily by tilling the soil, at least not once they began their
careers as village strongmen, though many of them carne from families
that worked the land. A large number belonged to families that bordered
on the well-to-do by village standards. Their kin had enough money to al­
low favored sons to move up rhe social ladder to the not-quire-successful
social stratum of muleteers, stonemasons, and petty rancheros. As a result,
most agrarista leaders knew life in rural villages but did not necessarily toil
128 Village Revolutionaries
shoulder-to-shoulder with village smallholders, hacienda peons, or indige­
nous people with common lands.Further adding to their distinctive status,
nearly ali agrarista leaders had spent considerable time outside of their
home villages. Sorne had traveled to the United States in search of steady
jobs and a respire from the political problems back home.Others had Ieft
their villages to fight in the revolution or in one of the sporadic uprisings
that foilowed it.
A few agrarista headmen had worked their way up the ranks of author­
ity in traditional indigenous villages. Many Otomí villages around Zitá­
cuaro and Purépecha villages in the Pátzcuaro-Uruapan area had man­
aged to retain communal ownership of their land and forest resources, and
colonial-era institutions such as the cabildo and the cargo system typically
continued to function as they had for generations.Agrarista movements in
"traditional" villages of these sorts often took on aspects of a generational
struggle.In communities of the Meseta Tarasca such as Tingambato, Na­
huatzén, and Cherán, agraristas accounted for a srnall minority and usu­
ally complained not so much about neighboring haciendas as about tradi­
tional village headmen whom they accused of corruption and collusion
with powerful outsiders.37 For the most part, however, agrarista move­
ments never took off in indigenous communities of this sort. On the con­
trary, many highland villages u!timately joined anti-revolutionary move­
ments such as the Cristero rebellion. 38
The most determined agraristas of the 1920s generally emerged not in
indigenous communities with substantial landholdings but rather in more
or less Hispanicized indigenous communities that had Iost most of their
communal lands during the nineteenth century. Villages such as Atacheo,
Opopeo, Zurumútaro, Naranja, Coatepec, and certain pueblos in La
Cañada, among others, typically had functioning politico-religious cargo
systems, and many of their residents continued to speak indigenous lan­
guages. Yet these villages had also developed distinctly modern charac­
teristics as well: Iand was bought and sold, villagers took jobs as haci­
enda field hands or miners, and village elders did not enjoy the authority
and respect they had once commanded. Perhaps most irnportant, many of
the people who emerged as the agrarista leaders of these places had de­
veloped uncommonly cosmopolitan outlooks by spending long periods
away from home.
Village Revolutionaries 129
Many agrarista leaders had lived for a while in the United States and
had come back as changed people. In the 1920s, migration from central
1/1
Mexico was still something of a novelty.Villagers who journeyed north
beyond their kin networks, the muddle of village politics, and the stern eye
of the parish priest often returned with extraordinary practica! knowledge
about Mexican society and the broader world. They had learned about
labor mobilization, Protestant evangelization, and, of course, Anglo­
American attitudes toward Mexicans.A relatively high proportion of agra�
ristas and their leaders had worked as temporary laborers (known even
then as braceros) in the social cauldron of the progressive-era United States.
lt became increasingly common for rural people to work for a while
north of the border and then return once they had made sorne money or
the turmoil had subsided at home. A sizable percentage of villagers from
Ario Santa Mónica left for the United States in order to escape the ha­
cienda-financed paramilitary unit commanded by Rafael Cuadra, for ex­
ample, then returned once he was dead.39 One agrarista activist from Co­
eneo wrote that al! of the original peasants who pressed for the creation
of an ejido in the late 1920s had spent time as braceros in the north:
"They returned with broadened horizons....They carne back with
money, lots of enthusiasm, but more than anything, with many ideas that
were unknown in those days, and many of them had radical and openly
anticlerical attitudes."º4
Sorne of Michoacán's most prominent agrarista Ieaders had had similar
experiences.Primo Tapia of Naranja spent more than a decade laboring in
various parts of the United States, where he also learned about anarcho­
syndicalism from Mexican intellectual Ricardo Flores Magón.Years later,
Tapia joined the Industrial Workers of the World and tried his own hand
at labor organization on a Nebraska beet plantation.W hen Tapia's call for
a strike in 1920 split che union, he skipped town and returned to Michoa­
cán.41 José Zavala of Panindícuaro also went north in 1909 before return­
ing to lead the Múgica-era land reform effort in his homeland.24 The ac­
tivist community leader and aspiring schoolteacher Salvador Sotelo of
Atacheo followed a roughly similar trajectory. He spent four formative
years in California where he worked, dabbled in prohibition-era liquor
contraband, and joined the Baptist church.43 These were just the sort of ex­
periences that confirmed the worst fears of Michoacán's bishops, who be-
 r3o Village Revolutionaries
lieved that North American culture tended to infect Mexican emigrants
with the twin contagions of Protestantism and decadent social values. 44
Other agrarista leaders left their village confines to fight in the revolu­
tionary wars rather than go north to seek their fortunes. Even a brief sam­
pling of sorne the state's most prominent agrarista chiefs reveals that a
large number of them had fought in the 19ro-15 revolutionary wars.
Many of them had commanded small contingents of men drawn, it seems,
from among their kin and other fellow villagers. Miguel de la Trinidad Re­
galado of Atacheo parlayed local outrage over the neighboring hacienda's
dispossession of village lands into a two-hundred-person-strong corps that
campaigned as far away as Puebla and Guerrero. Casimirio López Leco of
Cherán and Ernesto Prado of Tanaquillo also led family members and
other supporters to join the revolution, though they chose to cast their lots
with the Zapatistas. Other examples are not hard to find: agrarista leader
Juan Cruz de la Cruz mustered villagers in Tarejero to fight in the armies
of Madero and Obregón, for instance, and Pedro Talavera of Zurumútaro
initially gained local prominence as the commander of a village home
guard that fought against the de la Huerta uprising in 1924. 45
Military service afforded local-boys-made-good a considerable cachet
with Michoacán's ruling class of soldier-politicians as well as distinction
in the eyes of their fellow villagers. Lázaro Cárdenas repaid Talavera's
loyalty by elevating him to an important position within his political or­
ganization. Cárdenas had directed the Tabasco campaign against de la
Huerta. Talavera's agraristas gave the future president "a lot of help," as
Talavera's half brother later recalled, "and [Cárdenas] valued it. All in all,
he really esteemed us ali. " 46
Agrarista leaders' ties with regional politicians proved useful as they
consolidated their village fiefdoms, but they ultinrntely built authority
within their communities the same way that any other leader does­
through a mixture of coercion and consent. The precise ratio of each in­
gredient varied between villages and even within the same village over
time. For most of the 1920s, before administrative centralization made it
possible for headmen to rule primarily by virtue of their positions within
government bureaucracies based outside of rural communities, caciques
typically needed to keep villagers' respect without resorting to force alone.
Most of them tried to provide their followers-especially those bound to
Village Revolutionaries r3 I
them by ties of family or ritual kinship-with such benefits as land and a
voice in village affairs. For ali their shortcomings, many agrarista leaders
impressed their followers, as one aged agrarista put it, as "capable men"
worthy of leading their communities in the violent, ideologically charged
world of postrevolutionary Michoacán. 47 Yet even the most worldly wise
agrarista strongmen sometimes found it necessary to seek out more edu­
cated and politically astute advisors.
VJLLAGE REVOLUTIONARIES, PART 2:
TI-JE SCHOOLTEACHERS
Like the caciques, schoolteachers positioned themselves to help shape
the parameters of agrarista identity in Michoacán during the 1920s, and
among the ranks of rural schoolteachers, the "missionary teachers"
hired by the federal government constituted something of an elite corps.
Federal schoolteachers usually had more formal schooling than teachers
employed by the smaller Michoacán state educational system, and they
had greater latitude to take pan in village politics as well. T his was es­
pecially true during Sánchez Pineda's administration, when the state
government began to compel state-employed schoolteachers to temper
their political activism. Sánchez Pineda underscored his determination
by firing Cuca García, a well-known Mugiquista school inspector who
had organized severa! agrarista groups and Socialist Party affiliates in
eastern Michoacán. 48 He also turned the state government's halting rural
educational program over to the newly established federal Department
of Public Education and restricted state-funded schoolteachers to the
cities and county seats. 49 Under the leadership of educational activists
José Vasconcelos and later José Manuel Puig Casasuranc, the Department
of Public Education opened 30 rural schools in Michoacán in 1923. The
number rose to 60 in 1924, staffed by 132 teachers, about half of whom
were women. By 1925 there were rr8 federal schools in Michoacán, and
in 1926 there were 123, with a total of 9,083 students. In addition, the
federal government established about 50 rural night schools for adults
over this period. 5º
As a mechanism for educating Michoacán's rural masses, these rural
federal schools left much to be desired. Only around 4 percent of school-

132 Village Revolutionaries
age children in Michoacán attended classes taught by federal instructors
in 1923, although the number rose in the following two years. 51 Even so,
the typical rural school often lacked such basic teaching materials as
books, chalkboards, inkwells, and even paper. Rural teachers frequently
complained of the unsanitary, dark, and dingy schoolrooms. In the most
extreme cases, teachers held classes in borrowed rooms or under trees,
where they faced the taunts of passersby or the growls of rabid dogs.
Sorne communities remedied these problems by building new school
buildings, but most muddled through with what they had. 52
Even if school buildings could be found, many teachers lacked the
training to give effective instruction to their students.As late as 1929, the
school inspector in Parácuaro complained with a touch of exaggeration
that the teachers in his district could neither write nor sign their own
names. 53 To add to these difficulties, many rural folk harbored deep sus­
..& picions about secular education and in any case found it hard to spare
their children's labor around the house or in the fields. Rural school­
teachers often reported that they could not attract a stable number of stu­
dents to class, a problem that would continue to plague their efforts well
into the 193os.54
While the federal educational apparatus of the 1920s encountered a
series of impediments in pedagogical terms, it was well suited to the task
•.
of bringing the gospel of class-consciousness and revolutionary citizen­
ship to Michoacán's rural masses. Most of the ever-expanding corps of
,. teachers and educational administrators felt a personal commitment to
improve country people's economic welfare and to organize them politi­
cally.The relatively well educated cadre of school inspectors had a par­
ticularly clear idea of the transformative potential of rural education.Far
instance, J. Guadalupe Nájera, the longtime chief of rural federal educa­
tion in Michoacán, penned a sort of revolutionary catechism for village
schoolteachers, which read in part:
I. Among ali the professions, mine is most important because it
---
strives to ennoble people's lives.
II. I should elevare my own spiritual and professional condition
by reading good books and practicing the ideals that I develop
from them, in arder to make myself worthy of the charge entrusted
to me by Society and the Government.
--,
Village Revolutionaries 133
III. Health is the primary interest of my pupils, and I will ori­
ent ali of my work plans to that end.I will create a vigorous and
clean schoolhouse through the promotion of exercise and habits of
good hygiene, nutrition, housing, dress, and personal tidiness.
IV. I am guided by the ideal of forging a free and wealthy na­
tion, without misery or slavery, and to those ends I will see that
the resources of our soil are understood, loved, and managed....
X. Cooperation is the most humane form to produce and dis­
tribute wealth, and so I have created and directed producers' and
consumers' cooperatives among children and villagers.55
Most school inspectors tried to disseminate such principies among
schoolteachers and country folk alike as they crisscrossed their districts
paying visits to rural teachers. They often paused during their trips to ha­
1:,1,
rangue villagers on the value of secular education; on "the importance of
setting up collectives of organized workers and campesinos in the Re­
public"; or on the virtues of social policies undertaken by presidents, gov­
ernors, and schoolteachers.56 The use of the educational apparatus as a
forum for revolutionary propagandizing took a quantum leap forward
when Cárdenas became governor and made school-based rallies a central
component of his political project. Cárdenas instructed teachers to put
even greater effort into teaching rural people to see society as an arena of
contention between landowners and "campesinos." At the same time,
teachers were to extirpare the sins of alcoholism and gambling, and to re­
place them with an emphasis on sports, hygiene, and cleanliness.57
For men, taking a job as a federal school inspector often opened the
<loor to higher positions in the government.Nájera himself chose to move
up in the ranks of the educational bureaucracy in Mexico City, returning
to Michoacán briefly to serve in Moisés Sáenz's experimental school in
Carapan. 58 A number of other educational administrators chose to re­
main in Michoacán and take posts as congressmen or cabinet ministers,
and the list of Michoacán's political elite soon began to read like a who's
who of educators-turned-politicians.59 Female school inspectors <lid not
have the same opportunities, but, perhaps for that reason, they became
especially ardent activists.For example, Cuca García and her successor in
the Zitácuaro area, Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal, organized rural folk
to solicit ejidos and helped administer the new lands. Once Cárdenas be-
11
---
J 34 Village Revolutionaries
Gymnastics at the Pueblo Moreno rural elementary school in the Zitácuaro
area, 1930. Evangelina Rodríguez is third frorn the left, in a white dress.
Author's collection.
carne governor, Rodríguez served as his informal eyes and ears in the
northeast and sent him frequent reports on how her charges were receiv­
ing the general's policies.60 García played a similar role as the resident
ideological militant stationed at the La Huerta agricultura! school, the
alma mater of sorne of Cárdenas's most committed supporters. There, she
gave speeches on "the labor theory of value, social classes, [the relations
between] exploiters and the exploited, capitalism, monopoly, imperial­
ism, and on the Mexican and Soviet revolutions. "61
A number of these ideas trickled clown to village schoolmásters, many
of whom had come to Michoacán to take part in its experiment in popu­
lar militancy. 62 Most rural schoolteachers had entered their profession pre­
cisely because they relished the idea of serving as missionaries of the new,
secular, state religion. As one teacher put it, schoolteachers had a difficult
task because they not only rooted out ignorance but the causes of igno­
rance as well, thus "giving the humble people a new regimen of guidance
[orientaciones] to go along with their studies. The teacher should be a
mentor not only to schoolchildren but also to the community, and he must
guide the multitudes clown the path of rectitude. " 63
Village Revolutionaries 13 5
Yet many teachers were not fully prepared for the task. In the years be­
1/
fare Cárdenas moved to professionalize the educational apparatus in the
1930s, rural schoolteachers typically had far less formal education than
the inspectors did. For instance, Salvador Sotelo, a somewhat overbearing
young village administrator, had served as unofficial schoolmaster of At­
\
acheo for severa! years before community opposition forced him to leave
for Morelia to attend a teacher's college. His personal ideology of revolu­
tion derived not so much from his formal studies as from his piecemeal ex­
periences as a young man: he lost his mentor and Atacheo's peasant leader
Trinidad Regalado in a hacienda owners' 1917 attack on the village; he
had a falling out with the conservative village priest; he worked in the
United States, where he learned of Baptists' "industriousness"; and he had
a number of occasionally bitter experiences as an organizer and revolu­
tionary propagandist during the 192os. 64
Not ali schoolteachers showed Sotelo's ideological fervor, of course.
Reports surfaced from time to time about government schoolteachers
who gave instruction in catechism or led prayers in the classroom. Sorne
teachers secretly confessed to parish priests or consecrated their civil mar­
riage by making religious vows in clandestine services. 65 Such lapses rarely
carne to light, though, because teachers had to preserve an ideologically
pure persona in public. Sorne religiously minded teachers no doubt feared
to let their ambivalence about the revolutionary educational project show
in public, lest school inspectors catch wind of their lapses.
Nevertheless, it appears that most teachers, like nearly ali school in­
spectors, strongly believed in the importance of their mission to reorient
peasants' attitudes along secular, class-conscious lines, and these attitudes
did not sit very well with the majority of rural folk or the priests who
ministered to them. Most village priests declared the govenunent's secu­
lar education anathema and preached that "the secular school is Satan's
school, because it serves ... to rip Christ from the hearts of individuals
and societies. "66 Rumors sometimes circulated that public schools at­
tracted strangers who would kidnap children, promote Protestantism,
provide a front for the military draft, or contribute to the overall break­
clown "of order and morality. " 67 Unsurprisingly, villagers who felt sus­
picious of the government's secular education often turned to everyday
forms of resistance to avoid sending their children to school. They sent
their children to class only when local officials made an issue of atten-
---
I 36 Village Revolutionaries
dance.They pleaded that they could not do without their children's labor.
They argued that the school was too distant and the route too treacher­
ous.68 Once the Cristero rebellion broke out in early 1927, government
education effectively disappeared in western Michoacán and anywhere
else that rebels ranged in the countryside. Even afterward, teachers often
found their subjects unwilling to collaborate. Many, like the redoubtable
Moisés Sáenz, recognized that rural folk preferred to remain as they
were. As one resident of Carapan told him, no doubt with a healthy dose
of cynicism, "Let the soldiers come if you say so, we still don't have to
change for the better.We don't want to change; we are ignorant and that
is how we want to remain." 69
Villagers also rejected teachers when they fell short of the community's
expectations. Rural people occasionally complained to administrators
about teachers who abandoned their village posts to spend time in nearby
towns or forced students to attend school during harvest season or dra­
gooned parents to make material improvements on the school buildings.
In sorne cases, teachers themselves cornpounded these problems by con­
temptuously dismissing their charges as too backward to understand en­
lightened, rational thought.One teacher residing in a resolutely traditional
Purépecha town wrote his superiors that "Duplicity and ingratitude are in­
herent defects in the inhabitants of this place ... [and] the children lie as
boldly and forget as easily as their parents do." His attitude no doubt ag­
" gravated his indigenous pupils' already manifest distaste for the outsiders
•:
;l ' that the government had sent into their midst.70
Yet many rural people thirsted for education, even if it meant attending
secular schools. Regardless of what the curmudgeonly villager from Cara­
pan told Sáenz, most rural folk believed that the ability to read and write
would broaden their children's economic horizons. School inspectors and
rural teachers sometirnes reponed bursts of popular enthusiasm for the
government's provision of free education, particularly in agrarista villages,
and they recorded some notable successes in motivating peasants to build
schoolhouses, attend night school, and cultivate new crops on the rural
schools' demonstration plots.In sorne instances, villagers built their own
school buildings to goad the government into sending them a teacher.71 In
others, the mere promise that the government would establish a school
provoked an outpouring of village support.
Village Revolutionaries I 37
In 1922, school inspector Cuca García encountered an unusually eager
reception when she visited a village located in the jutting mountains near
the mining town of Angangueo. As the inspector made her way toward
the village, news of her mission spread from house to house. She wrote
that along the way she met up with groups of men and women, some with
babes in arms, who accompanied her to the village in a sort of improvised
cavalcade.When she announced that enrollment was open, she reported
that "there were aged men, more than seventy years old, who cried like
children.The villagers also assented to use the parish church as a school­
house until they could build a new schoolhouse." 72 No doubt this sort of
enthusiasm sometimes dwelt more in the imaginations of schoolteachers
than in reality, but it is also clear that sorne villagers did make "beautiful
efforts" to bring government education to their cornmunities.73
Teachers in communities with a strong agrarista presence could count
on a contingent of people who were predisposed to support government
programs and who might at least tolerate pedagogical anticlericalism.
Most agraristas welcomed teachers' help in muddling through the intricare
paperwork that the federal bureaucracy required. The land reform ad­
ministration created an unprecedented demand for official correspondence
between reform beneficiaries and government agencies in the 1920s, and
whatever else could be said about them, nearly ali teachers had access to
paper and a means to write on it. 74 In many cases, teachers formalized
their consultative role by taking the office of secretary on ejido directive
committees, a position from which they either composed or typed out
most correspondence associated with the administration of an ejido.
Particularly driven educators sometimes took this practice a step fur­
ther and tried to cobble together agrarista groups from the ranks of more
or less unenthusiastic rural folk. On more than one occasion schoolteach­
ers requested ejidos for their communities without consulting villagers be­
forehand, and lesser transgressions cropped up even more frequently. It
was not w1eonm1011 for teachers to pad the list of people soliciting an ejido
by adding a few extra names, either to give favored people an entitlement
to land or to meet a mínimum number of petitioners required for the land
grant process to begin. 75 Teachers and school inspectors also encouraged
villagers to request ejidos as a way of resolving boundary disputes with
their neighbors-apparently the educators had the mistaken impression
 I 38 Village Revolutionaries
that drawing up maps of ejidos might settle decades-long rivalries between
adjacent communities. 76 Schoolteachers advised peasants on other matters
as well. For example, one schoolmaster convinced an entire township to
relocate its village to a nearby site beyond the influence of the local land­
lord "who did not want the villagers to continue farming." 77
Teachers and school inspectors typically made delibera te efforts to cul­
tivate working relationships with agrarista leaders who might serve as ex­
emplars of popular radicalism or who would at least badger villagers into
cooperating with them. While this strategy sometimes paid off, reachers'
alliances with agrarian headmen sometimes deteriorated into dependency
upan them. In Laguna Verde, far example, schoolreachers reponed that
rhey could neither denounce the abuses of strongman José Alcántara nor
assist his local opponents because they feared that he might sabotage
their work and keep his fallowers from sending their children to school. 78
The teachers desperately wanted the school to work because the villagers
had raised funds and donated che wood far its construction, bue they did
not want ro associate themselves with Alcántara's violent and oftentimes
arbitrary agrarian cacicazgo. 79
These teachers' dilemma showed just what a tenuous position school­
teachers occupied, even in communities where they had earned the respect
of villagers. In che end, the affinity between schoolteachers and agrarista
leaders of the 1920s was not precisely a two-way street. Teachers could
advise agrarista leaders, and they could install themselves in strategic po­
sitions within village administrations, but they plied their trade at the plea­
sure of agrarista strongmen who were the ultimate arbiters of local cul­
tural polirics. Without the help of caciques, teachers often found it difficult
to fill their class rolls or defend themselves from periodic acts of social
banditry by rural folk who hoped to stamp out the government's program
of secular education.
THE PRADO CACICAZGO
Respect, strong agrarian leadership, and schoolteacher militancy sorne­
times carne together to create a potent cacicazgo such as the one that the
Prado family headed up far nearly two decades in a low valley known as
La Cañada, near the town Zamora in the northwestern part of the state. La
Village Revolutionaries I39
Cañada embraced eleven indigenous Purépecha villages, most of which had
,,
lost rheir communal lands to outsiders between 1890 and 1900. Ernesto
Prado and his brothers Elíseo, Isaac, and Alberto were mestizos who had
become acculturated to sorne extent within La Cañada. Ernesto Prado rose \
to prominence beginning in 19n when he and Eliseo raised a few troops
and joined General Marcos V. Méndez in an operation against federal ru­
rales in the Michoacán hotlands. Two years later, when Victoriano Huerta 1
overthrew President Madero, he again led his people against federal
troops and hacienda home guards, this time at the orders of Zapatista gen­
eral Eutemio Figueroa, under whose nominal command Prado remained
until 1919. 80
Ali this revolutionary campaigning did nothing tangible to help the in­
digenous people of La Cañada to regain their lands, most of which they
had managed to hold onto until the final decades of the nineteenth cen­
tury. But sometime around 1895 the Cerda and Álvarez families moved
to La Cañada and began to buy up properties from independent small­
holders and corrupt village headmen. Weaving these small parcels to­
gether, the newcomers formed perhaps a few dozen small haciendas or
ranchos tbroughout the state, pushing villagers to find work in the fields
or eke out a living on less desirable land on the hillsides. Tbe appearance
of outsiders also provoked racial tensions. Most people in La Cañada 1
were Purépecha indigenous people who still spoke their native tongue 1
and practiced falk-Catbolic customs such as the performance of religious
dances and the use of the cargo system. The newcomers were mestizo
rancheros who considered themselves members of che middle class. They ¡¡
1
1
Jacer insisted that they had bought their lands "at a fair price," but they
nonetheless admitted they had never really lived on peaceful terms with
the majority of the "Indians" of La Cañada. 81
Ironically, it was the bandir leader and ex-soldier Inés Chávez García,
not the Prado clan, who provided villagers the chance to recover their
lands. In 1917, Chávez's column rode through the valley targeting the
mestizo-owned ranchos far plunder. According to a parish priest, Chávez
García wanted to find Maclovio Cerda "to hang him and take away every­
thing that he had," but the landowner escaped with his life by hiding out
in the priest's residence. The bandits' arrival sent the Cerda and Álvarez
families scurrying to the protection of Guadalajara, leaving their lands in
 140 Village Revolutionaries
Carapan, Etúcuaro, and Chilchota up for grabs. Other landowning mesti­
zos (who still used the racially loaded term gente de razón, or "thinking
people" to describe themselves) soon slipped away as well. 82
Unlike other areas Chávez visited, he did not ransack entire towns or
indiscriminately plunder La Cañada's agricultura! wealth. Instead, he con­
tented himself with allowing his troops and a number of combative towns­
people to destroy Soledad Cerda's corn mili in Chilchota. When the ban­
dits finally passed out of the area, the villagers simply moved onto the fine
empty lands (though another, rather unlikely, version of the story has it
that Chávez himself divided the land among the residents.) 83 Whatever the
case, villagers reclaimed the parcels that had earlier been communal lands
and armed themselves to defend their new possessions. 84 The rancheros
made a few desultory attempts to dislodge the interlopers, who were by
then under the influence of the Prado clan, but without success. Unable to
overcome the indigenous people's tenacity, the Álvarez family could do lit­
tle more than complain to the president. Events in La Cañada, they said,
proved that they lived "in a country of savages. " 85 The agraristas rebuffed
ali attempts to dislodge them and held onto their recaptured lands until
1921, wben Governor Múgica ratified their claim and allowed them to
keep what they had won. 86
The landowners' final trump card was to recruit the help of Zamora's
Bishop Manuel Fulcheri y Pietra Santa to try to convince the agraristas to
give back the disputed lands of their own free will. The Bishop personally
appeared in La Cañada in 1923 to plead the landowners' case, but still the
country people would not budge. Soon parish priests began to complain
of "the socialism and Agrarismo that are growing terribly in this valley,"
" a portent of the Prado brothers' decades-long anticlerical crusade. 87
,,
Múgica's fall from power in 1922 and Governor Sánchez Pineda's sub­
sequent crackdown on popular mobilization left the Prado clan temporar­
ily at the merey of the federal military and guardias blancas bankrolled by
Zamora-area hacienda owners. A few days after Múgica resigned, federal
tro ops captured Ernesto Prado and threatened to execute him, allegedly
for having ordered his men to fire on soldiers as they approached his
stronghold. The federals did not release him until after they had disarmed
the agrarista home guards, by wbjch time the new governor further under­
mined the clan by appointing members of a rival family dique to munici-
\
Village Revolutionaries 14I
pal offices throughout La Cañada. 88 These measures had little long-term
impact, however. Within two years of its dethronement, the Prado family
reestablished its preeminence with the help of incoming governor Enrique
Ramírez. To mark the occasion, the mayor of Zamora invited Ernesto
Prado, along with "the largest possible contingent of armed men," to at­
tend a campaign rally for presidential candidate Plutarco Elías Calles.89
When Cárdenas became governor a few years later, he firmed up the ca­
cique's position even further by granting him an in1portant position within
his new political organization.
The presence of the Prado brothers' armed contingent in the Zamora
parade underscores the martial aspect of caciques' rule. The brothers
could and did mobilize hundreds of men to fight on behalf of revolution­
ary governments. By the time Calles made his campaign stop in Zamora,
irregulars from La Cañada had already concluded a campaign against the
troops of Enrique Estrada during the de la Huerta rebellion. Two years
later, the family mobilized them again for a lengthy fight against the Cris­
tero rebels. Governors Ramírez and Cárdenas repaid the guardsmen's ef­
forts by shipping them arms and allowing them to confiscare horses from
the rebels. The mounts served as a further reminder of the Prados' ascen­
dancy in La Cañada, where few people could afford to travel by horse­
back.90 By 1931, educator Moisés Sáenz reported that "whenever Prado
wants, he has at his disposal an army of one hundred fifty or two hundred
Indians, which is more than enough to control La Cañada." 91
The Cristero rebellion also seems to have set the Prado brothers even
more firmly against the Catholic Church. By 1930, they had ordered the
closure of Carapan's chapel and prohibited the local religious leaders from
ringing the bells in Chilchota.92 Aspiring schoolteacher Sotelo-seconded
by the committee of prominent agraristas from the Cbilchota ejido­
launched what he called an anti-clerical and consciousness-raising cam­
paign the following year. He led the contingent of agraristas as they b roke
into the village church and hauled the wooden statues of saints clown from
the walls. They then piled the icons in front of the church and set them
aflame as a throng of people looked on. Afterwards, they returned to the
church and broke into the reliquary to destroy its contents.93 What had
started as the agraristas' vendetta against the established church had be­
come an attack on popular religion itself.
 142 Village Revolutionaries
The Prado brothers seem to have enjoyed reasonably widespread sup­
port in the mid-192os, when they spearheaded the creation of ejidos
throughout the region, but their campaign against organized religion was
bound to set the local agrarista militants against Catholic activists known
as fanatics, reactionaries, old-timers, or blessed ones.According to Sáenz,
the Catholics "probably comprised the majority, though they had little im­
portance in La Cañada... .They were nothing more than passive masses,
a bit more impenetrable and hostile than the others." 94 Fear of retribution
rather than support for the Prados' form of politics was probably what
kept villagers from challenging the caciques by that point. No doubt
Prado's own occasionally capricious use of violence helped to remind peo­
ple that bloodshed lay just under the surface of his dominion. As one of
his armed retainers later recalled, "He would take up arms in a flash ....
From time to time he killed people for no reason." 95
Although a strong undercurrent of violence accompanied cacique rule
in La Cañada, Ernesto Prado also projected his power in a way that local
people could understand and perhaps accommodate. Prado played on
. traditional understandings of authority by transforming himself into a
sort of permanent revolutionary cargo holder; that is, he acted as a re­
"'
spected villager who funded community-wide religious festivities over the
course of a liturgical year. Travelers through La Cañada wrote that he
took great pleasure in staging typical Purépecha spectacles for them, es­
pecially the dance of los viejitos (the little old men). He also got along
well for a time with the local priest (though not with the bishop in Za­
mora), and he liked to marcb at the head of religious processions that
honored important local saints.96 Despite the occasional attacks on reli­
gious statuary, the wbole of the local agrarista movement in La Cañada
was in fact relatively traditional in its members' attitude toward religious
matters. Sáenz observed that on actual matters of religious practice the
"fanatics" differed little from the agraristas: "Both of them," he wrote of
conditions in 1934, "would have enjoyed a good mass and a saint's <lay
celebration with lots of drumming, fireworks, and traditional dances." 97
Nor was Prado the only agrarista leader to express his upstart regional
leadership through the idiom of convencional village institutions. Primo
Tapia had also adopted the trappings of authority by patronizing village
religious fiestas in his native Naranja. According to anthropologist Paul
Village Revolutionaries 143
Friedrich, Tapia played the role of Lucifer in the mystery play during the
1925 celebration of Our Father Jesus, "thus epitomizing his intuitive
sense of leadership in a culture ful! of mummery, masks, and other forms
of personification." He then plowed the proceeds from the fiesta into lit­
igation associated with the establishment of Naranja's ejido.98 So central
did Tapia become to the community's cycle of religious festivals that sorne
villagers considered his death at the hands of federal soldiers in 1925 a
"martyrdom." When thirty infants and children lost their lives to disease
and illness in the months after Tapia's death, sorne local women report­
edly concluded that "the Virgin needed thirty angelitos for the two choirs
that would sing for Primo as he entered heaven." 99 Like the Prados, Tapia
apparently hoped to cap into the power that culturally accepted dances
and authority structures exercised on the imaginations of villagers. Un­
like che more traditional cargo holders selected by community members,
however, the agrarista headmen both held the purse strings and con­
trolled the timing of village festivaIs.The dance steps may have remained
the same as in earlier times, but now agraristas called the tunes and chan­
neled the proceeds .
Eventually the Prado brothers' anticlerical campaign descended into
an effort to regulare traditional fiestas and produced irreconcilable fric­
tion between agraristas and the older generation of "blessed ones" in La
Cañada.In 193 r, for example, Alberto Prado prohibited the residents of
Ichán from celebrating Christmas Eve with dance and song, leading an­
guishecl villagers to complain that in earlier times
we Indians used a public corral for our entertainment, [and] we
had a few dances, songs, and speeches.Now we are not permitted
to do anything, not even playing music inside our houses or resi­
dences to amuse ourselves for a few hours, and the municipal au­
thorities do not just control civic matters but even within our own
homes.Ali that is missing is for them to prohibir us from eating ...
for they have enslaved us and threatened us in various ways.100
Prado's decision to ban the celebrations sent a clear message that he would
tolerate dances only as long as he alone determined their timing and mean­
ing. A minor rebellion erupted the following year at Christmastime when
the community dancers refused to abide by the Prado brothers' rules. Be-
 144 Vi/lage Revolutionaries
cause the brothers had recently fallen from grace with Michoacán's new
anti-agrarista governor, who had ordered them to demobilize the militia
and vacate their government positions, the move incited the region's "fa­
natics," as one agrarista described them, to take to the streets "praising
Christ the King and shouting 'Long live the Catholics and death to agraris­
tas! "' Afterwards, they broke into the houses of a couple of prominent vil­
lage revolutionaries and intimidated their families.101
When Cárdenas become president of Mexico later that year, he allowed
the Prado family to reassert its preeminence in La Cañada.Ernesto Prado
served as a loyal lieutenant to Cárdenas in the early 1930s during his gov­
ernorship, and he <lid so again when Cárdenas attempted to carry out his
social agenda as president. Nevertheless, clashes such as those in Ichán
continued to crop up, threatening to throw La Cañada's eleven townships
into perpetua! chaos.In 1940, Cárdenas ordered Francisco Múgica and a
picket of soldiers to scuttle the Prado cacicazgo. By that time, the Prado
family's old-line agrarista attitudes seemed out of touch with the concilia­
tory attitude that Cárdenas had adopted.102
THE QUESTION OF REPRESENTATION
Long before their inflexibility cost them their preeminence in La Cañada,
the Prado brothers had learned to describe La Cañada to outsiders as a
revolutionary bastion peopled by die-hard agraristas.In the r930s, rural
leaders routinely described La Cañada as "a quintessential agrarista re­
gion" and reminded politicians that the people there had always "col­
Iaborated with the Government that emanated from the Revolution." 1 º3
Prominent visitors to the region were introduced to the Prado family as
"veteran revolutionaries" who were "well disposed ...to support ali good
things." 104 In other words, village revolutionaries and outsiders alike de­
scribed La Cañada as a more or less undifferentiated mass of agraristas
under the Prados' command, even though a substantial number of the
people there wanted nothing to do with the politics of agrarismo.
Agrarian headmen often tried to portray themselves as the spokesmen
for the supposedly homogenous and unified people of their villages.In this
way, agraristas discursively equated the generic term "the people" (el
pueblo) with the much more specific group of individuals who actually
\
Village Revolutionaries 145
supported them, that is, "the true agraristas." 105 Schoolteachers also tended
to think of Michoacán's complex rural society as a more or less undiffer­
entiated mass of campesinos who only needed the guiding hand of an ed­
ucated outsider to achieve their revolutionary potential. As schoolteacher
Salvador Sotelo recalled, he and his peers regarded themselves as "the
• "106
guides, the agrarian leaders, and the oIder brothers of the co1111nu111'ty.
Therefore, it was commonplace for schoolteachers to write, as one from
the western township of Coalcomán did, that "the people in general are
becoming entirely aware of our educational work to benefit them." 107 (In
this particular case the teacher's optimism was a bit premature. Coalco­
mán would soon distinguish itself as a focal point of the antigovernment
Cristero rebellion in Michoacán.)
Village revolutionaries' propensity to portray themselves as the politi­
cal and intellectual leaders of an undifferentiated, revolutionary populace
thus misrepresented two central aspects of rural life in Michoacán. First,
despite village revolutionaries' claims, most rural folk rejected essential
aspects of revolutionary cultural politics. Anticlericalism, secular educa­
tion, and the ideology of class struggle ali provoked widespread protests.
Sizable numbers of people opposed the land reform program as well. In
ali but the handful of villages where agraristas made up the majority, it
was simply a myth that the pueblo could be seen as a mass of revolution­
ary and class-conscious campesinos. Even in agrarista-dominated vil­
lages, internecine squabbles often broke out between rival family diques,
both of which might claim to be the true revolutionaries.108
Second, the village revolutionaries' portrayal implied that rural folk
and politicians conceived of the revolution in a similar way.The image of
a united agrarista pueblo misrepresented the reality of social strife within
fragmented and contentious rural communities, but it was nonetheless an
important trape in the new language of class struggle that village revolu­
tionaries invented during the r92os. Their partisan rendering of the "agra­
rista pueblo" helped conjure up a sphere altogether different from the
real world of contention and violence, a world in which villagers stood
together to exact revolutionary vengeance against iniquitous hacienda
owners.It was an imagined world, one that schoolteachers and headmen
consistently invoked as they addressed rural people.As events of the later
1920s would soon demonstrate, this new language of village revolution
 146 Village Revolutionaries
helped to mobilize agraristas during Michoacán's darkest moments of so­
cial fragmentation.
FROM EL PUEBLO TO POSTREVOLUTIONARY CAMPESINOS
In the 1920s, the public sphere of agrarista-dominated villages over­
flowed with the words of village revolutionaries. Like any vernacular, the
idiom of agrarismo was the collaborative product of various social sec­
tors-in this case headmen, schoolteachers, and rural folk-rather than
tbe handiwork of any one person. Almost all local civic celebrations, po­
litical rallies, and agrarista meetings culminated with a patriotic oration
by a schoolteacher, the local agrarista chieftain, or both. Although most
of these speeches went unrecorded, it is nevertheless possible to glean
their nature, based on the fragmentary record of petitions, broadsheets,
"· and an occasional transcript of a village revolutionary's public speech.
These documents reflect the existence of a class-based agrarista idiom
that emphasized peasants' purportedly common, objective material inter­
ests-particularly the continuation and expansion of land reform-and
portrayed the fulfillment of these interests as the stuff of "revolution." 109
Sorne components of village revolutionaries' discourse merely repro­
duced the Sonoran State's vague platitudes about the value of modern­
ization, social justice, and revolutionary patriotism. Schoolteachers in
·,,' particular tended to make speeches colored by revolutionary paternalism.
They harangued peasants with lectures that argued that "education is the
foundation of progress." They praised the federal government's mighty
efforts "to improve definitively the great majority of our Workers and
Campesinos, as well as its tireless labor to incorporare the indigenous
races completely into our modern sociecy." 110 Such speeches sent rural
people the message that the revolution would change and modernize their
consciousness and economic culture regardless of what rural folk them­
selves desired. Indeed, it seems as if the message was somehow intended
for the consumption of urban, middle-class politicians rather than for the
villagers that the orators actually addressed.
Another variant of village revolutionary discourse existed, however,
one that dealt wich issues more directly rooted in villagers' own experi­
ences. In what must have seemed to most rural folk as a more resonant
Village Revolutionaries 147
cype of speech, schoolteachers and, particularly, agrarista leaders depicted
che revolutionary process in Michoacán as a struggle over access to land.
In sorne cases, village revolutionaries established this rhetorical link by
simply declaring that land reform was a central aim of "the revolution."
Ar other times they asserted that postrevolutionary policics had united
"the people" with the government and set them in opposition to "coun­
terrevolutionary" landowners, the clergy, and "fanatical" Catholics. These
so-called counterrevolutionaries were depicted as threatening agraristas,
che land reform program, and the revolution as a whole. In either case,
village-level agrarista discourses represented the revolution in Michoacán
as a struggle in which rural folk (eventually coded as compesinos) took a
leading role.
Agraristas had started to depict the revolution as a struggle over land
almost befare the dust had settled from che last revolutionary battles. In
r9r5, the representatives of the village of Tarejero wrote Michoacán's
Constitutionalist governor to request the return of village lands. Juan Cruz
de la Cruz was a country lawyer and soon-to-be agrarista leader of che vil­
lage. Acting, he said, on behalf of the entire population, he initiated what
would be a decade-long contest for lands that the neighboring hacienda
claimed as its own. Cruz wrote that his followers were "heartened today
by che promises of the triumphant revolution." He said the villagers now
assumed that "our indigenous race will be protected" and that the com­
munity would soon receive "the portion of our property located in the
marshlands that the 'Cantabria' hacienda has drained of water and
usurped." 111 A few rnonths later, Cruz repeated these themes in a letter
complaining about che <lay-labor contraer that villagers had recently signed
with local haciendas and added chat only "the rich benefit" from che un­
fair contraer. The field hands of Tarejero should be allowed to seek new
terms because, he wrote, "we hope that revolutionary promises will im­
part justice to us." 112
In both of these rnissives, Cruz associated "the revolution" with issues
of immediate importance to the community, such as land and wages.
Cruz expected the government to support its loyal citizens to settle seores
with "the rich." He also took it for granted that agrarian reform lay near
the top of che political agenda in che heady days of 1915. He may even
have employed language such as his reference to "che triumphant revolu-
I48 Village Revolutionaries
tion" in a way he thought the governor would find pleasing.113 Yet even
if Cruz was trying to make instrumental use of the politicians' own rhet­
oric and employ a terminology that the governor wanted to hear, the fact
still remains that he consciously depicted the members of his local move­
ment as the rightful beneficiaries of government policies-that is, as de­
serving revolutionary citizens.
Michoacán's village revolutionaries continued to demand the benefits
of revolutionary citizenship in subsequent years. Like the refrain of a well­
rehearsed song, their correspondence appealed to Article 27 of the Con­
stitution of 1917, which promised land reform. Agrarista leaders from
Villa Jiménez (not far from Tarejero) made exemplary use of such lan­
guage in a petition directed to President Obregón in 1922, in which they
reminded him that "agrarian reform is one of the core tenets of the revo­
lution." More than simply repeating a promise of the revolution, these
agraristas insisted that Obregón was "obliged" to implement land reform
because "torrents of blood have been spilt to bring men like you to power,
who have libertarian ideals." 114 This sort of reasoning took Cruz's ideas
one step further. There is a reproach that borders on a threat in these
words. The writers entreated the president to fulfill his revolutionary duty
to carry out the land reform but at the same time warned him not to take
lightly the "sacrifices" that "the people" have made in the past and, they
insinuated, might be willing to make again in the future.
Some rural leaders made it even more explicit that they would rake
matters into their own hands if the government did not meet their expec­
tations. "Agrarian Representative" Carmen Alvarado of the southern
tierra caliente hotlands village of Churumuco directed a letter to Presi­
dent Calles in 1925. He explained that landowners had sent armed men
to burn villagers' houses and intimidate those who had recendy received
an ejido. In the most respectful of terms, Alvarado explained that he and
his companions might resort to "violent and illegaJ means" to defend
themselves, albeit means they were prepared to "justify before our gov­
ernment." Alvarado wrote that the villagers would do whatever it took
to defend the newly won ejido, which he described as "this piece of land,
this precious fruit of the revolution, which is nothing Jess than our patri­
mony."115 In other words, he not only admonished Calles for leaving his
followers at the merey of their enemies, he also articulated a core tenet of
Village Revolutionaries 149
agrarismo: that the revolution guaranteed rural folk an inalienable right
to the land they tilled.
Agrarista discourse in the mid-r92os acguired a more challenging and
less collaborative ring than that of Juan Cruz's 1915 missive requesting
the fulfillment of revolutionary "promises." This new, more belligerent
tone permeated a 1927 letter to President Calles sent by Pascual Aviña, an
agrarista leader from the village of Atacheo. Aviña explained that a pow­
erful local family had gained a stranglehold on the best ejido parcels and
that the agraristas were now worse off with their ejido plots than
when we did not have them, and even worse than we sharecropped
for the "Santiaguillo" Hacienda. At least then we could keep the
sacred product of our work, which is why we now say: How are
we campesinos supposed to benefit from the proclamation of an
agrarian law, enacted only after the sacrifice of human blood,
and from our lands? It is clear that as long as the government
<loes not eliminare the eternal exploiters of campesino workers
[el campesino trabajador], the real producers of wealth will always
live in ignominy and misery and will continue to lack bread and
clothing for their children and wives.116
Aviña's words did more than illuminate the gulf between the practice of
land reform and revolutionary promises of popular empowerment. They
also portrayed rural folk as campesinos exploited by bloodthirsty and im­
plicitly counterrevolutionary political bosses. Aviña identified rural folk
as "campesinos" who were not merely the proper beneficiaries of revolu­
tionary promises of land reform but also had an even more universal
claim to the land based on their status as the "real producers of wealth."
Campesinos, in Aviña's understanding, had become a privileged class of
revolutionary citizens. On this score at least, agraristas such as Aviña
could count on the moral support of schoolteachers.
Like village headmen, schoolteachers tended to understand campesino
politics in the stark terms of oppressor and oppressed. As early as 1921,
Cuca García, the communist school inspector who collaborated with
Governor Múgica, understood "campesinos" to be rural folk who peti­
tioned for land reform parcels. She referred to anyone who failed this ide­
ological litmus test as field hands, villagers, or simply Indians. 117 Other
 150 Village Revolutionaries
teachers soon broadened this concept and began to conceive of campe­
sinos as people who shared a common economic status rather than a rad­
icalized political outlook. By the late r92os, teachers regularly referred to
ali rural people of modest means-poor villagers, field hands, and land
reform beneficiaries-as "campesinos," albeit campesinos who sometimes
needed education to recognize their oppressed social status. 118 Part of the
devotion that these and other teachers felt for the idealized, revolutionary
campesino no doubt derived from the prevalent ethos in rhe state capital,
where Lázaro Cárdenas was governor. They may also have been influ­
enced by the nearly messianic ideology emanating from the Department
of Public Education in Mexico City, which understood its mission as
nothing less than the "spiritual development" of campesinos. 119
Most of the young and idealistic schoolteachers who took to the coun­
tryside in the revolurion's wake needed no such prodding. Like Aviña,
... rhey typically felt that rhe consummation of rhe revolution lay in the cre­
ation of modern campesinos who were class-conscious, revolutionary cit­
izens. As a fust step, village revolurionaries believed that it was necessary
to organize the campesinos politically. As schoolteacher Isabel Rodríguez
told her superiors, "I have told the men around here about the advantage
of [joining] campesino organizations, cooperatives, unions, and so on,
and I think they are beginning to come around to that way of rhink­
l.•.
ing." 12 º As it turned out, her optimistic assessment for her school in the
village of Cofradía was a bit premature. Though rhe thirty-eight children
graduated from the first year classes, the religious conservatives in the vil­
lage began to persuade students to skip class, labeling the school "anti­
reJigious and Bolshevik." Faced with the religious backlash, the Depart­
ment of Public Education closed the school only a year after it opened. 121
CONCLUSION: DEFINING THE ENEMY
In the 1920s and early 1930s, village revolutionaries became convinced
that "counterrevolutionaries" opposed not only land reform and secular
education but the empowerment of rural people as well. The concept of
a right-wing conspiracy against revolutionary values was a fundamental
pillar of official revolutionary ideology, but more importantly ir con­
formed with village revolurionaries' own experiences. Events like the re-
Village Revolutionaries I 5r
ligious campaign against the Cofradía school, the burning of agraristas'
1/
houses in Churumuco, and rhe chronic rivalries setting agraristas against
landowners and "fanatics" in La Cañada seem to have convinced most
schoolteachers and agrarista leaders that social harmony was a danger­
ous fantasy. Village revolutionaries understood these events to indicare
\
that Catholics and landowners were hopelessly opposed to the interests
of campesinos.
Village revolutionaries complained throughout the 1920s, for instance,
rhat hacienda owners attempted to intimidare them into giving up the
struggle over land. Agrarista leaders repeatedly asserted that landowners
had mounted "a terrible campaign" against rural folk who had requested
land reform parcels, or that hacienda dependents had forced them into a
"terrible fight" for their very lives. 122 Agrarian leaders also complained
1
about the machinations of landowners in the courtroom, where, as one
agrarista headman observed, the rich expected judges to rule on their be­
'
half simply "because they possess huge fortunes." 123
Along these same lines, the Prado brothers of La Cañada portrayed
hacienda owners and rancheros as bloodthirsty lords of the land who
were little better than a throwback to the bad old days of Porfirian dicta­
torship. In 192 5, Ernesto Prado printed a poster accusing the owners of
a neighboring estate of having purposely slaughtered four agraristas from
La Cañada, whom they had supposedly mistaken for bandits. According
to rhe Prados, the "horrible crime" would not undermine the agraristas'
resolve to press on with their struggle for land and the right to till it.
Rather, he wrote, the event "has merely served to intensify our hatred for
rhe exploitative estate owners, who do not even deserve to live among
us." The poster insisted that the murders proved that hacienda owners
were nothing more than animals, or, worse yet, a landowner "hydra"
that "in its drive to recuperare its lost power has not satiated its thirst for
blood and continues to assassinate our brothers in arms." 124 In a letter to
President Calles, the Prados characterized the hacienda owners as an "an­
cient phalanx of assassins who emanated from the feudalism of Porfirio
Díaz." 125 More than a hundred agraristas whom the Prados called to­
gether to discuss the murders put their names to the letter.
Agraristas described the collusion of local authorities with landowners
in similar terms. In 1923 Primo Tapia complained that Governor Sánchez
 I 52 Village Revolutionaries Village Revolutionaries 153

Pineda's goveniment winked at hacienda owners' aggression toward rural tas." 129 Sorne rural leaders believed that the clergy represented a new and
folk. "Most if not ali of the política! authorities of this State are 'upright
people' (gente del orden), that is, they are under the thumb of the land­
potentially more dangerous type of counterrevolutionary who, unlike the
landowners, could mobilize the powerful religious sentiments of rural peo­ t/
owners," he wrote. "A Mafia, Mr. Secretary, a genuine Mafia oppresses ple and turn them against the agraristas. \
the proletariat of Michoacán." 126 In lumping hacienda owners, upper-class The Cristero rebellion that erupted in 1926 reinforced agraristas' bud­
"upright people," and "political authorities" together, Tapia's outlook re­ ding emphasis on campesino struggle. The mobilization of a good num­
flected the increasingly common tendency of village revolutionaries to cast ber of rancheros and priests (along with thousands of rural people) ap­
ali of their enemies as one united front of counterrevolutionaries bent on peared to sorne rural leaders like a showdown between the exploiters and
undermining agrarismo. The other members of the "mafia," other writers the exploited. 130 Viewed through the lens of class, the Cristero rebellion
would soon explain, consisted primarily of the prelates who anathema­ appeared intelligible to agraristas as an unholy alliance of rich property
tized the land reform and collaborated with the landowners to stamp out owners, powerful clergymen, and misguided, "fanatical" country people.
the agrarismo. Indeed, in many village revolutionaries' writing, the clergy Yet the Catholic militants' own perspective was rather different. To them,
and landowners were essentially interchangeable: by the mid-1920s, agra­ the notion of class struggle was beside the point, if not outright anath­
rista leaders began to eguare "counterrevolution" with "the Clergy and ema. To most Cristero rebels, the battle had nothing to do with defend­
Landowners." 127 ing the rich against the poor and everything to do with keeping the irre­
Agraristas accused priests of serving as the toadies of hacienda owners ligious and increasingly intrusive government from undermining the moral
and, worse yet, of betraying their holy office. As early as 1923, village rep­ bases of their communities.
resentatives in the militant stronghold of Tiríndaro on the Zacapu marsh
denounced one priest as "the consummate enemy of agraristas." They
called him an "instrument of the money-grubbers [aventureros] who own
the 'Cantabria' Hacienda" and accused him of preaching against agra­
rismo from the pulpit. The priest, it appears, had called on his parish­
ioners to resist the land reform in the name of Christ the King and the
Holy Religion, much to the distress of the agraristas who had "languished
under the whip of capitalist tyranny and regard the allotment of land as
.,
the only ray of hope." 128 The priest, they said, should be drummed out of
'
the community.
This sort of popular anticlericalism grew in intensity in the r92os as
agraristas and parish priests dug in their heels. A chorus of complaints ar­
rived in government offices about priests who prohibited their parish­
ioners from attending school or sparked "terrible division" within rural
comrnunities by fi!ling their serrnons with "derogatory words aimed at
workers and others who do not agree wit!L their ideas." Village revolu­
tionaries accused priests of orchestrating anti-agrarista spectacles in which
they led antirevolutionary villagers in "vulgar" chants cheering the priests
and wishing "death to the Committee [of the ejido] and to ali agraris-

5 a chapter of the ultramontane youth society known as the Association of
Refusing the Revolution: Catholic Nationalism
and the Cristero Rebellion
IN JULY 1926, Mexico's bishops took dramatic action to counter anticler­
ical legislation that President Calles and severa! governors had enacted
over the previous months. The bishops ordered priests to cease giving holy
sacraments, in essence declaring an ecclesiastical strike. Calles had af­
fronted Catholic sensibilities by closing convents and parochial schools,
placing legal curbs on religious expression, and tolerating rabidly anticler­
ical governors in the states of Jalisco and Tabasco. These assaults on reli­
gious life did more than enrage churchmen; it moved lay people to boycott
commerce and government services in a bid to weaken the Calles regime.
By late 1926 Catholic rnilitants had rebelled against the government in
north central and western Mexico. Their battle cry of "¡ Viva Cristo Rey!"
•.
("Long live Christ the King!"), soon earned them the epithet of "Cris­
teros." In Michoacán, as many as fifty thousand people, or around one of
every fifteen inhabitants, may have participated in the Cristero rebellion at
one time or another. Thousands of Cristeros, federal soldiers, and agraris­
tas lost their lives in the fighting, which finally sputtered to a halt in 1929.
At that point, church leaders agreed to reopen churches on the govern­
ment's terms, and the guerrillas reluctantly returned to their homes. 1
The rebellion in Michoacán began two months after the bishops had
suspended services, when eighty-five rebels calling themselves the Anacleto
González Flores Brigade crossed over the border from the state of Guana­
juato. Leading the brigade were Luis Navarro Origel and his brothers,
Ignacio, Jesús, and Manuel, whom..Michoac�s Archbishop Ruiz y Flores
later described as "exernplary Catholics of good distinction in those parts."2
Twenty-nine-year-old Luis had attended parochial school and made his liv­
ing as a relatively prosperous ranchero. As a lay activist, he had founded
154
Refusing the Revolution I5 5
Catholic labor unions in severa! parts of Guanajuato as well as organizing
Mexican Catholic Youth, or ACJM. He proved no less energetic as a mil­
itary leader. Federal soldiers guickly stamped out his revolt after two
pitched battles in Guanajuato, but he and Ignacio escaped to the moun­
tains outside of Tancítaro, Michoacán. Once there, they reorganized their
corps and established contact with local villagers.3
In the mountains, Luis Navarro adopted the nom de guerre Fermín
Gutiérrez. He maintained close contacts with the newly formed League
for the National Defense of Religious Freedom (Liga Nacional Defensora
de la Libertad Religiosa, or LNDLR), an organization founded by middle­
class lay Catholics that by 1926 claimed to direct the rebellion on a na­
tional leve!. The league named Navarro regional military commander of
southwestern Michoacán, and he established his base of operations near
the town of Coalcomán, not far from the Colima border. There he pieced
together a formidable army of rancheros. In April 1927, he and his troops
occupied Coalcomán's main sguare, an assault that unfolded "without
bloodshed," because federal troops had evacuated the plaza as the rebels
approached. 4
The federal army eventually regained control of the town, but the
fiercely independent rancheros of the Coalcomán region completely ex­
punged most other traces of government authority from the area. They
then sent a notice to Mexico City saying that they had declared their re­
gion an "autonomous republic." Many of these western Michoacán ran­
cheros resented having the outsider Navarro named as commander, but
he nonetheless managed to lead his reluctant troops until his death in bat­
tle in August 1928. By then, his fighters had taken control of most of
southwestern Michoacán, where the tierra caliente hotlands meet the
Sierra de Coalcomán. The region was ideally suited to guerrilla warfare,
and the Cristeros dominated the region for nearly a year to come. 5 Other
Cristero movements soon sprang up throughout Michoacán, but no­
where did the rebellion bum brighter than in Coalcomán.
Unlike the relatively homogenous and well-organized rebellions in the
neighboring state of Colima and in the Los Altos region in Jalisco, most
Cristero guerrillas in Michoacán lacked a strong regional leader W<e Na­
varro who had firm ties with the league. Outside of the Coalcomán area,
I56 Refusing the Revolution
Cristeros of Coalcomán. The priest at the center may be Epifanio Madrigal. To
his right is Luis Navarro Origel. Courtesy IIH-UMSNH.
the revolt in Michoacán was essentially an escalation of existing low­
level warfare that conservative rural people and middle-class Catholic
activists had kept up against revolutionary groups ever since Múgica's
time. In the years and months before the outbreak of armed hostilities,
urban Catholic organizations had led a series of antigovernment pro­
tests, and antirevolutionary rural groups had kept up a continuous ha­
rassment of agraristas. Once the shooting began, the locus of contention
shifted primarily to the countryside, where the insurgency was prose­
cuted by a shifting and often uncoordinated assemblage of raricheros from
the center and west, Purépecha people from the highlands, smallholders
from Coalcomán, hacienda field hands from around Pátzcuaro, and a
few ex-agraristas from the Morelia and Zacapu areas. These groups had
only two things in common: they detested the invasive, anticlerical poli­
tics of the Sonoran State, and they ali felt threatened in some way by the
redistribution of hacienda lands. 6
Land reform had produced a formidable array of enemies by 1926.
Many people in ranchero communities regarded the land reform as an as-
Refusing the Revolution 15 7
sault on individual property rights and thought that villagers who peti­
tioned for land reform parcels (ejidos) were "dishonorable people" who
only wanted "that other people's land be given to them." Most rancheros 1/
lived in constant fear that the government would confiscate their hard-won
lands and turn them over to undeserving "lndians." 7 Likewise, it appears
\
that many hacienda field hands worried that their jobs would disappear if
the government redistributed the croplands. Although hacienda owners
rarely made public declarations supporting the rebellion (lest they provoke
the president), many of them gave a wink of approval to their employees
who joined the revolt. Finally, the land reform often caused friction in in­
digenous areas. The anarchic manner in which the government selected
lands to be used as ejidos deepened the rivalries that often existed between
adjacent peasant communities, particularly when the leaders of one com­
munity requested lands that their neighbors had laid claim to. 8
The rural groups threatened by agrarian reform <lid not share a similar
ethnic background or economic status. Many indigenous people who col­
lectively administered their lands in the rugged highlands of the Meseta
Tarasca <lid not even speak the same language as lowland rancheros who
lived only a few dozen kilometers away. Rancheros and hacienda field
hands depended heavily on the cash economy, whereas many of the rebel
villagers <lid not. On the other hand, these rural groups' visceral hatred for
President Calles's anticlerical measures rivaled that of churchmen and
middle-class lay activists. The Catholicism of the bishops was not the
same thing as the Catholicism of traditional Purépecha communities, of
course, but it did provide enough common ground that the language of
militant Catholicism rather than the one of property rights served as the
Cristero rallying cry.
The politicized rhetoric of Catholicism around which the rebellion was
built placed church leaders and Catholic laymen in an ideal position to
speak on behalf of ali Cristeros and allowed them to portray the rebellion
as a movement for religious freedom. Yet neither the Catholic hierarchy
nor the middle-class LNDLR fully represented ali the concerns of discon­
tented rw·al people. Catholic leaders adamantly rejected official anticleri­
calism, but they paid relatively little attention to the issues associated with
land reform. Moreover, these middle- and upper-class leaders intended to
transform Mexican society in ways that most Cristero foot soldiers never
 158 Refusing the Revolution
contemplated. Ever since the late nineteenth century, Catholic activists had
attempted to realize their vision of a Catholic, paternalist form of Mexi­
can nationhood . Many of them hoped tbat the Cristero rebellion would
somehow allow tbem to realize their vision of Catholic nationalism or at
a mínimum keep the government from stamping it out altogether.
In this sense, the agraristas who helped to put clown the rebellion did
more than defend the land reform . They also helped to ensure that their
understanding of revolutionary citizenship would prevail.
CATHOLIC NATIONALISM
Ir might seem a bit incongruous to speak of "Catholic nationalism.,, Most
analysts argue that nationalism is a sort of civic doctrine that functionally
.·-,,., supplants existing religious beliefs. Nationalism, so the argument goes, is a
quintessentially secular form of identity. As people develop a sense of be­
longing to the imagined national community, the ideals of citizenship and
civic devotion displace older solidarities based on guilds, home communi­
ties, religions, and (sometimes) ethnicities.9 But nationalism is considerably
more complex than that. In Michoacán, a determined group consisting of
,,
1 tbe state's high-ranking prelates, self-identified "Catholic" politicians, and
a smattering of conservative property owners had labored for decades to
�' ..
construct a fully elaborated nationalist project. In the Catholics' view, na­
tionhood derived from shared religious faith in combination with distinctly
modern understandings about the need to adapt to the economic and so­
cial realities of the early twentieth century.
This Catholic nationalist counter-elite embraced a view of society that
i ..r,.. was fundamentally incompatible with that of the Sonoran presidents.
Based in large part on the teachings of Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Re­
rum novarum, Catholic nationalists imagined a nation in which the inter­
ests of employer (who had sacred rights to property) and employee (who
had sacred rights to a just recompense for labor) became harmonized. The
unity of purpose would ensure a righteous society under the tutelage of the
Church. 1° Catholic nationalists did not deny the existence of richer and
poorer social classes; on the contrary, early-twentieth-century Social Ca­
tholicism explicitly sought to resolve the "social question" posed by in­
dustrialization and the consequent emergence of a new social sector made
Refusing the Revolution I 59
up of earners who often developed adversaria! relationships with their em­
1
ployers.11 Catholic nationalists sought to defuse these social tensions, ar­
guing that socioeconomic distinctions should not supercede the broader ,.
commonalities that bound Mexicans together in a single Catholic culture.
By 1920, Mexico's bishops were articulating a nationalist discourse that
\
condemned class struggle in which people who possessed "worldly goods"
(bienes de fortuna) were set against workers who earned their pay by sell­
ing rheir labor. They counseled that both groups should "harmonize their
interests to aid each other, and, through mutual service, fulfill the obliga­
tions of justice and charity which bind them together.,, 12 Catholic politi­
cians and Michoacán's ecclesiastical hierarchy insisted that the improve­
ment of Mexican society lay not with the divisive politics of class struggle
but rather with the creation of a "social order divinely written in the
pages of the Gospels.,, 13
Like their revolutionary counterparts, Catholic leaders believed in the
value of economic modernization, and they creared institutions to raise the
standard of living for subsistence farmers and wage laborers. They also
believed in the value of education and other initiatives to "improve" Mi­
choacán's lower classes and to teach them how to participare in Mexico's
capitalist economy. 14 The similarities ended there, however. Instead of bas­
ing their nationalist project on the promises of the revolution, Catholic na­
tionalists appealed to a long intellectual tradition that associated national
identity with the Catholic faith. They invoked symbols such as the Virgin
of Guadalupe and Christ the King, which had long been associated with
the movement for Mexican nationhood and political autonomy. 15 In Mi­
choacán, they also built their identity around such local figures as Agustín
de Iturbide, the conservative Michoacán general who consummated Mex­
ican independence from Spain, as well as around regionally revered icons
such as the Miraculous Christ in San Juan Parangaricutiro and Our Father
of Arará near Morelia.
Catholic nationalists envisioned society as a terrestrial paradise, a
community of virtuous people who would strive to make the nation into
a simulacrum of heaven. "The nation," wrote one prelate, "is nothing
more than man who in the pknitude of his social life is as perfect as he
can be here on earth before we can arrive to the common Nation, the per­
fect, sovereign nation of heaven.,, 16 Just as God was the patriarch of
 160 Refusing the Revolution
heaven and earth, Catholic nationalists believed that wise and paternal
leaders should rule in Mexico.
Indeed, Catholic nationalists often described the nation as one big farn­
ily and expressed their hope to unite Mexicans under a moral and just
government dedicated to safeguarding its "children." 17 This was an ideo­
logically charged notion because the traditional family was simultaneously
a holistic and mutually supportive social unit and yet a site of social dif­
ferentiation. After ali, families had specific and fundamentally unequal
roles far each member, based on each person's age, gender, and relation­
ship to the others, with the father standing at the pinnacle of familia! au­
thority, fallowed by the rnother, and then the children. Yet the effort was
worth it, in the Catholics' estimation, because creation of such a utopian
nation would ease Mexicans' entry into the afterlife in holy paradise. 18
"""..
Like the revolutionaries, Catholic nationalists propagated their ideas
and invoked an imagined community by using newspapers and f!yers.
They placed great stock in the written word's ability to mold readers'
thought and to maintain the unity of their movement. 19 They, too, en­
countered internecine dissension, but the continua! need to defend them­
selves against revolutionary policies was a powerful inducement to keep
up a unified front. As the venerable archbishop of Michoacán, Leopoldo
Ruiz, put it:
Our world is now suffering the doleful consequences of liberalism,
which in separating societies, families, and individuals from God,
[and] in extending liberty beyond its just limits, has provoked a
veritable anarchy in the most fundamental ideals of civilization,
relaxing the most fundamental bonds of faith, obedience to
authority, respect far holy matrimony, prívate property and
even morals. Socialism and communism uproot communities
and drag them toward anarchy, and the Catholic Church is the
only dike that holds them back; it alone maintains and defends
the principies that can save society.20
In other words, a Catholic-based farm of nationhood provided an anti­
dote to the entire universe of revolutionary doctrines, including liberal­
ism, socialism, and communism. In Ruiz's view, and that of the Catholic
nationalists generally, the fate of society itself lay in the balance. Religion,
Refusing the Revolution 161
family, and traditional social hierarchies-not enlightenment, seculariza­
tion, and revolutionary redemption of the lower classes-would preserve
and improve the nation.
THE CATHOLIC NATIONALIST PROJECT
Catholic nationalists intended to refashion both the consciousness and
material lives of the popular classes. The faunding documents of a Cath­
olic political party in Zamora, far example, proclaimed the party 's inten­
tion to improve "the material, intellectual, and moral conditions of our
workers" in arder to bring about "the perfect equilibrium between the
rights of owners and workers far the mutual and exact fulfillment of their
reciproca! obligations." As if that were not enough, the party also pro­
posed to "work far fundamental peace (paz orgánica) in arder to guaran­
tee arder, liberty, and justice." 21 Catholic nationalists experimented with a
number of different strategies to achieve these ends in the early 1920s. Ed­
ucation figured prominently, in part because the church enjoyed a signifi­
cant advantage over the government in terms of the number and quality of
schools that it administered. lt is almost certain that more students re­
ceived a Catholic education than a public one in the early 1920s, because
few public schools existed in Michoacán. The church continued to control
nearly all secondary education, even after the federal Department of Edu­
cation opened seores of rural primary schools at mid-decade. Morelia
alone boasted eleven Catholic secondary schools, compared to only one
secular school operated by the federal government. 22
Catholic nationalist discourse maintained that education (in religious
schools, of course) could awaken the ideal citizen within people's other­
wise imperfect selves. As sorne volunteer teachers wrote in their parochial
school's periodical, "We have succeeded, above ali, in imbuing the popu­
lar proletarian spirit with the ideals of arder, patriotism, and morality, to
such an extent that we have dissipated sorne of the darkness from their
minds." 23 Proper education could also help the lower classes to overcome
what Catholic nationalists considered their pupils' natural, unhealtby in­
clinations by instilling a sense of discipline in them. "To educare man is
to cure him of his vices," another advocate of Catholic education wrote.
"It is to teach him to rein in his bad tendencies, to repress his cupidity, to
 162 Refusing the Revolution
restrain his disordered appetites; (to teach him] to take pleasure from his
duties, even if they are bitter ones; to produce virtue, even when it is an
arduous task." Finally, education might also keep the people from falling
under the spell of revolutionary politicians, whom the Catholics accused
of invading and polluting the popular consciousness.24
Catholic educators sought to teach the faithful to accomplish tasks in
a pious and disciplined manner. The currículum included instruction in
the catechism, of course, but it taught gender-specific skills just like the
government schools did: metalworking and carpentry for boys, reed weav­
ing and cigarette making for the girls. Students also received instruction
on how to save their money and spend it thriitily.25 In the 1920s, Catholic
educators began founding adult evening schools in cities and the coun­
tryside. In small towns, teachers held school in the parish churches. In
sorne cases, lay persons gave class; in others, nuns gave instruction clan­
destinely and in violation of nineteenth-century Reform-era laws. Indeed,
the very success of the Catholic educational project aroused the disap­
proval of revolutionary politicians, who repeatedly passed edicts to close
religious schools in Michoacán and elsewhere.26
In addition to educational initiatives, Catholic activists organized a
number of modest rural development projects. Most Catholic nationalists
believed that improving rural people's economic welfare would help keep
them in the countryside and reduce the temptation to emigrare north to
the United States. The official periodical of the Zamora diocese explained
that rural economic development would "help light industry, campesinos,
and those who emigrate from their Nation to the United States out of ne­
cessity, defending them from the voracious usurer that has produced in­
numerable victims among the poor." Churchmen were particularly eager
to keep rural people from travelling north of the border, · where they
risked exposure to the contagian of Protestantism.27
Perhaps because Catholic thinkers' campaign of moral improvement
predated the revolutionaries' own, they were among the first reformers to
portray rural folk as "campesinos." As early as 1913, the Catholics who
grappled with the "social question" made occasional references to the "in­
dustrious campesino," and by the early 1920s, the term was a mainstay of
Social Catholic discourse. 28 For example, Catholic activists spoke of the
"necessity to improve campesinos' situation and the sad condition of small
Refusing the Revolution 163
landholders," and the church-organized National Labor Conference held
in Guadalajara in 1922 expressly stated its desire to improve "campesinos'
material conditions. " 29 For these people, the idea that rural people had
collective interests seemed clear enough, but to them the term did not con­
note the idea of class struggle as it did in revolutionary discourse.
After ali, Catholic nationalists did not propase to enrich rural folk if it
meant threatening haciendas with expropriation. One of the touchstones
of Catholic nationalism was the inviolability of privare property. Land­
owners, many of whom sympathized with the Catholic nationalist project,
met government threats to their holdings by arguing that civilized societies
universally enshrined respect for prívate property. Without it, they argued,
society dissolved into the abyss of barbarism, communism, or both. Pri­
vare property, in other words, produced civilization.30 The ecclesiastical hi­
erarchy agreed. Catholic prelates and politicians insisted that property was
a sacred right and that earthly politicians who meddled with the doctrine
of privare ownership risked upsetting the divine order of things . Catholic '
I'
discourse ridiculed the land reform and characterized it as a prime exam­
:1
ple of the revolutionary impulse to enact "laws that pillage and plunder." 31
To be sure, a few Catholic nationalists did reluctantly accept the need for :1�
land reform. One conservative paper explained in 1926 that it was possi­ •I J
ble to allow "equitable distribution of federal lands among campesinos,
privileging those with the most aptitude and means to cultivare [the land]."
The paper was also prepared to contemplare "breaking up large estates as
long as reimbursement is provided in each case. " 32
For the most part, Michoacán's bishops and Catholic politicians re­
jected land reform, although they did recognize that something should be
done about the uneven distribution of land. Gubernatorial candidate An­
tonio Márquez de la Mora proposed a typical solution to the problem in
a 1920 stump speech. Economic development would be achieved by pro­
moting "small, privare agricultura! landholding," which, he said, could
be created without the use of radical land reform or unbridled capitalism.
Márquez did not elaborare on bis vague third path between socialism and
the free market, but he made one point perfectly clear: he would not pro­
pose any policies that "pillage from the rich [or] suppress privare prop­
erty." 33 The needs of the poor could be balanced with those of the rich, in
other words, in a way that led to evenhanded economic expansion.
 164 Refusing the Revolution
Catholics took another step clown the third path by founding village
saving and lending cooperatives known as cajas rurales, institutions that
both Márquez and Michoacán's bishops strongly supported. The cajas
functioned like modest credit unions that rural folk financed and man­
aged with the guidance of a priest or sorne other trusted figure. Inspired
by the teachings of the Rerum novarum and Catholic activist Miguel
Palomar y Vizcarra's dogged campaign to popularize them, Michoacán's
bishops embraced the caja rural concept and recommended that parish
priests found them wherever possible.The first caja was formed in 1917,
and at least fourteen cajas functioned throughout the state in 1924, in­
cluding one that Bishop Leopoldo Lara y Torres had personally founded
in Tacámbaro. 34
Catholic activists touted the cajas as prime examples of acceptable so­
..... cial engagement, arguing that the cooperative movement provided much­
needed agricultura! credit to rural folk.At the same time, they argued rhat
it taught "backward people" (rezagados) in the countryside how to save
their money and spend it intelligently.35 But the thickets of village econom­
ics proved difficult even for parish priests to clear away, and most of these
rural credit unions failed when they ran up against villagers' unwillingness
to place their money in the care of others or the "lack of training and so­
cial education" of the people who administered them.Nor could the priests
overcome a lack of start-up capital and conflicts between smallholders and
field hands about how to use the funds. Nevertheless, Catholic nationalists
never doubted the cajas rurales' potential ability to improve and modern­
ize the popular classes, nor did they give up on teaching the communitar­
ian ideal of working or saving together for the common good.36
This emphasis on fraternal mutualism, acceptance of private property,
and improvement of moral and material conditions also underlay most
other Catholic nationalist projects, including labor organization. From the
moment that revolutionary laws made it possible for them to do so, Cath­
olic nationalists had set up labor unions intended to harmonize the inter­
ests of labor and capital.Clerics and prominent Catholic politicians met in
Zamora in 1913 and again in Guadalajara in 1922 to discuss theories and
strategies for promoting organized labor. Their goal was to acquaint wage­
workers "with ali the religious, moral, social, civic, and economic issues
that they need to know in our times." They intended Catholic unions to
Re(using the Revolution r 65
defend "the working man's rights and thus improve him." 37 Activists es­
tablished severa! unions or workers' circles (círculos obreros) throughout
the first half of the 1920s. In one instance, clerics and lay people in the
town of Uruapan carried out a Social Mission that organized four Catholic
labor unions there.
The labor organizers in Uruapan printed up a set of statutes that they
used as the official bylaws for every union they established in the city. Once
the organizers had attracted a group of workers who wanted to unionize,
they simply filled in a couple of blanks 011 the preprinted forms, listed tbe
names of the union officers, and sent the completed document to the ap­
propriate authorities.According to these statutes, the union resolved
to develop among its members the spirit of fraternity and healthy
!!,
collaboration.To use "conciliation and arbitration" or other peace­
ful methods to bring an end to ali conflicts over working conditions
li
and other issues for the Union or its members.... To obtain the
1
moral, social, and intellectual education of members, both through
attendance at school and study circles, as well as through lectures
and beneficia! reading....To motivate learning and achievement
in the members' respective professions and vocations.38
The labor organizers also invited employers to join the Catholic unions.
The idea was that employers' participation would make it easier to resolve
labor disputes within the bosom of the union without either side resorting
to more confrontational tactics.39 The statutes of this and other Catholic
unions did assert workers' right to strike if other avenues of redress reached
a dead end, but direct labor action by Catholic unions rarely occurred in
practice. lnstead, they functioned mainly as religious study groups and as
vehicles to mobilize protesters at antigovernrnent rallies.40
Catholic activists also founded seores of middle- and upper-class lay
organizations. By and large, these bourgeois associations were more suc­
cessful than either the labor unions or the cajas rurales.The most promi­
nent Catholic societies included the Daughters of Mary (Las Hijas de Ma­
ría), the Knights of Columbus (Caballeros de Colón), the Catholic Lady's
Club (Damas Cátolicas), and, of course, the ACJM. Nearly every town of
even modest proportions boasted one or more of these groups in the early
1920s, though the revolution had dispersed and disorganized chapters in
 166 Refusing the Reuolution
the smaller communities. The ACJM proved particularly adept at orga­
nizing public manifestations of support for the church. 41 Its young, rela­
tively wealthy members often headed up protest rallies and did most of
the work of organizing Catholic labor unions such as the ones in Urua­
pan. Elsewhere, they organized outings such as picnics with workers in
which participants dined together, competed in riding contests, and lis­
tened to political speeches. 42 ln the social struggles leading up to the Cris­
tiada, and even in sorne military confrontations themselves, the ACJM set
itself up as the vanguard of highbrow Catholic nationalism. 43
The Catholic nationalists' defense of prívate property and their pater­
nalist attitudes compromised their ability to win political converts among
the common folk, however. Catholic unions did a partial job at best of
representing workers' sectoral interests and did not generare much en­
.,,,,·- thusiasm among wageworkers. 44 Rural development projects such as the
.....
.."' cajas rurales that could not place villagers firmly in control of the land
also found it difficult to capture the sustained cooperation of rural folle
And, in any case, most of the institutions that sprang from the Social
Catholic movement of the early 1920s had disappeared by the end of the
decade. The government repressed or ignored Catholic labor unions and
closed seores of Catholic schools. Most cajas apparently withered away
of their own accord, and the fallout from the Cristero rebellion dispersed
many parish-level organizations. But while the government could stamp
out the structures associated with Catholic nationalism, it could do little
about religious belief itself. Most Michoacanos never accepted the gov­
ernment's anticlericalism and readily mobilized to defend their religion.
In response, Catholic leaders all but abandoned the utopian ideal of cre­
ating a Catholic nation and concentrated instead on rallying the people
in a straightforward defense of their religious beliefs and practices.
THE POLITICIZATION OF RELIGION, 1923-1926
The Sonaran presidents could hardly ignore the existence of an alterna­
tive national project. The relatively weak governments of the early 1920s
had difficulties implementing even basic legislative initiatives, so Catholic
nationalism clearly represented a conspicuous threat to the grand
postrevolutionary project of reconstituting Mexican nationhood. In other
\
Refusing the Reuolution 167
words, the conflict between church and state was much more than a petty
disagreement between bishops and the Sonaran presidents. Both parties
to the conflict saw it as a decisive conflict over the future of the nation,
and revolutionary politicians comba.red Catholic nationalism with all the
means at their disposal. As the government cracked clown on the church,
however, it wounded the religious sensibilities of Mexicans throughout
the country. Its attacks on organized religion intruded on people's every­
day lives in painfully intimare ways and ended up politicizing religious
belief itself. In this sense, official anticlericalism missed its mark. Instead
of weakening the church and eradicating Catholic nationalism, the gov­
ernment gave popular groups who disliked postrevolutionary politics a
cause to rally around.
The first serious assault on the church began in 1923, when Calles was
still the secretary of the interior. That year, the papal delegate in Mexico,
Monsignor Ernesto Filippi, attended a massive rally to celebrare the ground­
breaking for a monument to Christ the King on Cubilete peak, Guanaju­
ato. When the radical governor of Guanajuato complained about the event
and Calles expelled the delegare from Mexico, the Catholic press in Mi­
choacán complained that the government had "isolated us [Mexico] from
the Civilized World and brutally pushed us toward barbarism. " 45 Another
round of challenges to the Catholic Church began almost as soon as Calles
became president. In 1925, radica.Is aligned with Calles, including the
powerful CROM labor federation, collaborated in the organization of the
schismatic Mexican Catholic Apostolic Church. The new sect did not rec­
ognize the Pope and ordained its own priests (who were encouraged to
marry), but it pulled in only a smattering of followers drawn from radical
cadres of Mexico City priest-baiters affiliated with labor movement. The
new church did not amount to much, but the mere attempt at creating an
alternative Catholic denomination set Mexican bishops even more firmly
against Calles. 46
The crowning moment of official anticlericalism carne in June 1926
when the federal legisla.cure passed the so-called Calles Law that limited
the number of priests to one for every six thousand inhabitants, expelled
foreign clergy, closed most convents, and ordered the state legislatures to
f
regulate the number of priests who could of iciate within their borders.
Catholic leaders rode a crest of public outrage as they called on the faith-
168 Refusing the Revolution
ful to defy the edict.Businesses throughout the nation closed their doors,
and the national economy began to buckle. The religious faithful with­
drew their srudents from public schools and refused to take public trans­
portation. In September the national council of bishops headed by Mi­
choacán's Archbishop Ruiz y Flores elected to suspend religious services.
The sudden end of organized worship sparked increasingly bitter popular
outcries against the government and prompted the urban, middle-class
lay activists of the LNDLR along with a militant minority of priests to
begin organizing an armed revolt. Late 1926 saw the first sparks of anti­
government guerrilla warfare in Oaxaca, Zacatecas, and Durango. 47
In Michoacán, tensions had escalated dramatically during the mid­
r92os.Prominent clergymen had complained of the "aberrations and ...
extremism" of official anticlericalism ever since Múgica's time, but the
Calles regime brought an unprecedented degree of religious repression. 48
Anticlerical liberals held municipal ofices in most of Michoacán's larger
f
towns, and many of them interpreted Calles's arrival in office as a cue to
pass ordinances prohibiting outdoor religious celebrations-even tradi­
tional dances and formal processions-on the grounds that they consti­
tuted a threat to the government. 49 In response, parish priests and urban­
ites in religious organizations such as the ACJM launched a series of
protests. In Zamora, the municipal authorities' attempt to regulare the
ringing of church bells sparked what the mayor characterized as an "up­
rising" in September 1924.One person died, and severa! women from rhe
"privileged class" scaled a church tower to sound the bells rhemselves. 50
In ]une 1925, townspeople in Ciudad Hidalgo nearly toppled rhe self­
declared "liberal" municipal council that had ordered rhe closure of
parochial schools and prohibited the parish priest from officiating ar any
outdoor processions during Corpus Cristi celebrations. Rumors soon cir­
culated to the effect that councilmen had written a traer favoring the Calles
government's schismatic church, and a group of protestors plastered a
lampoon entitled "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" near the town hall that suggested,
among other things, that the councilmen could go perform an unsavory act
with their mothers. On ]une ro, the day of the Corpus, first the members
of the local brass band, then a commission of Catholic men, and finally a
group of women ali pleaded with the mayor to allow a procession through
city streets. The mayor steadfastly refused.
Refusing the Revolution 169
A "religious rabble" began to collect in the streers as rhe day wore on,
1/
and the mayor decided to call on the five-man detachment of federal sol­
diers to keep the crowds under control. 51 A bit later he ventured into rhe
street to try to pacify the protesters, but angry people led by the priest and
prominent lay leaders began to clamor for his resignation. At one point, a
woman asked the men around her whether "they didn't have the guts [cal­
zones] to make [the mayor] give up." Tempers flared as the protest turned
into a shouting match and then something more menacing. The mayor
emptied his pisto! into one man who approached him, and the protesters
produced guns, knives, and rocks. The mayor and the federals retreated
into a nearby store as bullets and blades flew. Severa! people died in the
riot, among them the captain of the army platoon. 52
The skirmish in Ciudad Hidalgo foreshadowed a broader surge of
Catholic militancy.In the town of Sahuayo on the other side of the state,
the president of the local ACJM chapter called a rally that coincided with
an official visir by Governor Ramírez. The governor refused to speak with
the protesters, however, and rhe mayor ordered the arrest of the local
ACJM leader after he had seen the governor off at the train station. The
leader's father called ir "an act of revenge and against ali justice." 53 A few
weeks later in Uruapan, an anticlerical councilman wrote to the state gov­
ernment to complain that the "flag of the Sacred Heart was hoisred in
splendor" during a religious procession. He complained that the mayor
had stood idly by as townspeople paraded religious icons through city
streets in what everyone recognized as a protest against the government. 54
Tensions in Michoacán abated for a few months until Governor Ra­
mírez fell into line with federal policy and issued Law 62, which directed
ali priests to register with municipal governments and reduced the total
number of clerics who could practice in rhe state from approximately 150
to 19.Predictably, the decree produced an uproar.Priests and lay Catholic
leaders throughout the state brought lawsuits and sent missives to local of­
ficials that bordered, according to one skittish mayor, on "propaganda
against the Government." 55 In one township, priests took to the bilis and
began to raise armed bands of rural folk. 56 Ramírez tried to ignore the out­
cry until Archbishop Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores raised the stakes. The arch­
bishop announced in April that, "after asking God for enlightenment and
assiduously consulting Him," he had ordered al! the priests in his diocese
 Refusing the Revolution
170 Refusing the Revolution
171

to cease exercising their ministry (a strategy he repeated three months later with food and i11formation. The rural rebellion had a different social
when he declared the national clerical strike).57 Even though Calles threat­ complexion than its urban, largely middle-class counterpart because, as
ened to nationalize ali church property in Michoacán, the standoff ended soon became clear, rural folk intermixed religious passion with discontent
quietly when Ramírez discreetly sought out Archbishop Ruiz and agreed over the land reform.
not to implement Law 62 if the priests would resume religious services_ss
Another massacre, this one in the eastern town of Zitácuaro, had AGRARISTAS AND THE CRISTERO REBELLION
taken place in the meantime. Local priests had pledged to ignore Law 6 2
Village revolutio11aries typically interpreted the Cristero rebellion as an at­
prompting the mayor and the federal comrnander to close ali of th;
tack 011 agrarista lands, lives, and political culture-in short as a form of
churches in the municipality. For a few weeks, it seemed as if the issue
class struggle. When tbe fighting broke out in early 1927, agrarista head­
might blow over. Then in April women from a lay organization delivered
men and local politicians oversaw the remobilization of home guards to
the mayor a petition demanding the repeal of Law 62 and directing the city
combar the rebellion, as they continued to deploy the idiosyncratic rhet­
council to add its voice to the protest. When the town council convened to
oric of revolution they had developed in the preceding years. Sorne agra­
consider the request, they found their chambers invaded by angry women
rista leaders simply considered it their patriotic duty to defend the gov­
..
't::!,

>o¡¡,.
and men who cheered the one councilman (an agrarista) who supported
ernment, but most of them insisted that hacienda owners allied with the 1
the petition and booed ali the rest. The throng outside city hall began to
church were trying to "demolish" (derrocar) the agrarista movement it­ ¡I
grow. Church bells pealed, and chancs began to rumble from the gathering. 1
self.60 Consequently, the idiom of agrarismo became linked with the prac­
Once the council made its inevitable declaration that it would not second
the women's petition, the crowd taunted councilmen by calling them
tice of violence as up to three thousand villagers and land reform benefi­
:I'
ciaries joined to combat the Cristero "treachery." They received arms and
'"bandits,' 'cowards,' 'usurpers,' 'thieves,' and so on." Finally, the captain
munitions from the federal government and mobilized behind President
of the federal detachment moved to draw his pistol. Someone stabbed him
Calles and Governor Ramírez. One witness recalled that the government
mortally, and jittery policemen shot into the crowd, leaving six people
1. had raised "a veritable army of agraristas" by the end of the year. 61
dead or severely wounded. The townsfolk and the residents of nearby
In contrast to the agraristas' concerns about the future of their move­
hamlets who had gathered in the plaza fled home as federal soldiers moved
ment, revólutionary politicians tended to regard the Cristero rebellion as
in and occupied the San Juan church. The soldiers imposed a weeks-long
further proof that counterrevolutionaries would stop at nothing to keep
"state of siege" that included tearing clown the black bows that the resi­
country people emotionally dependent on the church, ignorant, econom­
dents placed on their windows to mourn the dead.s9
l n ically backward, a11d generally unfit for revolutionary citizenship. Micho­
By the end of the year, tightened military repression in cities like Zitá­
acán's revolutionary politicians believed that the popular classes should re­
cuaro and Ciudad Hidalgo had forced Catholic activists to shift the locus
spond to the uprising by casting out Catholic leaders, whom they depicred
of their resistance from the cities to the countryside. Apart from winning
as "the intruder" into the otherwise healthy life of rural families. They
the resumption of Mass, protests in the cities had done little to change the
charged that Catholic ideology left rural folk "enchained and defenseless
government's course of legislated anticlericalism. Whenever urban unrest
to the claws of exploiters and landlords, choking off through servitude
<lid break out, Federal troops moved in to dominate the situation with lit­
[their] innate sense of liberty and independence." The revolutiona1·ies also
de opposition, but the cou11tryside was a different matter altogether.
played upon the gendered notions that associated religiosity with femi­
Rural guerrillas soon combined into loose ba11ds that appeared as if from
ninity, explaining that Catholicism "degrades" and "corrupts" women by
nowhere and then faded into the woods and mountainsides where they
encicing them to "spy upon the members of the household."62 According
could poach a few cattle and cou11t 011 other villagers to provide them
 172 Refusing the Revolution
to these revolutionaries, Catholic politics sapped men of their virile ca­
pacity to act rationally and to reject their old masters even as it played
upon women's religious senti.ments to convert them into fifth colurnnists
within the domestic sphere. The struggle therefore pitted counterrevolu­
tionary "clerical syrnpathizers" against all who patriotically dedicated
themselves to "the salvation of revolutionary principies." The stakes were
nothing less than control over tbe popular mentality. Would rural people,
the writers wondered, remain fanatical and backward or turn to more
"advanced" ideas as a result of revolutionaries' "labor of defanatization
and redemption" ? 63
The political and cultural differences that had often set agraristas
against postrevolutionary politicians led sorne Catholics to think that the
agraristas might not align themselves with the government at ali. At least
one parish priest in Michoacán believed that the existing tensions be­
tween the agraristas and the government (in addition to the agraristas'
own religious sentiments) would lead them to actively support the rebel­
lion. Municipal politicians worried that even the most dedicated agrarista
radicals would turn on tbe government.64 Indeed, the distinction between
agrarista and Cristero blurred in some places during the initial phase of
the rebellion. In one village, an army commander indiscriminately confis­
cated the arms of rebels as well as those of sorne self-described agraristas
because he considered the whole lot of them to be an undifferentiated
mob of "rabble-rousers." He rnay have had a point: both the agraristas
and the rebels had trained their weapons on the commander when he ar­
rived in town with his federal troops.65 Such reactions carne as little sur­
prise in late 1926, when relations between the government and the agra­
ristas had hit bottom. After ali, Michoacán's governors had radically
�I
curtailed the land reforrn over the previous five years, except to briefly re­
distribute sorne property to agraristas during the de la Huerta revolt.
Army troops had systematically repressed village home guards between
1922 and 1925, and President Calles hirnself seems to have approved the
1925 murder of peasant leader Primo Tapia.66
In part because of these pressures, sorne villagers who had participated
in the land reforrn did decide to go over to the rebels, including one group
of rural militants who had been arnong Tapia's closest supporters. Never­
theless, most agraristas elected to throw in with ·the government. The old
Refusing the Revolution 173
agrarista home guards that Sánchez Pineda and the federal arrny had
worked so hard to disarm only a few years befare received new arms ship­
ments and mobilized to combar the rebels. In rnilitant strongholds such as
Coatepec, Opopeo, Zurumútaro, the Naranja area, La Cañada, outlying
areas of Cherán, and others, hundreds of peasants again shouldered arrns.
But why? The conflicts between politicians and agraristas had been real
enough, so why would they consent to fight on behalf of a govern.ment
that disarmed them and countenanced the murder of their leaders? Part of
the answer no doubt lay in agraristas' economic dependence on their land
reform parcels. Sorne recent land reform beneficiaries may have feared
that the government might strip them of their lands. Yet this sort of gov­
ern.ment retribution rarely took place (although it was not altogether un­
known), and most agrarista leaders and their core followers had no fac­
tual reason to fear such an outcome.
Moreover, even if agraristas' dependence on their land grants may help
to explain why they did not rise in opposition to the government, it does
not really account for their oftentimes fervent efforts to shore it up. It
seems safe to say that agraristas took up arms against the Cristeros be­
cause they felt the future of their movement was at stake and they in­
tended to further the cause of the revolution as they understood it. After
ali, village revolutionaries had repeatedly emphasized that campesino in­
terests revolved around class struggle and the defense of revolutionary
citizenship, both of which the Catholic insurrection placed in check. This
does not mean that agraristas had adopted an uncomplicated version of
the government's ideology of revolution and counterrevolution, but the
fact remains that fighting the Cristeros did conform with everything that
their village-level leaders had told them they had striven for.
WAR
The true dimensions of the Cristero rebellion did not became apparent in
Michoacán until March 1927, when dozens of rebel groups took to the
hills, cornfields, and valleys with guns in hand. One focal point of discon­
tent centered around the northwestern Bajío township of Cotija, where
ranchos and haciendas of middling size dominated the landscape. A few
weeks befare the uprising, representatives of Cotija's "Catholic social in-
 174 Refusing the Revolution
stitutions," had held a meeting. The representatives, many of whom would
soon figure as rebel leaders, unanimously agreed to solicit Bishop Manuel
Fulcheri y Pietra Santa of Zamora for "general guidance as to the position
we should take in moments such as these of tyranny and religious perse­
cution." They put themselves at the prelate's disposition "immediately and
unconditionally." 67 The bishop's reply is not recorded, but the large Men­
doza family, aided by priest Gabriel González, raised a force of about
three hundred poorly armed rancheros soon afterwards.
Many of the Cotija Cristeros had grievances against the local agrarista
leader who had used his position as commander of the town home guard
to build a clientele of agrarista partisans and set himself up as the man­
ager of village's only corn mill.68 Federal forces soon arrived and chased
the Cristeros out of the village. Even so, rebel leader Prudencio Mendoza
soon dominated the hinterland so completely that federal troops could
� 1
not venture out of town without risking ambush. 69 Mendoza's band at­
,.
,..,.., tacked Cotija itself in October 1927. The rebels could not dislodge the
.,. federal troops and armed agraristas from the portals of the main square,
but they did occupy the rest of the town for ten days. They attacked ali
the symbols of federal power that they could find and made ir a point to
destroy the furniture in federal offices and schoolhouses.70
Other ranchero-dominated communities in the Michoacán's Bajío-in­
cluding Sahuayo, Cojumatlán, and San José de Gracia-also produced sig­
nificant Cristero movements, ali of which supposedly operated under the
orders of the league-approved leaders in western Michoacán, Jesús Degol­
lado and (by 1928) Enrique Gorostieta.71 In these townships, ties between
the church and the rebellion were particularly close. Most of the rebel
leaders in San José, for example, had attended the seminary, and parish
priest Federico González Cárdenas had lobbied heavily in favor of armed
resistance. Most of the town's residents had also suffered the depredations
of the agrarista home guard from nearby Sahuayo. As historian Luis Gon­
zález explained, most of San José's activists took up arms in order to de­
fend their faith as well as to "avenge the offenses that the petty politicians
had committed regarding issues of land ownership." Together, rhese two
sentiments wrapped into a profound hatred for the government, although
more base motivations were sometimes also ar work: according to Luis
González, "There were also those who sought fame, money, and power;
Refusing the Revolution r75
there were people who wanted adventure; and there were even a couple of
common criminals." But whatever their motivations, the San Josefinos
fought a guerrilla war in western Michoacán for more than two years. At
one point in late 1927 the guerrilla fighters returned home to find their
town, as one of them put it, "burned out, destroyed, and abandoned,"
compliments of the federal army and its scorched-earth tactics. 72
The tortuous highland mountains around Uruapan soon emerged as yet
another zone of Cristero activity. The rebels in this area had ties with the
f
church and the "of icial" leadership of the revolution that were much more
tenuous than elsewhere, yet entire indigenous villages mobilized to defend
rheir political and cultural autonomy from anyone who challenged it. In
che Purépecha township of Cherán, for example, villagers refused to join
with broader Cristero campaigns, but they declined to join the progovern­
ment side either. When a column of three hundred agraristas attempted to
close the village church on the only occasion that they rode into town, the
villagers would have none of it. With whatever arms they found at hand,
Cherán's townspeople turned away the loyalists because, as one clear-eyed
villager recalled thinking, "we're believers, and that's it." 73 Sorne of the 1
1
most committed rebels carne from the indigenous township of San Juan
Parangaricutiro. Many of these villagers intended to defend the miraculous
figure of Christ that, according to local !ore, had chosen San Juan as its
home, but they were also motivated by a long-standing rivalry with the ad­
joining village, where a cadre of agraristas held power. When the federal
army resorted to counterinsurgency tactics and ordered the residents of
San Juan to abandon their homes or face execution, most people simply
headed for the bilis. The men spent the bulk of the rebellion hiding high in
the sierra, occasionally ambushing government loyalists and getting visits
from their wives, who slipped past government sentries to deliver them tor­
tillas. Unlike the villagers in Cherán, however, the San Juan Cristeros some­
times merged with larger rebel columns to carry out major operations such
as the failed attempt to storm the city of Uruapan.74
Farther to the east, Cristero cells were more isolated and less likely to
coordinare their activities with each other. Simón Cortés, the leader of
what had started off as an agrarista home guard from the village of Santa
Bárbara, led the best-organized rebel movement in the foothills around
Morelia. Cortés was an ex-hacienda laborer and sometime rural leader
 176 Refusing the Revolution
A Cristera taking food to rebels in the Uruapan region, circa 1927. Courtesy
IIH-UMSNH.
whom one agrarista militant accused of having "sold out. " 75 Once he had
set himself up as a professional militiaman in the early 1920s, he intermit­
tently collaborated with paramilitary "white guards" made up of hacienda
field hands. He also had a history of bad relations with the government,
beginning when he and Ladislao Molina (the notorious pistolero favored
by many local hacienda owners) joined forces during the de la Huerta re­
volt in 1924. They collaborated with each other again during the Cristero
rebellion by leading their followers and hacienda field hands against
agrarista militias between Morelia, Pátzcuaro, and Uruapan. 76
Another renegade agrarista was Ramón Aguilar, a ranchero and old­
time ally of Primo Tapia, who made his wartime headquarters in the
township of Zacapu. lt is not clear why he gave up on agrarismo, but he
Refusing the Revolution 177
may have become disgusted with the federal army, which sometimes un­
dermined his moral authority; for example, soldiers habitually robbed the
villagers under his sphere of influence in Santiago Tangamandapio. Like
sorne of his other followers, these villagers were already upset at the gov­
ernment (the agrarian department had ordered them not to use a nearby
spring to irrigate their crops), and it is safe to assume that they were not
pleased with anticlerical politics either. Then in 1928 Aguilar and his fol­
lowers suddenly abandoned the rebellion and pledged to support the gov­
enm1ent. Maybe his friends in the agrarista movement convinced bim to
return to the fold, or maybe he was just angry that another band of Cris­
tero rebels had burned his house to the ground. 77 Whatever the case, his
allegiance remained sufficient!y rnuddled that the following year a local
official still considered that it "would not be a good idea to put arms in
the hands of anyone" from the village. Aguilar eventually made his way
back into the good graces of the Michoacán political machine, and within
a few years he had even joined a Masonic lodge along with severa! of his
radical agrarista cronies. 78
In 1927 and 1928 the rebellion took on the aspect of a civil guerrilla
war as a disparate but large body of Cristero rebels confronted better­
equipped agrarista militias and federal troops. The government had begun
to ship rifles to agrarista home guards as early as October 1926. In those
early days, politicians were cautious: the village guardsmen might get their
rifles, but army officers and Governor Ramírez occasionally held back on
sending them anmrnnition. 79 By 1927, the politicians were becoming less
cagey. The agraristas began to feel pressured by the likes of Molina, Cor­
tés, and Mendoza, and village leaders had little trouble meeting the gov­
ernment's orders to reassemble village home guards and equip them with
government-issue weapons. Not all the agraristas willingly went on cam­
paign, however. Military comrnanders could count on the voluntary help
of "citizens of goodwill who have arms" to expel rebels and bandits from
their communities, yet these same citizens often declined to join with the
regular army on campaigns outside their immediate surroundings. 80 The
Cristero war's intimare character moved many agraristas and land reform
beneficiaries to defend their homes and families but left many unwilling to
risk life and limb on behalf of abstract, revolutionary ideals.
Nevertheless, seores of agrarista militias did prosecute the war enthu-
178 Refusing the Revolution
siastically, even outside of their home territories. Agrarista leaders orga-
11ized flyi11g columns in the Zacapu-Naranja area, La Cañada, Zurumú­
taro, Opopeo, Atacheo, the Zitácuaro highlands, a11d 110 doubt elsewhere
as well. The militiame11 were paid with special taxes that municipal au­
thorities levied on often reluctant villagers (and which provided ample
opportunities for graft), though sorne militiamen later claimed that they
neither received nor expected any compensation for their services. And,
i11deed, there is no guestion that many agrarista guardsmen fought des­
perately to "drive off the outsiders," as 011e fighter put it. They undertook
extended tours of duty to the Cristero heartland to the east and north,
spending weeks or even months away from their families and cornfields. 8 t
Shorter campaigns were probably more common still. When Cristero col­
umns were spotted in the area, agrarista leaders often met over a mea! or
a drink, hammered out an alliance, and returned home to raise their peo­
ple for joint sorties to disperse the enemy. 82
Military tactics were uncomplicated on both sides of the conflict. Cris­
tero bands melted into the mountainside to bushwhack enemies. Sorne­
times regional Cristero commanders concentrated a number of rebel col­
umns together for an attack 011 a medium-sized town, though such frontal
assaults rarely succeeded. Government forces preferred to hole up in the
relative safety of the larger towns. When they did venture out, federal
commanders usually placed the heaviest burden on agrarista militias rather
than relying on demoralized army troops who had little stomach for guer­
rilla warfare. Indeed, federal soldiers deserted in droves and headed for the
safety of their homes throughout the course of the rebellion. Others made
a lucrative business out of selling their arms and ammunition to the rebels. 83
As a result, the fighting often devolved into murderous battles between
agraristas and Cristeros, as each side attempted to isolate and annihilate
small bands of the opposition. Prisoners were executed on the spot, sorne­
times after bei11g tortured beforehand. Sorne Cristero bands made a prac­
tice of tying sacks of dirt around agraristas' necks or testicles befare hang­
ing them, a fitting death, in their view, for those who fought for the land
rather than religio11. One group of rebels was said to have cut the soles
off an agrarista's feet and forced him to walk rhrough thorns with a ruck­
sack of earth tied around his neck. Agraristas also proved adept at usi11g
sanguinary symbolism. One group of agrarista fighters "crucified" the
Refusing the Revolution 179
rebels they caught by tying thei.r ha11ds to a cross and hanging them to die
in the merciless sun. Elsewhere, a troop of federal soldiers made a point
of hanging one Cristero on each telegraph pole for long stretches along­
side a railroad line. The leve! of violence and rage could tear families
apart. Brothers fought on separate sides of the conflict in sorne cases, and
sorne agraristas' wives struggled to undercut the growing anticlericalism
of their men. At 011e point, an agrarista cacique had his thirteen-year-old
godso11 held prisoner in the church he had converted to a granary. Whe11
the young Cristero idealist would 11ot recant, the cacique had him hanged
on the charge of collaborati11g with the enemy. 84
Cristeros frequently i11timidated or killed teachers, and they burned or
vandalized seores of schoolhouses. They destroyed desks, books, chalk­
boards, and students' decorations. 85 The only schoolhouse furnishings
that the rebels treated as the spoils of war were objects associated with
nationalism. On one occasion, a Cristero column sacked an entire school­
house except for a Mexican flag and the portrait of José María More­
los-011e of the fathers of Mexican independe11ce and, not coincidentally,
a priest-both of which they carried off for themselves. (In that particu­
lar case, villagers defied the Cristeros by raising money to build a new
school and pledging to protect the teacher if she would stay in town to
give classes.)86 Eve11 in a region that had remained relatively free of un­
rest, sorne schoolteachers wrote their superiors to report that "an open
spirit of rebellion has invaded this region, we have stumbled on serious
resistance, and the situation has become somewhat dangerous for us." 87
As the rebels gained a foothold in western Michoacán in 1927, most
teachers fled to the cities. Sorne agraristas also escaped the conflict and
sought refuge as far away as the United States, but most accepted gov­
ernment arms and stayed to defend their lands. Combined army-militia
forces roamed through the countryside burni11g and sacking villages sus­
pected of supporting Cristeros and the cathartic experience of viole11ce
seems to have united agrarista milita11ts as they attacked thei.r enemies in
person or destroyed their property. There was one major differe11ce be­
tween the first agrarista mobilizatio11 during the Múgica administration
and their actions during the Cristero rebellion, though. In the early r92os,
agraristas directed violence primarily at landowners and anyone else they
regarded as obstacles to their ability to take possession of their ejido
 180 Refusing the Revolution Refusing the Revolution 181

lands.During the Cristero rebellion, on the other hand, the agraristas tar­ late as 1930, agraristas claimed that hacienda administrators were incit­
geted rural folk who were like themselves in most respects except for
1/
ing both mate and female field hands to join the rebellion, either as active
their adoption of an antithetical política! stance. Rivalries for control of participants or as contributors of food and military intelligence. Land re­
the land were still at play, but so too were opposing understandings of
Mexican nationhood.
form beneficiaries also accused the owner of the Tepetongo hacienda of
treating them as "bandits" and of leading his employees to chant vivas
\
for Christ the King and the Virgin of Guadalupe as well as for the owner
THE QUESTION OF PARTISANSHIP himself.91 Yet many landowners would not tolerare overt rebelliousness
from their employees.If they did, the government almost certainly would
Cristero leaders tried to assuage agraristas' concerns by depicting the re­
have expropriated their lands, and at least one hacienda owner formed a
bellion as a matter of conscience unrelated to the politics of land reform.
home guard with a hundred of his employees to fight on behalf of the
Enrique Gorostieta, the nominal Cristero leader in Michoacán, declared
government. He made sure that the president understood that his troop
in 1928 that his movement would "honor the [land] grants that have al­
"condemns the current rebellion as completely reactionary and counter
ready been awarded and continue to make them ...as the needs of the
to revolutionary principies.... I proclaim, as this home guard's actions
nation and the well-being of the working classes dictate. " 88 Gorostieta
have shown, that we are prepared to sustain the principles of revolution
quickly discovered that the issue of land could not so easily be isolated
,, by whatever means necessary. " 92
'..°•
•.'
from the politics of agrarismo and hence from the willingness of agraris­
Even though most hacienda owners kept a low profile during the rebel­
tas to fight, however. His soothing proclamation could not overcome agra­
lion, Gorostieta could not overcome village revolutionaries' insistence that
ristas' fears that the rebellion threatened not only their lands, but their
the rebellion was the work of the agraristas' class enemies. Indeed, village
class interests in general.
revolutionaries' moral leadership helped to set the tone of agrarista alle­
After ali, sorne of the uprising's most visible leaders, especially those in
giance. Schoolteachers were prime targets for Cristeros' fury, but even if
...., central Michoacán, had well-deserved reputations as anti-agrarista fanat­
they hadn't been, most teachers would never have accepted priests' moral
"' ics.For instance, Ladislao Molina assumed the rank of general and led the
Ieadership of the masses. It simply violated everything that teachers said
insurgency in central Michoacán.Agraristas from Opopeo and surround­
they believed.In the final analysis, however, the teachers' opposition to the
ing hamlets remembered only too well that the ranchero-turned-gunslinger
Cristiada probably played a marginal role in defining the nature of agra­ l.
had killed the village's first agrarista leaders in 1921, and they also knew
ristas' allegiance to the postrevolutionary cause, not least because so many
that he enjoyed the fervent support of hacienda field hands throughout the
educators abandoned the countryside. Even when schoolteachers did re­
region. Molina and his followers targeted agraristas around Pátzcuaro for
main in their villages, they tended to find that the only people who would
the entire duration of the revolt. He knew how to take advantage of the
run the risk of attending school were agrarista leaders and their families.
intricate mountain landscape in which he operated, and neither the federal
As a result, teachers, like most other rural people at the time, became de­
army nor agrarista guardsmen succeed in capturing him until the waning
pendent on the agrarista leaders' protection.93
days of the rebellion. The captain whose troops finally killed Molina or­
Most agrarista leaders detested the Cristeros and insisted that Catholic
dered his corpse to be displayed in a nearby town square and confidently
militants and their fellow travelers opposed campesino interests in every
predicted that the grizzly spectacle would "surely bring about the com­
conceivable way. One group of agraristas put their signatures to a letter
plete demoralization of the fanatics and the triumph of our cause." 89
complaining that they could not take possession of their ejido, which had
Moreover, field hands in the central part of the state often rose up as
been culled from the lands of a nearby hacienda because "the clergy"
Cristeros, especially if their employers consented to their actions.90 As
owned it. They wrote that the hacienda administrators were using the
 182 Refusing the Revolution
wealth produced by their land (which the agraristas referred to as the
"means of production")
to foment revolution against the Supreme Government of the
Republic .. .and on this issue we too have been harmed, for
they have persecuted us by killing severa! of our comrades ...for
being agraristas and because the Hacienda would be affected by
the new land grant that we have requested. In fact, ever since we
received the ejido in question, we have not been able to take full
possession of our lands for the simple reason that the Hacienda
bosses continually attack us.94
They then listed twenty-three local comrades (compañeros) that the ha­
cienda "gang" had killed during the uprising. This struggle had cemented
the villagers' inclination to fight the counterrevolutionary "gentlemen"
who operated the hacienda. It also sealed their allegiance to the "Su­
preme Federal Government" with which the agraristas found themselves
allied.
Village revolutionaries' somewhat surprising military alliance with the
"Supreme Federal Government" of President Calles, as well as with Gov­
ernor Ramírez and even the federal army, prompted a majar shift in the
manner that agrarista discourse depicted the government itself. Before the
Cristero rebellion, village revolutionaries had insisted that the gap be­
tween the government's revolutionary rhetoric and its actions imperiled
the two sides' alliance. The social strife of the late I920s changed ali that.
As one group of agrarista leaders wrote upan the death of a good num­
ber of their compañeros at the hands of Cristeros, "Ali of us who make
up this group are prepared to assist the current government with our
short-term services whenever necessary.We are willing to lay clown the
last drop of our blood so that the laws will not be violated." 95 Suddenly,
agrarista leaders found that they would fight to the death for a govern­
ment whose revolutionary credentials they had called into question just a
few years befare.
As thousands of agraristas responded to their leaders' summons to
make common cause with the government by entering the fray against
Cristero rebels, agrarista rhetoric amalgamated with the practice of agra­
rista violence. Most agraristas seem to have regarded themselves as pa-
Refusing the Revolution r 83
triots who fought on behalf their government as well as what they had
come to conceive of as their class interests, and the Cristero rebellion,
they thought, threatened both. Before the revolt, agrarista discourse iden­
tified landowners as their most dangerous opponents. As the rebellion
unfolded, it became increasingly common for agraristas to place priests
on a par with the hacienda owners as the great enemies of agrarismo and
the rural proletariat generally.
EPILOGUE
Cristero rebels still controlled large swaths of Michoacán's territory when
Cárdenas took office as governor in September I928. The stronge;t re­
maining focal points of rebellion were in the southwest around Coalco­
mán and in the northwest around the Zamora-La Piedad area. National­
level negotiations to end the Cristero uprising had already gone on for
months between President Emilio Portes Gil and Michoacán's Archbishop
Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores, who served as the Vatican's emissary.However,
the assassination of president-elect Obregón by a Catholic zealot in July
I928 frustrated any chances for a quick resolution of the conflict.96 The
government withdrew from negotiations, and Cristeros remained in the
field for another year with the tacit blessing of the church.The existence
of armed bands of rebellious peasants appeared ali the more serious in
I929, when federal general José Gonzalo Escobar mounted the final mili­
tary rebellion of the postrevolutionary years. The uprising did not amount
to much, primarily because it did not attract many allies in the country­
side.Agraristas had already cast their lot with the government, and most
Cristero rebels simply ignored Escobar's promises to defend their religious
faith. The United States government also sided with the existing order, de­
priving the rebel soldiers of access to war matériel. With the combined po­
tency of loyal soldiers and thousands of newly armed agraristas under Sat­
urnino Cedilla, the strongman of San Luis Potosí, the federal government
quickly brought the attempted coup under control.97
Cárdenas responded to the renewed danger of combined military­
popular rebellion in Michoacán with a mixture of inducements for those
who agreed to demobilize and threats of repression for those who did not.
For the most part, he achieved more success with the former than the lat-
 184 Refusing the Revolution Refusing the Revolution 18 5

erations appear to have been little more than armed treks through the
sierra, however, because the Catholic guerrillas disappeared into the hill­
side whenever Cardenas's military column appeared. 99 1/
Cárdenas's fortunes brightened considerably once Mexico's bishops fi­
nally agreed ro a truce with the government. Six months after the assas­
\
sination of Obregón, both sides began to explore the possibilities of a
peaceful conclusion to the conflict, urged on by U.S. ambassador Dwight
Morrow. On June 21, 1929, Ruiz y Flores signed a letter of understand­
ing with President Portes Gil agreeing that ali priests would register with
federal officials and commence religious services immediately. In ex­
change, the government pledged that it would not interfere with the "spir­
itual functions" of the church or regulare where parish priests could be
posted. ioo In Michoacán, 184 priests formally registered with the govern­
ment and began to put their shattered parishes back in order. 101 For his
part, Cárdenas seems to have willingly assented to the creation of home
guards made up of ex-Cristeros in certain regions. In this way, he quickly
demobilized the rebels, though occasionally at the risk of sanctioning
. 102 E
groups that were httle
· more t1ian arme d msurgents. ven so, C,ar d e-
nas's strategy of relatively peaceful demilitarization meant that there was
no exodus of Michoacano ex-Cristeros similar to that of Jalisco, where
military repression forced amnestied rebels to seek the protection of Sat­
urnino Cedilla (who welcomed his erstwhile enemies as long as they rec­
ognized his authority) in neighboring San Luis Potosí. 103
Simón Cortés, left, negotiating with Cárdenas, 1929. Courtesy CERMLC. The last majar Cristero stronghold in Michoacán was in the south­
western region of Coalcomán, the bailiwick of Luis Navarro Origel, the
LNDLR-approved general from the state of Guanajuato. After a few
ter and managed to lure most Cristero bands to lay clown their arms even
months of determined effort in the southwestern hotlands, Navarro won
though he had not won a single substantial military victory by mid-1929.
the grudging allegiance of the mestizo rancheros who had risen in rebel­
The fust chieftain to surrender was Simón Cortés, the ex-agrarista pisto­
lion there. As we have already seen, the very presence of Navarro's fight­
lero with links to hacienda owners. Cortés was ill and needed to leave the
ers sent the federal army scurry ing out of Coalcomán, and the Cristeros
countryside when he turned himself in along with 203 of his comrades in
occupied the plaza uncontested. It turned out that the rancheros were
January of 1929. Cárdenas met with hirn personally and made lum an of­
more interested in farming than in military action, however. Federal
fer that he could not refuse. Soon after Cortés surrendered, Cárdenas ap­
forces regained the plaza in late 1927 by taking advantage of a "tempo­
pointed him state forest warden, a <leal that led the LNDLR to denounce
rary lack of arder" among the Cristero soldiers, most of whom had sim­
Cortés as a traitor.98 But one surrender was not nearly enough to turn the
ply left to tend their fields. "There was no way to stop them once it
tide. Cárdenas temporarily left his post as governor and took personal
started raining," Navarro complained, and he never managed to retake
command of the federal and agrarista troops in the state. Most of his op-
 I86 Refusing the Revolution
Coalcomán itself. When Navarro died in battle in August 1928, the Cris­
teros fractured into small groups led by commanders of lesser stature, the
most important of whom where rnembers of the Guillén family. Even so,
they rernained a serious threat in the spring of 1929, by which time they
had even built their own rnunitions factory. 104
Cárdenas arrived in the Coalcomán area in August 1929, outfitted with
troops and military aircraft to stamp out the intractable rebels. In the end,
he arranged a peaceful truce after meeting with the "rebellious gentlemen"
who led the insurgency. Cárdenas sealed the deal by presenting the Cris­
tero officers gifts of livestock and rnoney. He also allowed sorne local ha­
ciendas to be recategorized as ranchos, thereby exernpting them frorn the
land reforrn. Finally, he allowed Gregario Guillén to becorne mayor of
Coalcornán, chief of the home guard, and, in effect, cacique of the re­
gion.105 The day after he achieved the settlement, Cárdenas sent a jubilant
rnessage to a friend. He wrote that the pacification of Coalcornán, com­
bined with the imminent surrender of Cristero leader Ramón Aguilar in
Jacona, rneant that "this rnilitary zone has been completely pacified, which
will facilitare the effort to realize the política! project that rny administra­
tion has proposed." 1 º6
It soon became clear that the Cristero leaders of Coalcomán could not
.... speak on behalf of everyone, however. A rogue priest named Epifanía
Madrigal organized a festival to celebrate the end of the rebellion, which
he called "a resounding triumph" for the church. The celebration's reli­
gious tone clearly broke the terms of the arrangement with Cárdenas,
though the municipal government, now under the Guillén family's con­
trol, did nothing to stop it. 107 When the diocese attempted to bring the
priest to heel, ordering hirn to a different parish, Madrigal simply ignored
the bishop's orders. The conclusion ohhe revolt and the episcopate's re­
assertion of its authority over Coalcornán seern to have unhinged him.
In early 1930, Madrigal denied the infallibility of the Pope for having
wrongly agreed to a truce with the government and led about two hun­
dred of his followers to an encampment at the Las Hembrillas ranch, be­
yond the reach of the bishopric. The pilgrims built a church and estab­
lished a religious "brotherhood" (hermandad) that, according to one
local official, venerated two of Madrigal's female cornpanions, "whorn he
regard[ed] as saints." Asceticism was considered holy. Madrigal in-
Refusing the Revolution 187
structed his followers to divest themselves of ali worldly goods and to
quit paying tithes. The devotees spent their days in prayer and acts of
self-mortification, a lifestyle that left no time for raising crops and forced
them to poach on their neighbors' cattle. ws
Cárdenas was content to ignore the commune as long as its mernbers
did not raise a fuss, but Madrigal had other plans. He returned to Coal­
cornán in February 1930, on a day on which he knew the parish priest
had business elsewhere. According to one witness, Madrigal convened
the townsfolk and announced that "Peace has not taken hold of the Na­
tion; on the contrary, the war against the governrnent is stronger than
ever because the government is heretical." As part of his renewed call to
arrns, he threatened to excommunicate anyone who sent his or her chil­
dren to public school, and even to excommunicate .the children them­
selves. He summed up by asking bis listeners to provide weapons for his
religious followers. t09 Within days, classrooms were empty, and guns be­
gan to appear at Madrigal's compound. A few months later, Cárdenas or­
dered a column of troops to march on the commune with the stated pur­
pose of reconnaissance.
The soldiers encountered the pastor and his people in a tiny harnlet
outside Coalcomán where, the governor said, the believers opened fire on
the federals. Soldiers returned fire, killing Madrigal and two rancheros
and dispersing the crowd. 110 Even this was not enough to extinguish the
sect ' which soon became known as the Cruz de Palo. An ex-Cristero rebel
who rechristened himself "Mases" took Madrigal's place as spiritual
leader. This time, however, Cárdenas and his successors decided to let
events run their own course. The brotherhood carne to a sad end in 193 6
when Moses and sorne of his followers tried to lead their flock on a jour­
ney by foot over the ocean to the promised land. The waves swallowed
up severa! pilgrims, and perhaps Moses himself, befare their companions
managed to pul! them from the surf. 111

6
Lázaro Cárdenas and the Advent of
a Campesino Politics
AS HE PREPARED TO TAKE OFFICE as governor in 1928, thirty-three-year­
old General Lázaro Cárdenas knew his native Michoacán faced pressing
social problems. Antigovernment Cristero rebels controlled the country­
side in the western part of the state, making life dangerous for school­
teachers, land reform beneficiaries, and anyone else whom the rebels be­
lieved to be aligned with the postrevolutionary state. A related problem
derived from the economic ill effects of two decades' worth of political
and social turmoil that had left the region's economy moribund. During
l a campaign rally in Morelia, Cárdenas told his audience that he intended
...
�·
... to deal with the rebellion by launching a "program of pacification in ac­
cordance with procedures established by the Law." Macroeconomic dif­
ficulties would be addressed by modernizing agricultura! techniques, im­
proving the transportation infrastructure, and legislating the "legitimate
protection of industry." 1
But as he addressed bis supporters, the problem that weighed most
heavily on Cárdenas's mind concerned what he termed the "economic
condition and moral tendencies" of Michoacán's popular classes. He de­
clared that one of his "most fervent desires" was to improve the quality of
life of the "working class" and emphasized that he found the plight of In­
dians (or rather, "our indigenous class") particularly distressing because
they lived in a state of "misery." He explained that the common folk suf­
fered as a result of "the indifference of those in power, the rudimentary
cultivation of the land, [and country peoples') traditional adherence to
outdated economic attitudes." He pledged to reinvigorate public educa­
tion in order to modernize common people's consciousness, undertake a
systematic campaign against vices such as drinking and gambling, and
188
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 189
reinvigorate the land reform by boosting the pace of ejido grants. Cárde­
nas concluded his speech by emphasizing that the postrevolutionary state,
not the church, would bear the burden of implementing this massive pro­
ject of social transformation and predicted that "with assistance provided
by morally upright Authorities, we shall see that communities that act in
good faith will achieve progress."2
Cárdenas took severa! steps to realize his campaign promises during his
four-year term, from 1928 until 19 3 2. As for the rebellion, he personally
commanded a number of military operations and saw to it that agrarista
home guards had enough weaponry to combar the rebels. Once Mexico's
ecclesiastical leaders hashed out a peace agreement with President Emilio
Portes Gil in 1929, Cárdenas demobilized the Cristeros in Michoacán by
reopening most churches, offering sinecures to Cristero leaders, and, when
ali else failed, crushing those insurgents who would not accept his terms.
On the economic front, he ordered the construction of new highways to
spur growth. Because the government lacked funds, he instructed munici­
pal politicians to muster volunteers from the villages to build roads.3 Nev­
ertheless, the worldwide economic crisis of 1929 and Michoacán's relative
poverty limited his ability to fulfill his more ambitious promises. The de­
pression eroded state revenues and kept him from procuring new farm
equipment. It further squeezed what little industry, such as mining and
textile manufacturing, the state possessed.4
Cárdenas saved his greatest energies for the task of reforming what he
characterized as the deplorable moral and economic condition of the
lower classes. Like Francisco Múgica befare him, Cárdenas followed a
strategy of placing land and books in the hands of rural people. His ad­
ministration continued to establish ejidos at the relatively quick pace that
his predecessor had set during the early days of the Cristero rebellion and
collaborated with the Department of Public Education (SEP) to profes­
sionalize the teachers' corps and rebuild the education infrastructure that
the Cristeros had so successfully dismantled in the countryside.5 In ali
this, he essentially followed the dictates of Plutarco Elías Calles, his po­
lítica! patron and the self-declared Maximum Chief of the revolution. Yet
the centerpiece of his administration was the making of an institution
that neither Calles nor previous governors of Michoacán had ever con­
templated. Five months after taking office, he and his collaborators orga-
 190 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
nized the Revolutionary Labor Confederation of Michoacán (known by
its acronym, CRMDT), a far-flung workers' and peasants' syndicate that
f
functioned both as an oficially sanctioned labor union and as a political
machine to drum up popular support for his regime. Agraristas naturally
comprised the confederation's core constituency.
Cárdenas relied primarily upon village revolutionaries sucl1 as school­
teachers and agrarista headmen to fill the ranks of his organization, al­
though he allowed a few ex-Cristeros and aspiring politicians to lead the
effort in sorne municipalities. The Cardenistas prevailed upon most of
Michoacán's agraristas as well as its unionized industrial workers and
government employees to enlist, and the confederation rapidly grew,
claiming to represent a hundred thousand people by the time Cárdenas
f
left ofice in 1932. Village revolutionaries once again mobilized their dis­
tinctive idiom of agrarismo, both to praise the new confederation and to
harangue their followers to join. Yet with the advent of Cardenismo, vil­
lage revolutionaries were no longer the political pariahs they had been ever
since Múgica's ignominious departure in 1922; indeed, agrarista leaders
and schoolteachers soon occupied the highest offices of the organization.
However, as village revolutionaries broke into the política! sphere, they
allowed the distinction between their local language of agrarismo and Cár­
denas's revolutionary discourse of revolution to blur. In joining Cádenas
on these terms, they helped to establish both an officially sanctioned ver­
sion of agrarismo and a majar new institutional site of campesino iden­
tity formation.
ORGANIZING THE WORKERS, DISCIPLINING THE MASSES
During Cárdenas's four-year administration in Michoacán, the confeder­
ation made significant strides in raising rural workers' salaries, helping to
orchestrate a renaissance in secular education, and executing a vigorous
land reform. The confederation also cornmissioned activists to assess the
political climate of communities throughout the state, to organize work­
ers, and to encourage villagers to solicit ejido land reforrn parcels. Its del­
egares unionized field hands on at least three sugar-producing haciendas,
took action to hold clown the price of corn (which had risen dramatically
as a result of the worldwide economic crisis of 1929-30), encouraged the
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 191
formation of consumers' cooperatives, and intervened with labor rela­
tions boards to obtain the recognition of still more labor unions. Cárde­
nas and his political acolytes nullified unconscionable lease agreements
rhat indigenous communities had signed in Porfirian times with timber
companies, particularly the one controlled by Santiago Slade, the North
American financier.
Perhaps most importantly, Cárdenas and the confederation bucked the
anti-land reform bias in Mex.ico City and redoubled the creation of ejidos
by expropriating lands from most majar haciendas, as weU as from many
smaller ones, to provisionally creare four hundred new land grants totaling
nearly half a million hectares. However, only a fraction of these provisional
grants, numbering around 68, won final approval from the federal gov­
ernment during Cárdenas's term in office, no doubt because Calles took a
dim view of redistributing land to peasants. As a result, the majority of the
twenty-four thousand beneficiaries had to wait until Cárdenas himself oc­
cupied the presidency to receive final approval of their ejido grants. 6
At the same time, the confederation gave Cárdenas the ideal mechanism
with which to institutionalize agrarismo. When he entered office, as many
as ten thousand agraristas were under arms to barde the Cristero insurrec­
tion, and village revolutionaries,had exhorted most if not ali of them to re­
gard their struggle as a way of defending their rights as revolutionary citi­
zens as well as their interests as a "class." Unless Cárdenas played his cards
right, these legions of ideologically driven and well-armed agraristas might
eventually pose a more serious threat to the stability of his government
than the Cristeros ever had. After ali, not yet six years had passed since
agraristas had slipped beyond Múgica's control and taken land reform into
rheir own hands. So it is hardly a surprise that the confederation promised
to regulate the behavior of agraristas and the small but combatíve cadre of
organized field hands and bind these rural militants to the broader politi­
cal project that Cárdenas had set for himself during his campaign.
In creating his organization, Cárdenas combined some of the more pro­
gressive strains of revolutionary thought with an eclectic mix of other do­
rnestic and foreign ideologies. His pro-agrarista policies had ample ante­
cedents, ranging from revolutionary liberals such Zapata and Obregón to
radicals such as Adalberto Tejeda of Veracruz, Felipe Carrillo Puerto of
Yucatán, and particularly Tomás Garrido Canabal's experiment in au-
 r92 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
thoritarian populism in Tabasco. Cárdenas and his confederates did not
limit themselves to rehashed domestic ideologies, however.The late r92os
saw a worldwide rise of state-sanctioned mass organizations under a vari­
ety of ideological banners, including the American Federation of Labor,
corporatist labor unions in Italy, and of course the collectivization of
workers and peasants in the Soviet Union. Cárdenas habitually read pop­
ular press accounts about the social project of the Russian revolutionaries
(though he was hardly the first Mexican leader to do so), and sorne tokens
of Marxism found their way into his confederation. Although Cárdenas
rejected communism, for instance, the confederation's emblem featured a
sickle and scythe superimposed over the silhouette of a book. Its official
motto, "Above the Organization, Nothing! Against the Organization, No
One!" echoed the rhetoric of the early Soviet Union.
Cárdenas and his followers no doubt derived sorne measure of inspi­
ration from the militant Social Catholicism that flourished in Mexico
during the early r92os as well.Like the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the pre­
ceding decade, the Cardenistas dreamed of creating a single centralized
un ion that would unite the whole of the working class and channel their
allegiance behind a transcendental cause.7 Of course, the cause itself was
.,
1: , rather different.Instead of stirnulating enthusiasm for Catholic national­
isrn, the Cardenistas sought to build a following for the emerging post­
revolutionary order.
As the confederation evolved into the preeminent política! machine in
Michoacán, it becarne the ideal device to lay the political fow1dations of
Cardenismo. Membership in the confederation was the key to attaining
political power on the local leve! because the organization admitted only
one agrarian league or rural union from each community and only one
trade union per sector in the larger cities.The directorate, which in theory
was elected by representatives of the local member organizations, reserved
the right to decide which local associations would receive official recogni­
tion and which would not.In sorne instances contending factions of work­
ers or land reform beneficiaries scrarnbled to secure official recognition be­
fore their rivals could.In other cases, when one local dique was already
ascendant before the confederation arrived on the scene, the effect was to
further entrench existing power structures at the local level.Furthermore,
confederation members were also expected to join Calles's newly founded
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 19 3
"political arm of the revolution" and official party, the National Revolu­
tionary Party, or PNR.As a result, confederation members had the inside
track to winning PNR recognition for their leaders and a near lock on po­
litical power. 8
The confederation's directors considered a wúfied front necessary in or­
der to guarantee the popular "economic and intellectual emancipation"
and to counteract the "schernes of the exploiters," but they also intended
to regulat� popular-class behavior by directing and disciplining the politi­
cal practice of working people.9 The twin notions of unity and discipline­
both of which were implied by the concept of organization-were inti­
mately linked in the governing statutes, which stated in their opening pages
that the confederation existed in order to
unify ali the working sectors from the City and the Country side in
one single collective to undertake a Class struggle in order that
workers might achieve the moral and economic emancipation to
which they have a right....To direct, via its Central Committee,
the general activities of its associated groups in order that they
may jointly constitute an organization capable of resolving the
burning Issues of Labor.... To maintain a broad sense among
ali affiliated members that discipline is the basis for solidarity,
for [discipline] should be one of the most critica! bases for the
stability and progress of the Organization.
The forty-page pamphlet of statutes returned to these issues in its final
pages. It admonished that the confederation could not function if its
members did not demonstrate "solidarity among themselves and disci­
pline to the Cornmittees that direct them." 1 º
The confederation's directors meant to maintain discipline for military
reasons as well as political ones.The statutes explicitly stated that "cam­
pesinos" could only secure their interests if "they are provided with
weapons." 11 In fact, this belligerent tone may have been the result of po­
litical expediency more than any thing else. Most agraristas had never
given up the arms they had received to combat the Cristero rebellion, and
Cárdenas would have found it difficult to demobilize many of these fight­
ers. After ali, pockets of antirevolutionary rebellion continued to break
out for years after the official cease-fire. Cárdenas felt that he needed a
_.11
194 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
free hand to stamp out these recidivists and, ideally, to overpower any
landowners who stood in the way of land reform. Moreover, agrarista
leaders had a personal stake in keeping their retainers under arms in or­
der to guarantee their local authority. In any case, Cárdenas did not have
much choice in the matter since many agrarista home guards had simply
ignored the army's orders to turn over their weapons once the Cristero re­
bellion had ended. 12
To be sure, rural folk were not the only group that the confederation
proposed to organize. Confederation activists also hoped to attract the
small population of industrial workers in Michoacán, but they ran into
difficulties because most of these workers had already affiliated with la­
bor unions before Cárdenas came to office. The largest block of industrial
workers belonged to the miners unions in the eastern mountain towns of
Tlalpujahua and Angangueo, where the national labor central known as
the CROM (Mexican Regional Federation of Labor) had a long history
of militancy. The CROM's point man was Primitivo Juárez, a strapping
mill-worker-turned-professional-politician who reluctantly signed a mu­
tual assistance pact with the confederation in 1929. Still, the miners unions
did not participate in state poli tics until the CROM began to decay in the
193os. 13 Nor did industrial workers elsewhere in the state show much of
an interest in the confederation. One of two competing textile workers
"!'
"'" unions in Ciudad Hidalgo put a great deal of effort into gaining recogni­
tion, but mainly because it hoped that the Cárdenas government would
"'· dissolve their rival labor organization. The largest independent labor or­
ganization in Morelia, in contrast, was an electricians union composed of
pro-Catholic workers who refused to join the confederation altogether.
., According to the union leaders, the Cardenista organization was "very
l
q
underhanded in its outlook" and intended only to suppress their organi­
zation and subject its members to political dictates that had nothing at ali
to do with the union's goals of improving the "economic and moral"
condition of its members. 14
The confederation did not fare much better with public employees. In
1929, Luis Mora Tovar� a close ally of Cárdenas and a high-ranking offi­
cial in the Cardinista machine, asked ali government employees to join the
confederation-affiliated Public Employees' Union. He reminded them that
the governor wanted everyone who earned a salary, even white-collar
Cárdenas and Campesino Poli tics 19 5
workers, to join a union capable of protecting their common welfare. He
also added the cryptic assurance that Cárdenas would treat any "political,
religious, and social passions" with complete impartiality. 15 As it turned 1/
out, a large proportion of government employees already belonged to a ri­ \
val (and probably CROM-backed) union and had no intention of bowing
to Cárdenas's wishes. lt seems probable that at least some of the unionized
employees balked at the confederation's anticlerical and radical positions,
because Mora Tovar fumed at the recalcitrance of "notorious reactionar­
ies" and "incorrigible enemies of the Revolution" who refused to join up. 16
The government employees apparently managed to hold out, because a
few months later the confederation fired off yet another terse memoran­
dum that ordered ali public personnel to demonstrate their "revolutionary
temperament" by filling out a form that pledged their allegiance to the
confederation. 17
But the confederation's largest contingent by far consisted of agraristas
and a growing number of unionized hacienda field hands. The leadership
dedicated most of its energies to advocating on behalf of villagers who
hoped to benefit from the land reform and the unionization of rural labor.
Likewise, the majority of the confederation's política! advocacy related to
agrarian issues or wage disputes on haciendas. Cárdenas himself consid­
ered the confederation primarily a campesino union and on one occasion
dedicated an entire month to travel through the countryside near Uruapan
adjudicating disputes between rival indigenous communities and stumping
on behalf of his organization. He hammered home his point about the cen­
trality of rural laborers to the confederation by directing José Solórzano, a
close political ally, to hold a special agrarian congress in Morelia in 1930
that was attended by more than three thousand rural folk affiliated with
the campesinos' arm of the confederation. 18
AGRARISTA LEADERS, UNION ORGANIZERS, ANO CARDENISMO
If Cárdenas hoped to fill the ranks of his syndicate with rural folk sympa­
thetic to his revolutionary project, he had little choice but to turn to agra­
rista leaders. These men and their family members had created local power
bases for themselves over the previous decade. They had helped to define
the cultural parameters of agrarismo and had prosecuted the war against
 196 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
the Cristero rebels. One way or another, they had attained the respect of
their followers. In the end, their help proved pivota! in the effort to build
up the confederation quickly and efficiently, not least because Cárdenas's
occasional attempts to concoct agrarismo from the top down rarely suc­
ceeded. After all, when the governor created new ejidos and armed new
home guards, he met with resistance from several quarters. Newly farmed
agrarista militias often received a cold shoulder from older guardsmen who
resented newcomers horning in on their territories. Would-be ejidatarios
rejected the men Cárdenas designated to lead them, and, in sorne cases,
rural folk whom the Cardenistas tried to fashion as agraristas refused the
lands the government had granted them. 19 As a result, Cárdenas usually
found it easier to rely on preexisting agrarista groups with established tra­
ditions of activism. Ir was a strategy that paid off well.
Cárdenas's populist politics, combined with his ability to articulare a
discourse of revolution with which rural leaders identified, earned him and
his confederation the staunch allegiance of most agrarista veterans. Er­
nesto Prado, far example, continued to reign supreme in La Cañada ar the
head of a formidable agrarista militia. During the Cárdenas years, Prado
also took an increasingly intransigent anticlerical stance by closing churches
and countenancing the burning of sacred statuary. In 1932 anguished in­
digenous people wrote the president to protest that they lived in "oppres­
sion and slavery" because they felt that the Prado family's supremacy "is
nothing other than caciquismo and inquisition," but such pleas did not
make Cárdenas veer from his political course. 20 Prado was subsequently
invited to cement his authority within the Cardenista machine by taking
over as the confederation's Secretary of Indigenous Communities. As late
1 •
as 193 5, the Prado brothers continued to prove their usefulness by en­
farcing Cárdenas's decision to fold the confederation's membership into
the newly established Mexican Federation of Labor (CTM). The Prados
dutifully carried out their orders, far which the new governor of Micho­
acán rewarded them with sinecures in the CTM and later in the National
Federation of Campesinos (CNC). Only in the waning years of Cárdenas's
administration did Ernesto Prado's political intrigues begin to erode the
president's faith in him; in the late 1930s, after a face-to-face confronta­
tion with the cacique during a state dinner, the president began to search
far ways to sever ties with the Prado clan.2' Even·rhis falling out was tem-
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 197
porary, however, and the Prado family continued to hold positions of eco­
nomic and political power in La Cañada well into the 197 os. 22
Most of the other old-line agrarista leaders also joined Cárdenas's
movement. In Naranja, Ezequiel Cruz led the local confederation affiliate,
which by 1932 claimed to speak on behalf of thirty agrarista organiza­
tions and a smattering of hacienda laborers' unions. Cruz continued to
act as a spokesman far Cárdenas in the Zacapu area even after the gover­
nor's term had expired and, like Prado, Cruz helped to establish the
CNC's presence in Michoacán in the late 193os. 23 Other longtime petit
bourgeois agrarista leaders such as Neftalí Cejudo in the Zitácuaro area
and Justino Chávez of Tiripetío followed a similar trajectory. A military­
man-turned-schoolteacher, Cejudo had commanded an important contin­
gent of landless villagers in the western highlands ever since 1911. He was
among the delegares to the first confederation congress in 1929 and soon
built a reputation as a hard-line Cardenista. Chávez began as the leader of
the agrarista movement in Tiripetío, then served in the mid-192os as the
president of the ephemeral Great Agrarista Party of Michoacán and Primo
Tapia's agrarian league befare joining the confederation. 24
Sorne new rural leaders did appear in the late 1920s and manage to find
a place alongside the old-timers. The establishment of new ejidos created
opportunities far aspiring agrarista leaders to join in the struggle far lands
and gain a faothold in ejidal governments and the confederation. The con­
federation commissioned newly minted agrarista chieftains such as Juan
Gutiérrez, who led a campaign to establish severa! ejidos in the Zamora
area and saw to it that the new beneficiaries participated in the organiza­
tion's regional affiliates. Gutiérrez fervently carried out his duty, sorne­
times to the point of padding lists of ejido petitioners with the names of
his allies. 25 On a more humble scale, the confederation appointed small­
time agrarista headmen from the vicinity of Morelia to municipal posts in
a number of neighboring hamlets, sometimes over the objections of local
residents. 26
The confederation's leadership opened other new political frontiers by
championing the unionization of hacienda laborers with a vigor that pre­
vious governments in Michoacán had never imagined. Here too, Car­
denista politicians contracted the services of popular-class political ac­
tivists, most of whom had been raised in modest circumstances with little
 198 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
formal education. One of the foremost members of this new generation
of activists was Rafael Vaca Solorio, an ex-muleteer and sometí me moon­
shiner from the town of Taretan.He had learned his trade from his father
while hauling goods for haciendas around Uruapan. Cardenista politi­
cians initially gave Vaca the task of organizing laborers in his home dis­
trict. Later, they named him a special representative of the confederation
and charged him with resolving "conflicts between capital and labor" in
Taretan or studying the "problems that exist among the workers" of Zitá­
cuaro (among other places) or visiting "ali the townships in the state" to
determine whether municipal authorities had complied with the edicts
that Cárdenas sent them.27
Perhaps Vaca's most consuming task entailed the unionization of field
hands on the sprawling Nueva Italia hacienda not far from Uruapan. The
initiative consumed much of his energy from 1929 until 1934. Vaca en­
listed the help of Gabriel Zamora, a baker from the settlement located on
..,.
�I
the hacienda. Together the two men encouraged laborers to organize and
join the confederation.28 Dubbed "Communist propagandists" and "pro­
.;:
.. ,.¡ fessional agitators" by the hacienda owners, Vaca, Zamora, and their al­
lies began to organize the union clandestinely.They also encouraged field
hands to solicit an ejido, which contravened the agrarian law at the time
that prohibited hacienda employees from receiving land reform parcels.29
Hacienda laborers ignored the organizers' efforts at fu-st. Many workers
had misgivings about the Cardenistas' intent, and no one wanted to risk
his neck by being the first to enroll.30
Rather than confront the field hands with a union roster that had no
signatures on it yet, Vaca and Zamora first enlisted members of the local
army detachment to sign their names to the membership list and then
moved on to hacienda millers and cowboys. Only then did they·capture the
attention of regular field hands. After a few weeks, they had compiled 3 85
signatures, mostly from the field hands, on the union's founding document.
A local schoolteacher eventually volunteered to serve as the union's "legal
representative" and to take care of correspondence and other administra­
tive details with the confederation higher-ups, but most of the union's lead­
ership carne from the ranks of hacienda laborers.31 An undercover agent
that the federal government sent to report on a parallel effort by commu­
nists to organize their own unions on the hacienda in 1933 reponed that
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 199
the communists had made little headway but that half of the hacienda
workers had joined the Cardenista unions. The field hands, he said, had a
deep "understanding . .. of the struggle for unionization ... although the
vast majority of them [were] illiterate, even in the directorate." 32
The unionization effort on Nueva Italia ultimately achieved contradic­
tory results. 33 From the beginning, the field hands' newfound appreciation
of the "struggle for unionization" outstripped the confederation's taste
for confrontation with employers. Workers threatened to strike for higher
wages almost immediately after their union was organized in 1931, and
they refused to harvest any grain unless the hacienda raised their wages.
The hacienda acquiesced in the short term, raising field hands' salaries
from $4.50 per week to $6.oo. When a new and far more conservative
governor succeeded Cárdenas in 1932, though, union politics at Nueva
Italia became entangled with statehouse politics.34 As a result, laborers
who again threatened to strike at harvest time in November 1933 met
with resistance from the hacienda's troop of mule skinners, who opposed
any new strike that would choke off rice production and cost them busi­
ness. lt also turned out that the mule skinners were preparing to join a
dissident union affiliated with the new governor's administration.
The dispute eventually led to a violent confrontation between the mule
skinners and mobilized field hands that led the army to intervene. A de­
tachment of soldiers also capitalized on the moment and executed Za­
mora as he tried to make his way toward the hacienda to speak with the
strikers. These episodes laid the foundation for an enduring atmosphere
of hostility that pitted unionized field hands against other hacienda la­
borers and the state government for years to come. 35 The issue was not
settled until 193 8, when Cárdenas used his presidentia! powers to na­
tionalize Nueva Italia and a sister hacienda and convert them to workers'
cooperatives. Even this solution ended up creating a host of new logisti­
cal, economic, and política! problems that took decades to resolve. 36
Although neophyte Cardenistas such as Vaca, Zamora, and Gutiérrez
held prominent positions, most of the confederation's core supporters
were village revolutionaries who had already established themselves in
their home communities. Cárdenas won these veterans over by promising
them a política! voice in state politics and a measure of autonomy vis-a­
vis their own supporters. In exchange, he expected their allegiance and
 200 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
discipline. This was more than a simple political transaction. Cárdenas
expressed himself in an idiom that all village revolutionaries could un­
derstand and appreciate. Agrarista leaders were particularly enthusiastic
about his administration. Cárdenas posed his political vision in terms of
revolutionary citizenship and agrarista militancy-ideas that soon became
coded as campesino interests-and thus modulated his discourse to coin­
cide with agrarista expectations. In other words, Cárdenas both adopted
the discourse and política! goals of agrarismo and codified it within his la­
bor confederation. 37
ZURUMÚTARO
Pedro Talavera typified veteran agraristas' experiences of Cardenismo. Ta­
lavera had emerged in the mid-1920s as the agrarista headman in the vil­
lage of Zurumútaro, a Hispanicized indigenous hamlet lying in the rolling
foothills just east of Pátzcuaro. He was the son of a modestly well-to-do
family by village standards. His father had saved enough money to buy a
small woodlot and made a living cutting timber. Talavera's political career
began in 1924, when the village's previous headman, an ardent supporter
of Governor Múgica, died while leading militiamen against Delahuertista
rebels during the Tabasco campaign in 1924. Talavera took cornmand and
helped the army crush the rebellion. 38 Cárdenas apparently knew about
these exploits befare taking office, and he tapped Talavera to head up the
confederation's committee on agrarian communities.
The villagers had a centuries-long tradition of defending their commu­
., nal property. Zurumútaro had numbered among the Purépecha monarch's
�-• '
private landholdings in pre-Hispanic times, and these lands passed directly
to the Spanish crown with the conquest of Michoacán in 1522. This pe­
culiarity helped the community retain much of its property for the follow­
ing two centuries until the crown privatized its lands in 1770. Three years
later, a well-connected local notable formed the La Tareta hacienda. The
villagers paid careful attention as the new landowner marked the bound­
aries of his estate, but they could not keep him from clainung territory that
belonged to their community and two other indigenous villages. The vil­
lagers immediately brought a lawsuit, which they won in 1801, but the
outbreak of the wars of independence nine years later made the ruling a
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 201
dead letter. 39 Indeed, La Tareta and other haciendas continued to move
1/
onto community lands despite a string of lawsuits that the villagers
brought over the next fifty years.
By the mid-nineteenth century, La Tareta was "renting" most of Zu­
rumútaro's land. It is not clear whether the landowner considered these
\
renta! lands to be his personal property or not. In any case, he refused to
settle his accounts with village headmen directly and insisted on deliver­
ing all renta! payments to the priests in the nearby town of Pátzcuaro,
who promised to use the funds for the villagers' spiritual needs. By the
time of the revolution, the old hacienda owner had long since died, and
twenty years had passed since the once-proud estate had been fractured
into a dozen or so ranchos and small haciendas of between one and two
hundred hectares. His three children had received parcels of severa] hun­
dred hectares each, including the land that had once been "rented" from
Zurumútaro. But this new generation of landowners regarded the village
lands as their own property free and clear, leaving Zurumútaro with 240
hectares of poor-quality land.40
As was so often the case, however, the turmoil of warfare presented
the villagers with new opportunities. In 1916 they invaded half of what
remained of La Tareta-perhaps they were emboldened by the presence
of bandir Inés Chávez García-and managed to hold onto it for four
years. Their audacity enraged a local ranchero, who described the "Indi­
ans" of Zurumútaro as thieves and "bad people with no vocation or am­
bition."41 In 1919 the governor of Michoacán recognized that it would be
easier and perhaps wiser to face up to the inevitable and grant the vil­
lagers an ejido. Obregón finalized the process in 1921, making Zurumú­
taro one of the first communities to benefit from the land reform in Mi­
choacán. The occupation <lid not go off flawlessly, however, and ended
up ripening the hatred that set villagers against rancheros and field hands.
When the land reform grantees went out to survey their lands, they dis­
covered that the hacienda owner had put her field hands under the com­
mand of gunslinger Ladislao Molina, who ambushed the villagers and
drove them off their parce!. The agraristas soon returned with federal sol­
diers, and this time they marched up to the landlord's great house at La
Tareta, burned it to the ground, and carried off her chickens. 42
Sometime around 1925, a couple of villagers who worked as field
 202 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
hands on a nearby hacienda opened new wounds when they organ i zed a
labor union affiliated with the CROM, the powerful, progovernment la­
bor syndicate. The hacienda admi nistrator refused to renew sharecrop­
p ing agreements as long as the laborers belonged to the CROM and or­
dered them to leave the haci enda and turn over any plows and oxen that
belonged to the landowner. When the Cr i stero rebellion broke out the
following year, sorne of these unioni zed laborers dec ided to take their re­
venge. They joined Talavera's home guard, which was pri ncipally made
up of land reform beneficiaries from Zurumútaro. Together these guards­
men made a sweep of hamlets in the hacienda, "confiscat i ng weapons"
from anyone who lacked the proper permits to carry them.43
The Cristero rebellion deepened fi.ssures between Zurumútaro's agra­
ristas and neighboring villagers even further. During the rebellion, the De­
partment of Agrari an Reform took the unusual step of allowing sorne res­
idents of Zurumútaro to plant crops on an ejido parcel that belonged to
the nearby village of Tzintzuntzan (a community that was already well
known for its hostility to schoolteachers). In ali likelihood, the people of
Tzintzuntzan had little interest in farming. Most of them worked as pot­
ters, as they had ever since colonial times. The commun ity owned a be­
draggled stand of timber that villagers used to fuel thei r kilns, and they
wanted to receive more timberlands, not cornfi.elds. Even the local agrar­
ian engineer recogn ized that villagers "are not prepared for agr icultural
work, both because they lack any knowledge of cultivation and because
..
t;;, they lack any farm implements. " 44 Still, thi s did not mean that the vi l­
lagers welcomed their neighbors from Zurumútaro onto thei r lands. Tzin­
tzuntzan's community leaders noted that they "ri gorously" admini stered
''
1¡¡¡' the ti mber on their ejido, and that "the arri val of people from outside the
ejido" would only impede their efforts to conserve it. 45 Unsurprisingly,
man y of the indigenous residents of Tzintzuntzan joined the Cristero re­
bellion alongside resident, 11011-union ized laborers from nearby haciendas.
Together and separately, these people sporadi cally rose up, often under
the orders of Ladislao Molina, to battle agraristas and the government
they represented. 46
Zurumútaro's history of resistance to landowners and its residents'
hostility toward yet another nei ghboring communi ty made up of haci­
enda fi.eld hands who joined the Cristero rebellion set the stage for a burst
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 203
of popular anticler icalism during the Cárdenas years. Pedro Talavera be­
came the qu intessential village revolutionary and a sounding board of
popular anticlericalism, but he was by no means alone in vo�c ing his ex­
asperation w ith the church. Almost immediately after the Cnstero rebel­
lion ended, community leaders aligned with Talavera began an effort to
keep the village chapel closed to the faithful. In 1930, the Temperance
Committee of Zurumútaro published a handb ill stat i ng that the church
should not be reopened "in l ight of the grave difficulties that have arisen
in the past and in consideration of ali the blood that has been spilt be­
cause of the Creed known as Catholicism." 47
A month later, the village's confederation-affiliated Agrarista Federa­
tion (in whi ch Talavera occupied an important post) seconded the tem­
perance committee's request and wrote to the president explaining that
ever since the government's 1929 settlement w ith the church, "it has be­
come apparent that clergymen have embarked on an energetic offensive in
the vicinity of Agrarian Communities, especially those in which residents
have united to put the religious quest ion behind them." T he agraristas
asked whether they could use the church as a library, meeting house, or
movie theater and assured the president that converting the church into a
public space would anger only "a m i nuscule minor ity" of villagers who
wanted to see services reestablished in the village.48 T he agraristas proba­
bly overestimated the depth of popular anticlerical ism, although a school
i nspector who v isited the community in 1932 did report that he had found
a "completely defanaticized atmosphere" there. Serious popular agitat ion
to reopen the church did not occur until 19 5 3, and even in tbose more ide­
ologically flexible times, the village's old guard of agraristas almost suc­
ceeded in blocking the initiative.49
Village agraristas also received intellectual guidance from schoolteach­
ers. One teacher organized a women's cooperative and convinced its mem­
bers to buy a corn mill in arder to "alleviate women's daily drudgery."
Though sorne women doubted the contraption would work, a few tests
left even "the most demand ing Jadies" satisfied about its usefulness. A few
years later another educator prevailed upan the government to bring
potable water to the v illage. Educators also paid spec ial attention to Ta­
lavera's educat ional and ideological development. School inspector Jesús
Múgica Martínez (himself an important cog in the Cardenista machi ne)
 204 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
ordered schoolteachers to personally tutor the agrarista leader, and Mú­
gica Martinez struck up a brief and stormy friendship with him as well.
"We were great buddies," the educator later recalled, pointedly ignoring
his later political differences with Talavera. "We taught him to behave
well, to read, to write." 50
Many villagers responded favorably to these overtures and took a real
interest in education. In 193 2, for instance, one group claimed the right
to decide what sort of teacher should reside in the village and complained
to a school inspector that one schoolmarm had neglected her duties. The
inspector concurred and recommended that the Department of Education
should post "an eminently revolutionary schoolteacher" to the village.51
Cárdenas himself attended the inauguration of a new schoolhouse that
the agraristas built the following year. He endowed the little academy
�l with a Holstein cow and sorne Leghorn roosters in a celebration that in­
...
..,,,. cluded "a musical and literary recital" put on by land reform beneficia­
ries and night school students.52
.,.
��,, In ali, the Cárdenas years were very good for the agraristas in Zu­
�:....,. rumútaro, as local agraristas reaped the moral and economic benefits of
""·' Talavera's meteoric political career. Members of the ejidal government at­
tended the confederation's annual congresses, at which the syndicate's
leaders harangued the rank and file on the virtues of labor organization
and revolutionary activism. Schoolteachers and agraristas staged plays in
the church, which had lost its complement of religious statuary some­
where along the line. One play, entitled "Land and Liberty" {the old Za­
patista mantra), won the village sorne modest regional fame. One specta­
''· tor recalled that che play's message "favored the campesino and took
shots at landowners." People carne from surrounding pueblos-at least
'
�: those that had joined in the fight against the Cristeros-to see the show,
and the villagers eventually gave a few performances in a theater in Pátz­
cuaro. E ven Cárdenas himself carne by from time to time to visit "his"
people in the village. 53
Pedro Tala vera returned home frequently as well, even though he had a
number of administrative duties with the confederation. In 1930, for ex­
ample, he participated (along with other Cardenistas such as Rafael Vaca
Solorio and José Solórzano) in a unionization drive on the Taretan ha­
cienda. His humble background muse have helped him compose speeches
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 205
that avoided che class-based paternalism of professional politicians. In
Taretan he made a speech about the nature of unions and outlined "the
1/
\
sorts of weapons that the enemies of [unions] use to break them and
provoke their members." He summed up by saying that joining the
confederation-affiliated union would safeguard "the triumphs that the
revolution has brought to workers and campesinos as a class." 54
This sort of ideological fervor won Talavera a good deal of notoriety,
and in 1936 the confederation-PNR machine nominated him for a seat in
the state legislature, a move that virtually guaranteed him the position. His
followers in Zurumútaro were delighted. Talavera continued to toe the
Cardenista line in the state capital until he ran afoul of a rival politician
whose supporters gutshot him in the street outside of the legislative palace
and left him to face a lingering death in che street. This blow did not de­
stroy tbe agrarista movement in Zurumútaro, but it did deprive its com­
munity of agrarian revolutionaries of the man who had served as a politi­
cal patron and ideological inspiration to them for more than a decade.
CARDENISTA EDUCATION
Cárdenas depended on agrarista leaders to usher their people into the con­
federation, but he turned to teachers to instruct recruits ranging from
chieftains such as Talavera to the workaday farmer in a land reform com­
munity. Schoolteacbers already had an established tradition of collaborat­
ing with prominent agraristas, although they often found themselves be­
holden to local headmen to prop up student attendance and, occasionally,
to ensure tbeir own well-being. With the advent of the confederation, Cár­
denas incrementally changed the balance of power within many villages
by giving educational leaders such as José Palomares Quiroz, Diego Her­
nández Topete, Lamberto Moreno, and others leadership positions in the
organization. 55 Educational administrators Alberto Coria and Elías Mi­
randa also served terms as secretary general. Even at a more modest leve!,
village schoolteachers played a leading role in organizing and guiding lo­
cal confederation affiliates, ensuring that (relatively) educated community
leaders would help steer the masses onto the course of intellectual and eco­
nomic emancipation that tbe confederation had plotted for them.
Most of the younger generation of teachers tended to favor Cárdenas's

206 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
political activism, not least because they shared his vision of a carefuU
controlled, state-directed "emancipation"of campesinos.Since Cárdena:
like others of his generation, understood that schoolteachers would b;
the primary agents of this revolutionary labor of redemption, it is per­
haps unsurprising that many educators eagerly collaborated with his pro­
ject.56 Schoolteachers were a highly self-selected social group by the late
1920s. Many of them chose to enter the profession because they longed
to oriem the masses and participare in the revolutionary reconstruction
of society. Cárdenas did not disappoint them.Soon after he took office he
created a training ground for activist teachers at the La Huerta agricul­
tura! school (which itself was located on an ex-hacienda).The school had
opened its doors in 1926 with President Calles himself presiding over the
inauguration, so the first class was about to graduare by the time Cárde­
nas arrived in Michoacán.57 He gave María del Refugio García, Múgica's
ex-collaborator and a member of the Communist Party, a position on its
faculty, and she gave seminars on scientific materialism and other radical
doctrines. Because many students at La Huerta were "ignorant about
matters of the countryside," they also received instruction in the latest
agricultura! techniques.The aspiring educators also presented anticlerical
plays, composed patriotic hymns, organized cooperatives amongst them­
selves, and traveled to other townships to speak at civic events such as the
inauguration of a new schoolhouse.58
Armed with an education from La Huerta or a similar institution'
teachers set about enacting the desiderata of Callista-Cardenista cultural
politics. In addition to the well-established ideals of defanaticizing and
modernizing the popular consciousness, a host of new goals attracted the
revolutionaries' attention in the late 1920s.In 1928, middle-class politi­
cians in Michoacán declared a war on alcoholism arriong the lower
classes. One newspaper declared in typically paternalistic terms that
"every liter of alcohol is a brawl, a wound, a death, an instance of de­
generacy, ... [and] a disgrace for ali humanity."59 In 1929, the Morelia
city council restricted the hours and locations in which liquor could be
sold; the following yeaLit banned the sale of pulque (a drink of fermented
agave water favored by the lower classes) on Sundays.06 Schoolteachers
throughout the state began to inveigh against the vice of drunkenness and
to stage antialcoholism rallies complete with patriotic orations, confetti,
--
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 207
r/
traditional dances, and music.Teachers invited entire villages to attend,
in one case through the use of hand flyers thac cajoled rural folk in the
\
cypical discourse of revolutionary agrarismo: "Campesino who eraves lib­
erty!" the flyer read. "Do not drink wine, for it is made from the tear­
drops, the blood, and che lives of those you !ove."61
To give a bit more continuity to the project, ceachers organized antial­
cohol commissions, most of which were official confederation affiliates
composed of agrarista women.The founding statement of one such com­
mission stated that it proposed to eliminare the "misery, ruination, and
loose morals to which alcohol, che enemy, leads. le will create instead
habits of health, thrift, and honesty by working directly for the good of
the [indegenous] race."62 The temperance leagues also assailed che vice of
gambling, apparently because many women liked the idea of keeping
their husbands sober and away from the card tables where they might
lose cheir money or: even their lands.36 In both of these issues, revolution­
ary politicians finally found something they could offer women.Whereas
anticlericalism and che ideal of campesino militancy alienated womenfolk
in many agrarista communities, che message of temperance in drink and
gaming appealed to women who had to keep their families in order.And
even though the temperance movement doubtless reproduced traditional
gender roles (the improvident husband, the nagging wife), it appears to
have been a compromise that many women felt prepared to make.
In place of alcohol and gambling, teachers and their village allies of­
fered rural people sports.Schoolteachers began to encourage their charges
to cake up basketball, baseball, and, on rare occasions, soccer. 64 Sports
clubs, which had made their debut in political rituals such as Indepen­
dence Day celebrations in the mid-r92os, now participated in nearly every
major civic event. Athletics promoted "material, intellectual, and moral
progress in communities,"according to the leaders of one sporting club,
who went on to scate their belief that "to achieve the success of the edu­
cacional and disciplinary project that is being proposed, [che sports cen­
ter] should combar ali vice within its members until it is completely erad­
icated." The athletic club's organizers added almost as an afterthought
that they expected che "unlimited material and moral support"of munic­
ipal, state, and federal governments.65
Schoolteachers occasionally atcended meetings of ejido communities to
 208 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
Lázaro Cárdenas witb students frorn Morelia Escuela Normal. The photo was
taken in September 1929, when the troop was in Ario de Rosales "forrning
unions and building basketball courts." Courtesy CERMLC.
exhort the land reform beneficiaries to attend night school. They gave
speeches informing rural people about "the great advantages that Educa­
tion will impart." Even if rural people murmured approval for these
speeches, it did not necessarily translate into actual attendance at school.66
Aside from agraristas, most country people hesitated to embrace the new,
more activist approach to education, even in the 1930s. One school in­
spector explained that attendance had decreased in one village after the
local priest criticized the school's "goals, its coeducational approach, its
festivals, and its overall social function, calling it antireligious and Bolshe­
vik." Another official found that parents believed government education
"will harm" their children. Yet another described "expressions of out-and­
out rebellion against everything the school stands for."67 Aspiring school­
teacher Salvador Sotelo complained that people regularly passed by the
classroom where he taught night school, laughing and whistling derisively
at him while they dumped dirt on the balcony and threw rocks on the roof.
Within a few months, these "fanatics" had chased him out of town.68
-
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 209
The temperance drive sometimes provoked a backlash, as well.People
1/
who hawked alcohol ranged from politicians whose family members had
cornered the market in sorne villages to women who eked out their "own
sustenance and that of our families" by selling pulque in city plazas, and
none of them wanted to lose what was in fact a very lucrative business.69
\
Moreover, the assault on alcohol threatened the tradition of ritual drink­
ing that accompanied religious celebrations in many parts of the state. A
distressed schoolteacher reported in 1929 that nearly everyone in her
community had turned against her because they felt that the teachers only
wanted to persecute them. The villagers not only continued to drink, she
wrote, but they "consumed with more intensity; sorne residents have
come by the school in fits of drunkenness ... and cruelly insulted us." 7º
The various strands of the revolutionary cultural project were occa­
sionally enacted on a much grander scale during Cárdenas's term of of­
fice. Civic spectacles staged by the apparatchiks of the confederation and
the Department of Education occasionally invited schoolteachers and vil­
lagers to a variety of so-called cultural festivals that essentially functioned
as the revolutionary equivalent of a religious tent revival.As one middle­
class revolutionary confided, the cultural festivals had "nothing to do
with culture," but he figured that their ideological content sent a valuable
message to the lower classes nonetheless.71 The cultural festivals also of­
fered continuing education for teachers, who could attend seminars on
everything from the latest advances in agriculture and personal hygiene
to presentations by "a labor inspector who is in charge of improving the
general conditions for workers and who endeavors to organize them into
cooperatives, unions, reading circles, [and] recreational groups." 72 Con­
federation administrators usually figured sornewhere in tbe list of speak­
ers, ensuring that the foot soldiers of Cardenismo would have their time
on the stump as well.
In part, too, the cultural festivals established sites where "ali social
classes, and especially workers and campesinos" were invited to listen in
on the ideological polemics. The common folk could listen to revolution­
ary speeches by confederation administrators and government school­
teachers, hear recitals of regional music and poetry, and march with the
other attendees in the closing prornenade.73 Sorne observers believed the
cultural festivals could redirect village political culture, even if only tran-
F!'
210 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
siently. Anthropologist George Foster, who spent severa! months in Tzin­
tzuntzan in the mid-194os, reported that a "cultural mission" consisting
of sixty rural schoolteachers had visited the village in 193 1. The evem
was a "remarkable clash of cultures" and met with the suspicion of the
residents. But during the conference severa! improvements were made to
the town plaza (including the installation of a fountain that immediately
malfunctioned), leading severa! villagers to consider the mission in retro­
spect a turning point in village life: as a result of the event, villagers' "cu­
riosity had been aroused, and they were less fearful of outsiders." 74
Clergymen also found that the conferences had the potential to reorder
the ideological climate in rural communities. In Jiquilpan (Cárdenas's
hometown), a priest complained that the "conventions that the Teachers
�··
attend are terrible, as I understand that in them the Divinity of Our Lord
Jesus Christ is denied ... [and your] Grace will imagine what they say
about bishops and priests. " 75 A few years later in Taretan, another priest
wrote that
two months ago an agrarian congress took place here, and ever
t'". •·
since then the agrarista campesinos have been vehemently opposed
�,�.,
t; ... 1 to the Church: they have not attacked me personally; but they say
so many things that I can reasonably expect a serious confronta­
,.,.,_ tion.I cannot avoid any of this, because the leaders of the commu­
nity here ali have evil intentions.Two days ago I stumbled upon a
substantial group of [agrarista] leaders from a distant village who
were here late at night, although they were gone in the morning.
Because of ali of this, and for other reasons I cannot commit to
paper, I fear for my life.76
Cultural festivals did not meet with success everywhere, of course. In
sorne cases, municipal leaders refused to cooperare with the flood of fifty
or sixty schoolteachers who descended on their towns in need of food and
lodging.The organizers of a festival in one village complained that local
people regarded the event with apathy, and that the mayor did nothing to
improve their rece_ption.On the contrary, he mocked the teachers and fre­
quently uttered "burlesque and taunting words ...poking fun at and de­
meaning" the teachers who participated.As a result, the festival's results
were "middling" with regard to teachers' education and "almost null as
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 211
r/
regards the material and, especially, the spiritual improvement of the
township" was concerned. 77
\
Even Michoacán's most thoroughly premeditated and most highly re­
searched educational project-although not one strictly speaking associ­
ated with Cardenismo-met with failure.In 193 2, educator and sociolo­
gist Moisés Sáenz and a dozen specialists from the Department of Public
Education established a "permanent cultural mission" in the town of Ca­
rapan, just outside La Cañada. 78 Sáenz remained at the mission for seven
months, and bis colleagues stayed for a full year. They studied the in­
digenous people of the area in order to "attain the rapid integration of In­
dians into the national ensemble, within a framework of respect for Indi­
ans' spiritual and cultural values." 79 But, like so many postrevolutionary
projects, the Carapan experiment in cultural incorporation suffered flaws
from the start. The government had provided the educational mission
with the church buildings of Carapan, which provoked almost immediate
resistance and a minor confrontation with "an unruly group of women"
three weeks after the researchers arrived. 80 It was to be the first of many
confrontations as indigenous people resisted Sáenz's efforts, with women
and village elders leading the way. The agraristas of the region were the
only ones who cooperated willingly, but the Prado family's involvement
created a host of new tensions by associating the research station with
agrarian radicalism. Although Sáenz had consciously tried to steer clear
of the labyrinth of village politics, his dependence on the Prado clan was
a central reason that his mission failed to produce a formula to "Mexi­
canize" indigenous people, or as Sáenz put it, to "make [the Indian] one
of us. " 81
Whatever the failures of Cardenista educators, however, their language
and practices conveyed an unambiguous image of campesino identity. Ed­
ucational rallies literally enacted the idea of mass politics, and educa­
tional discourse was suffused with the idea that rural people as a group
constituted a potentially revolutionary class of campesinos that the revo­
lution should organize and empower as citizens.Or, as one administrator
put it, the "noble goal" of the postrevolutionary state was to "organize
the proletarian campesino. " 82 Teachers and agrarian leaders had already
appointed themselves as the vanguard of campesino organization, and
Cárdenas's labor confederation provided the means.
 212 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics Cárdenas and Camf1esino Politics 2r3

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF AGRARISMO the need for arms to carry out a campesino struggle in the face of a deter­
mined opposition, and the inclusive nature of the revolutionary nation. In
The CRMDT was initially conceived of as "an exclusively social organi­
adopting the rhetoric of agrarian militancy, Cárdenas's confederation ele­
zation" that would carry on class struggle on behalf of "indigenous and
vated it to the leve! of official policy and signaled that campesinos had a
agrarian communities, labor organizations, and in general ali groups of
place within the postrevolutionary state. In essence, the confederation es­
workers in the state. "83 The confederation's leadership took the distinc­
tablished itself as the institutional distillation of agrarismo.
tion between the political and civil spheres seriously enough that it for­
It is not surprising, then, that many of the confederation's stated prin­
mally dropped its designation as a social organization in 19 JI, declaring
cipies derived from well-worn agrarian attitudes. The goal that the con­
that its members should "take an active part, in collective form, in poli­
federation set forth in its foundational "declaration of principies" re­
tics. "84 Both Cárdenas and Múgica disapproved of the move because they
produced rhe agrarista maxim that "the Land and its fruits belong to
wanted to maintain the largely fictional distinction between the social
whomever works it directly" and pledged that it would work tirelessly to
realm in which they hoped the confederation would function and the po­
resolve "the agrarian question . . . by giving all campesinos the land to
litical sphere of electioneering. Múgica in particular objected to the con­
which they have a right. " 87 The confederation also set itself the goal of
federation leaders' decision to carry out "the social struggle through the
transforming "the extant capitalist system" and placing the means of
use of politics. " 85
production into workers' control as well as reaffirming the importance of
In fact, the confederation had always had ali the attributes of a pro­
secular education for the advancement of the popular classes. The stat­
Cárdenas political party. lts leadership included sorne of Cárdenas's clos­
utes amounted to a declaration of state-led agrarismo and reinforced the
est associates, and pro-Cárdenas agrarista leaders received important posts
centrality of campesino politics within the Cardenista project.
in the confederation's central committee. Agrarista caciques, including
The confederation's architects embraced other components of Micho­
Ernesto Prado and Juan Gutiérrez, held positions on the directorate at one
acán's tradition of agrarian activism as well. Ever since the revolution, and
point or another, and the organization was able to place agraristas-such
especially during the 1920s, agrarista leaders had insisted that they needed
as peasant leader Pedro Talavera, muleteer and moonshine salesman Ra­
arms to defend their lands from the depredations of landowners. The con­
fael Vaca Solario, and others-into elected offices in the state and na­
federation enshrined this idea in its manifesto too and officially recognized
tional legislatures. But if the confederation functioned as a party, it was
that "the only way for campesinos to protect their lives and their material
one intimately associated with campesino politics. The class origins and
interests is if they are given adequate armament." As a result, ir pledged to
ethnicity of men like Talavera and Prado contrasted markedly with Mi­
ensure that ali communities with an ejido grant would obtain weapons. 88
choacán's política! class in prior epochs, when nearly ali legislators and
The statutes remained markedly silent on the question of precisely against
government officials were upper-class liberal professionals of mostly Eu­
whom these arms should be used, but they did mention the need to remove
ropean descent. For the first time in the state's history, country people, the
"corrupt bureaucrats in the ejidal government so that ali members of [land
rural petit bourgeoisie, mestizos, and indigenous people gained entrance
reform] Communities can equitably benefit from the lands for which so
to the corridors of power. The government looked more like the country­
much blood was shed." Elsewhere the confederation reiterated that the
side. "Just imagine!" one agrarista recalled years later, "There were cam­
"eternal enemies of the people [el pueblo] are the priest, the hacienda
pesinos in the congress!" 86
owner, and the cacique" and warned members to remain on their guard
Much of the confederation's official rhetoric was pitched in terms of or­
against reactionary members of the federal army as well. 89 In a stroke, the
ganizing its members and carrying out the revolutionary project of "eman­
confederation had listed nearly every "class enemy" that agraristas and
cipating" the people coded as campesinos. lts official discourse repro­
their political allies had identified over the preceding decade.
duced agrarista tenets such as the centrality of land to subsistence farmers,

-
--
214 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 215

Apart from the words appearing on the parched leaves of statute books
(as well as in the syndicate's official newspaper, read by almost no one), the
confederation's militants revealed their affinity for militancy during the as­
semblies that they held throughout Michoacán during Cárdenas's gover­
norship.Each year, two delegates from every affiliated agrarian community
and local union carne together for a majar congress. Like the confedera­
tion's founding statutes, the proceedings at these events were split between
state-building bombast concerning the need to transform the masses and
symbolic events drawing more directly on agrarista traditions. Those at­
tending the annual congress in Zamora in 1930, for example-in addition
to hearing selections from Verdi's Il Trovatore and a poem entitled "Indio"
by the modernist poet José Muüoz Cota-were expected to watch a moral­
ity play by the Revolutionary Women's Group of Morelia. Time was set
aside for a "Tremendous Demonstration" that agrarista leaders themselves
had organized. 90
It was perhaps the spectacle of agrarista leaders speaking at confeder­
ation events that most clearly reflected the integration of campesinos into
Lázaro Cárdenas addressing the confederation, circa 193 2. Courtesy CERMLC.
the postrevolutionary nation. After ali, they were still the same village
leaders and veteran agrarista fighters who commanded their followers to
trade shots with hacienda guardsmen and Cristeros, who led marches in as Vaca Solario, the schoolteacher Sotelo, and the sometime politician
the streets, and who determ . ined who would benefit most from ejido lands Victoriano Anguiano Equihua were frequently pressed into service to
and municipal offices. Now these men occupied the same dais as Gover­ speak in favor of the governor and his organization. Anguiano recalled
nor Cárdenas. They spoke (or merely marched), not just on behalf of the that in 193 2 the confederation organized rallies throughout the state on
confederation, but as an integral part of it.91 Agrarista leaders had shared Cárdenas's behalf in which "[I] greeted the campesinos in the Governor's
the podium with powerful politicians from time to time befare the advent name and passed along his recommendations, ideas, and bis summons
r... ' of Cardenismo, but in Michoacán, presidents and governors had always that they organize to defend their rights ....I tried to portray General
t,
....'
a,
kept them at arm's length to avoid the political costs of allying too closely Lázaro Cárdenas's collectivist undertaking in its clearest light. " 92 Unlike
with the unruly and potentially dangerous campesinos. But with Cárde­ most spokesmen for the regime, however, Anguiano's command of the
nas, village revolutionaries entered into the inner circle of power, whether Purépecha language allowed him to address his indigenous audiences in
f
as the organizers of oficial spectacle at the confederation's congresses, as their mother tongue.
members of its governing board like Prado and others, or as agrarista­ These local congresses resembled nothing so much as a traveling road
leaders-turned-politicians like Talavera. show, but they did not always turn out as planned. One year, Cárdenas
For those who could not trek to Pátzcuaro, Mordía, or Zamora to at­ and bis followers held an event in the resolutely Catholic town of Za­
tend the annual conventions, or who did not want to take part in the con­ capu. One of the women in his entourage decided to take anticlericalism
federation's brand of mass populism, more modest spectacles were staged into her own hands. Without telling Cárdenas, Catalina Duarte (better
to emphasize the pro-campesino posture of the new order. Orators such known as La Pelona for having bobbed her hair) broke into the parish
216 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
church and wrecked the interior, saying that she wanted to "finish with
ali this for once and for ali." When the townspeople found out what had
happened, they demanded that Cárdenas turn La Pelona over to them.
The Cardenistas quickly broke camp and beat a hasty retreat to the rela­
tive safety of Tiríndaro.93
On another occasion proconfederation agraristas from Carapan and
frorn the Naranja area decided to "rnake a display that would impress the
Indians" in the emphatically traditional village of Cherán. The confeder­
ates chose to hold their assembly during the Easter holidays as a way to
underscore their own, somewhat ambivalent, claim to religious tradition.
They arrived with oxen carrying stone corn grinders, cooking pans, and
earthenware pots while chanting slogans and singing ballads in Puré­
pecha, accompanied by brass bands from Tiríndaro and Naranja. The
agraristas took over the plaza and erected a stage set about with red and
black flags of the confederation, sorne bearing the sickle and scythe.
There was an incendiary speech. The agraristas sent for the village leader,
who was also the president of the local PNR affiliate, and demanded that
he swear his allegiance to the cause. The village elder refused to bow to
the agraristas' wishes, even when they held a pisto! to his chest. Many of
the villagers still had the guns they had used during the revolution when
they fought under the banner of Zapatismo, and they soon dusted them
off far a confrontation with the agraristas. After a brief firefight that left
severa! people wounded on each side, the rernaining Cardenistas crept out
of town the following morning, looking, as one witness recalled, "like be­
wildered rats." 94
The confederation could be dogrnatic even to the point of violence, but
there can be líttle doubt that its discourse and practice were rooted in vil­
lage traditions of agrarian struggle in an updated and bureaucratized
farrn. Its official rhetoric celebrated Michoacán's agrarista traditions even
as its unionization drives and public rituals invited campesinos to join to­
gether in a thoroughly hierarchical organization that prornised to identify
and promote their interests. As historian Marjorie Becker has shown,
many rural people resisted or only conditionally accommodated the Car­
denistas' proposition of "secular redemption," which required that they
attenuate their links with the church and learn instead to dance arm in
arm with the new order.95 For people who already defined thernselves as
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 217
agraristas, the institutionalization of their movement had a rather differ­
ent meaning, however. It represented the realization of ideals that they
had fought over and the culmination of a decade-long struggle far políti­
ca! legitimacy. In this sense, it was a política! validation of their emerging
cultural identity as campesinos.
CARDENISMO IN CHECK
In 1932, Cárdenas's term in office expired, and he left bis state and his
confederation behind in order to take some important bureaucratic and
military positions. His meteoric political rehabilitation a year later and
nomination as the PNR's candidate to become the next president of the
republíc nonetheless took both Michoacán's agraristas and its política!
class by surprise.96 When Cárdenas's term as governor expired, the con­
federation's leadership had hoped that he would arrange for Ernesto Soto
Reyes to succeed him. After ali, an insider like Soto Reyes could keep the
confederation strong-and of course safeguard its most prominent mem­
bers' política! sinecures. But President Calles decided to appoint Benigno
Serrato, a litt!e-known military man with litt!e real constituency in Mi­
choacán. Problems between Serrato and the Cardenistas emerged almost
immediately. Despite Cárdenas's entreaties to his followers to exercise
"prudence, composure, etc.," the confederation's leadership soon com­
plained that mobilized campesinos and workers had come under pressure
from "organized reactionaries concealed within official spheres of the
present Government." 97 Serrato responded to these charges by asking the
president to ignore the politically motivated prattle of "pseudo-leaders
[and] agitators affiliated with communists," who only wanted to "sow
the seeds of confusion [desorientación]" among the working classes and
"alienare them from the authorities." 98
Indeed, Serrato had moved to co-opt as many Cárdenas supporters as
he could and to declaw those he could not. He removed opposition politi­
cians from the state legislature and swept aside any municipal government
he mistrusted-a common practice far incoming governors. He also or­
dered most agrarista militias to disarm and allowed hacienda owners to
crack clown on unionized field hands. 99 Finally, in March 1933, Serrato's
partisans called a special meeting of the confederation to remove its exist-
218
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
ing leadership, and many CROM-affiliated unionists (most of whom had
never liked the Cardenista organization anyway) as well as a good num­
ber of land reform beneficiaries chose to attend. The delegares accused the
Cardenistas of the "ignominious enterprise of placing the campesinos and
workers of this State in opposition to the Government" and charged that
the current leadership had alienated "each and every revolutionary group"
in Michoacán. 100 They ceremoniously impeached the existing board of di­
rectors and installed a new slate loyal to Serrato. The new Serratista con­
federation-which the Cardenistas snjdely dubbed Coniederation of the
Christ Child-continued to use the name Revolutionary Labor Confeder­
ation of Michoacán, but it jettisoned the sickle-and-scythe emblem and
communist-inspired motto. 101
It appears that the rural people who joined the Serrato-affüiated con­
federation approved of the land reform but would have no truck with the
more radical components of agrarista political culture associated with
class struggle and anticlericalism. The expansion of the land reform and
the consolidation of the revolutionary elite's control of the state probably
convinced many rural people that the revolutionaries were in power to
stay. By 1930, the government had brought the Cristero rebellion to an
end, begun to domesticare the army, and centralized power through the
use of institutions such as the PNR and Michoacán's own confederation.
Thus many country people accommodated to the new order, though they
did not necessarily embrace it. 102 If Serrato would offer them benefüs­
through his schismatic confederation or otherwise-they would accept
his política] largesse. One agrarista woman explained the schism this way:
"It must be admitted that not al! members of the agrarian Community
embrace the social struggle. Sorne people have been attracted by the re­
pugnant [Serratista confederation] with the result in this case that sorne
workers' associations have split apart." 103
The most commfrted Cardenistas did not simply stand back and watch
as their adversaries dismembered the confederation, however. They boy­
cotted the pro-Serrato congress and held their own so-called genuine
meeting on the same day. The Cardenistas denied the legitimacy of the ri­
val organization and censured its "Nefarious leadership," who hoped,
they said, to "sow confusion among workers." 104 More than three thou­
sand people were said to have attended the Cardenistas' congress. Politi-
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 219
cían, labor activist, and board member Jesús Rico rose füst to address the
audience. He reminded his listeners of the "strictly revolutionary line"
that the confederation had always taken "in accord with the aspirations
of the masses." He told his listeners that the organization of campesinos,
anticlericalism, and the mobilization of women ali formed part of a grand
project to empower the working people of Michoacán. He vowed that he
would not give up the social struggle until "those who have nothing may
reclaim that which is theirs from those who own everything." Agrarista
leader Ezequiel Cruz of Naranja also rose to speak on behalf of Car­
denismo, although his words reflected the concerns of a veteran agrarista
rather than a political crusader like Rico. Cruz simply told the crowd that
agraristas were enduring "many reprisals" from municipal authorities
who treated them "as if they were criminals." 105
The federal government refused to get involved in the showdown be­
tween rival confederations and thus left the field open to Serrato and his
followers. The new governor's polüical housecleaning reached far beyond
parliamentary politics in the state capital, extending right clown to the level
of village powerholders. In one commuruty, the Cardenista ejido adminis­
trators lost out to a rival dique of people aligned with new pro-Serrato
politicians. The Serratista peasants hoped to expand the number of benefi­
ciaries who could farm ejidal lands from 9 5 to 33 6 because, they said, they
no longer had enough land to "sustain their families." 106 Elsewhere, the
new municipal authorities of Zamora informed Cardenista headman Juan
Gutiérrez that he and his retainers had been "rejected by the workers" and
gave him twelve hours to leave town. 107 Not ali Serratista politicians were
quite so diplomatic. In Yurécuaro, the new cadre of municipal politicians
allegedly ordered the police to raid a brothel that sorne agrarista leaders
patronized; eight Cardenistas died in the resulting shootout. 108 Serrato,
with president Abelardo Rodríguez's blessing, also ordered Michoacán's
military commander to disarm agrarista home guards, a process that, ac­
cording to the ·cardemstas, cost the lives of fifty-four agraristas. 109
These political maneuverings among politicians at the regional level
opened local fissures among Michoacán's rural folk that partially followed
the older agrarista versus anti-agrarista divisions. It was not uncommon
for the fault line to run along village controversies over the politics of re­
ligion: one set of Cardenistas characterized land reform beneficiaries who
---
220 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
joined the rival confederation as being a "group of fanatical, hypocritical
Catholics." 110 Other agrarista leaders described Serrato supporters in the
countryside as armed "white guard" paramilitary units working for ha­
cienda owners.111 Such cleavages between agraristas and alleged partisans
of counterrevolution had long formed part of Michoacán's political land­
scape, yet many village Cardenistas also began to describe a split within
the agrarista community itself that had no precedent in village politics. In
part, political expediency probably motivated sorne agraristas to throw in
behind the Serrato government; his confederation, after all, might repre­
sent a new route to lands and power.
But something besides patronage politics was behind the internecine
rift.Most of the tough old agraristas who had numbered among the con­
federation 's earliest and most strident supporters-the peasant leaders of
villages such as Zurumútaro, Naranja, La Cañada, and dozens of others­
refused to abandon Cardenismo, despite their patron's seeming inability to
come to their aid in 1933. These agrarista headmen and, it appears, a
good number of their followers, interpreted the attack on Cardenismo as
a strike against their emerging cultural identity as campesinos, which for
them had come to require their allegiance to the political project of Car­
denismo.Although Cardenista politicians contributed most heavily to the
avalanche of complaints that federal authorities got about Serrato's be­
havior, agrarista leaders also protested that the new governor had be­
trayed the principies of revolutionary agrarismo.
Far example, one group of women belonging to the "Anti-Lies and
-Errors" Temperance Union of Buena vista hacienda complained of a Ser­
ratista congressman who allied himself with hacienda owners in that re­
gion, east of Morelia. Everyone in the community worked as field hands
and lived in houses that the hacienda owned. The women claimed that the
landowners had organized a band of armed men who now intended to kill
their husbands and sons for having supported the Cardenista unions.And
even though landowners were threatening to make the field hands aban­
don their houses, the women did not feel they could turn to their con­
gressman because he was "a well-known representative of .. .the haci­
enda owners of this whole district" who had actually helped to carry out
"a sweeping campaign against ali campesinos by removing authorities
who believe in our Revolutionary institutions." 112 Another women's syn-
Cárdenas and Campesino Politics 221
dicate from Naranja made an even more explicit link between their cul­
tural identity and the politics of Cardenismo. They complained that one
faction in their community wanted to supersede their temperance league,
which belonged to the "genuine," pro-Cárdenas confederation, and re­
place it with a new one loyal to Serrato.The women said that these machi­
nations were self-evidently farcical and that "it is well known to us that
Cristeros, hacienda Guardsmen, and Hacienda owners" such as their ri­
vals would never join true anticlerical leagues. After all, they reasoned,
such reactionaries "hate us campesinas" for having joined the anticlerical
leagues in the fust place. 113
Agrarista men employed similar discourses of village-level Cardenismo.
One group of agraristas from Tiríndaro complained that "Cristeros" had
entered into secret negotiations with the local army commander severa!
months earlier to aid the army in liquidating them.The agraristas said that
Catholic rebels had taken to the hills but briefly showed themselves in
town to announce that they had received orders from Serrato "to kili the
Cardenista Agraristas of this village and that soon they would assassinate
us." W hen the neo-"Cristero" insurgency later petered out, the rebeis de­
scended from the hills one by one, only to be conscripted by other Ser­
ratista villagers to join the new village home guard. The pro-Cárdenas
agraristas complained that their rivals now "act as livery men" for the vil­
lage headman.Worse yet, according to the agraristas, the mayor of neigh­
boring Zacapu had accompanied the parish priest on a tour of Tiríndaro
and offered to reconvert the parish residence back from its current func­
tion as a public school. The agraristas wrote that they were adamant in
their rejection of organized religion and that
we convinced the mayor that he was out of his mind to allow the
Buzzard [that is, the priest] to come to this place ...and that
we are tired of priests' underhanded efforts.We remember only
too well the days when we began to solicit ejido lands from the
Revolutionary Government that a priest by the name of José
Reyes Orozco, who used to live here, sold out in body and soul
to the silver of the "Cantabria" Hacienda. He formed an army of
fanatics called the Apostles of Prayer, or of the Medallion, and
they had many rifles. 114
 222 Cárdenas and Campesino Politics
Counterpoising land reform and revolution against counterrevolutionary
actors such as priests, hacienda owners, and peasant fanatics was of course
typical stock-in-trade of agrarista discourse, but in the context of 1933
these struggles also became embedded in the wider política! struggle be­
tween Serratistas and Cardenistas.
The number of agraristas who rejected the politics of Serratismo re­
vealed the extent of the interpenetration between village agrarismo move­
ments and the politics of Cardenismo. Cárdenas appeared to have lost
most of his political influence in early 1933, leaving his confederation as
well as the agrarian radicals who supported it politically isolated. But then
Cárdenas won the PNR's nomination for president in December 1933, and
Serrato died in an airplane crash later that year. Suddenly, the way was
open for Cárdenas to capitalize on mobilized agraristas' self-identification
as campesinos and bind the rural people of his home state more closely
than ever to his political design for the nation.
¡;
�
" tive and impoverishing, the president said, and to continue it any longer
_.,
" Article 27 of the constitution, barring the creation of new agrarian com­
•�
'',.
1
7
Conclusion: The Politics of Campesino Identity
in Twentieth-Century Mexico
IN r99r, PRESIDENT CARLOS SALINAS DE GORTARI carne befare the con­
gress to make the dramatic announcement that the time had come to ter­
mínate Mexico's land reform program. The president said that he had
concluded that the redistribution of property was otit of step with the
needs of late-twentieth-century Mexican society. Salinas told the congress
that he shared Emiliano Zapata's desire to improve the lives of ali cam­
pesinos, and he acknowledged that agrarian reform had "brought justice
to the countryside in its time." Nevertheless, he insisted that the contin­
ued redistribution of land "no longer promise[d] prosperity for the na­
tion or justice for campesinos." The land reform had become unproduc­
would "betray the memory of our revolutionary forefathers." Within a
few months of his address, Salinas introduced legislation to thoroughly
liberalize the countryside by repealing the promise of land contained in
munities (ejidos), and establishing a process to privatize ejidal land. 1
By the time Salinas made his announcement, seven decades of agrarian
reform had reconfigured the structure of landholding in Mexico. Hacien­
das no longer dominated the countryside, although large-scale agribus­
inesses had become major players in some parts of the nation. Land re­
form beneficiaries enjoyed at least nominal control of 42 percent of the
national territory, including three-quarters of ali the farmland and two­
thirds of timberland. Yet agrarian reform had clearly fallen short of its
revolutionary promise of providing rural people with an adequate liveli­
hood. The profitability of most crops had steadily declined in tbe second
half of the twentieth century, and economic restructuring in the r98os
223
 224 The Politics of Campesino Identity
had eliminated most sources of the agricultura] credit on which small­
scale farmers depended to buy seed and other necessities. Just as clear!y,
the political structures associated with land reform had failed in their rev­
olutionary rnission of empowering campesinos. Many land reform com­
munities were in disarray, as bureaucratic red tape, political bossism (ca­
ciquismo), and other irregularities weighed on the lives of people who
lived and worked in land reform communities. 2
Something had to be done, and Salinas seemed to believe that he needed
to take drastic measures to reform the countryside without consulting the
people whom his decrees would affect most directly. Like many presidents
before him, Salinas acted as if he understood the needs of campesinos
more clearly than they did themselves. Cárdenas had done something sim­
ilar by promoting the revolutionary transformation of rural society in the
r92os and r93os. Yet there was a critica] difference between the two pres­
idential projects: Cárdenas had believed that he was responding to the de­
mands of campesinos (insofar as he understood them) and empowering
1�
rural people, whereas Salinas clearly recognized that his action would meet
with the suspicion and resentment of rural folk. Indeed, many campesinos
resisted Salinas's prescription of applying market-oriented solutions to the
problem of rural underdevelopment.
Severa! groups of rural people who defined themselves as campesinos
or indigenous people or rural proletarians or some combination of the
three responded to Salinas's announcement by dusting off their old revo­
lutionary rallying cries and mobilizing to defend their lands, their wages,
and their rights as citizens. Significant campesino movements appeared in
the r99os in the states of Durango, Morelos, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoa­
cán, and elsewhere, but nowhere <lid they appear more spectacularly than
in the southern state of Chiapas, where indigenous people rebelled against
the government in 1994, demanding greater autonomy and an improved
standard of living. These popular movements <lid not spring directly from
the agrarian radicalism that overtook Michoacán more than fifty years be­
fore, of course. Each one had its own logic and objectives. Nevertheless,
they employed many of the _practices, ideologies, and discourses that had
been forged during the postrevolutionary agrarista movement, especially
those built around the ideals of citizenship and class. They insisted that the
revolution had been fought to guarantee campesinos a set of special rights
The Politics of Campesino Identity 225
(codified, among other places, in Arride 27) and that poor rural people
who worked the land shared a history of oppression that could only be
overcome through collective action.
The campesino mobilizations of the r99os revealed that postrevolu­
tionary ideals in updated and modified forms still retained something of
their old potency even at the end of the twentieth century. Yet much had
changed. On the one hand, governors, presidents, municipal authorities,
and even local bosses and sorne schoolteachers were no longer the cham­
pions of popular mobilization that populist leaders and village revolu­
tionaries had believed themselves to be in the postrevolutionary decades.
Most of them had banded together in support of the official ruling party
and no longer needed to win the respect of their followers. On the other
hand, rural folk had appropriated campesino identity and invoked it in
their public proclamations and the names they gave their popular orga­
nizations as a sign of their political and cultural solidarity. Constituting
themselves as a people with shared interests and a common heritage of
oppression gave rural people a compelling way to defend their communi­
ties, their lands, and their political rights as a collectivity.
The unification of rural people as a politically and culturally meaning­
ful category of campesinos was in this sense one of the most enduring lega­
cies of agrarismo and indeed of the revolution itself. Although the agrarista
movement never appealed to the majority of rural folk and ended up be­
coming institutionalized within the framework of Cardenismo, its devel­
opment and subsequent dissolution promoted the expansion of campesino
politics in two critica! ways. In terms of postrevolutionary state formation,
Cárdenas's mass organizations gave organized peasants and rural workers
a political voice and promised them a privileged position within the post­
revolutionary nation, albeit within political structures that they could not
control. The institutionalization of agrarismo therefore paved the way for
what could be called the "regimented empowerment" of campesinos within
Mexico's long-lived political system.
At the same time, agrarismo produced a distinctly postrevolutionary
rhetoric and practice of peasant militancy that has facilitated rural peo­
ple's efforts to defend their lands and the integrity of their communities
over the long term. Whereas the confrontational style of agrarista leaders
alienated most rural people, the more inclusive character of campesino
-
226 The Politics o( Campesino Identity
identity did not. As the rural backlash to President Salinas's proposals
demonstrated, the ideal of campesino solidarity provided rural people
with an enduring and powerful concept through which they could defend
their interests from threats posed by outsiders, the globalized economy,
and the Mexican state itself.
REGIMENTED EMPOWERMENT
As governor, Cárdenas had plainly intended his labor confederation {the
CRMDT) to organize and empower campesinos in Michoacán. The polit­
ical activists in the confederation had made agrarian leaders a powerful
force in regional politics, formed seores of labor unions on haciendas, and
stepped up pressure to redistribute lands to rural communities. The con­
federation's activities had to be handled particularly carefully, however. By
the late 1920s, Calles-who had styled himself as the Maximum Chief of
postrevolutionary Mexico-wanted to limit the influence of organized la­
bor and bring the agrarian reform to an end. Cárdenas therefore elected to
stoke up the demand for land reforrn without actually increasing the pace
of land redistribution. He directed confederation militants to travel to vil­
lages and encourage campesinos to solicit "the lands that had been taken
from them." Soon he had built up a backlog of 3 88 petitions for ejidos. 3
Then he cut the federal bureaucracy out of the loop by asserting local con­
trol over the adjudication of these petitions, using the ironclad explana­
tion that it "was in the interest of the revolutionary Government and the
campesino classes" to do so. 4
Yet perhaps the confederation's greatest success lay in its ability to
bring campesinos into the political process. After ali, the confederation
constituted a forum for mobilized rural folk to participare in rhe political
life of Michoacán, especially during partisan rituals such as the annual
congresses that Cárdenas personally attended. Sometimes their petitions
prompted action, and sometimes they did not, but the simple fact that
campesinos exercised their voice in the public sphere was evidence of
their syrnbolic inclusion in the política! nation. 5
Cárdenas regarded the confederation as the ideal instrument of cam­
pesino empowerrnent and flushed with enthusiasm at his organization's
ability to mobilize the rural masses. In a letter to Francisco Múgica, his old
The Politics o( Campesino Identity 227
friend and mentor, Cárdenas boasted that the confederation had found a
way to improve rural people's wages and provide the "land they need."
He even toyed with the idea of remaining in Michoacán after his term as
governor had ended in order to take control of the confederation's day-to­
day operations, because he regarded himself as the natural leader of "the
campesino and working classes" and as the only person who could over­
come the "personal interests" that riddled its leadership. 6 He believed that
he could ensure that the "workers" received the "guidance" that they
needed if he remained in his home state. 7 Until Múgica convinced him it
was time to move on, Cárdenas seemed determined to make his organiza­
tion succeed even if it cost him his political career.
Like the national organizations that Cárdenas organized in the ·fol­
lowing years as the president of Mexico, the confederation functioned as
a sort of inclusive hierarchy that answered directly to him. He scrutinized
its policies and the composition of its directorate with the practiced eye
of a military commander. He treated agrarista headmen as trusted lieu­
tenants while they extended the organization's network of authority in
the countryside. Clientelism and the politics of caciquismo were nothing
new in rural Mexico, but the advent of powerful and hierarchical popu­
lar organizations such as the confederation changed the locus of caciques'
power, shifting it away from the community and vesting it within politi­
cal institutions. Soon, local leaders discovered that they could do without
the respect of their followers as long as they kept their superiors satisfied.
And this displacement of political power grew even more pronounced
once it became possible to use the confederation and its successor orga­
nizations as política! patronage networks.
In this regard, the confederation's system of regimented empowerment
was a portent of things to come. As president, Cárdenas organized two
national popular-class organizations on essentially the same lines. The
Mexican Federation of Labor {the CTM) and the National Federation of
Campesinos (CNC) ostensibly functioned to organize workers and cam­
pesinos into powerful mass organizations in order to advance their collec­
tive interests from within the Mexican state. Cárdenas also approached
the official party of the revolution (the PNR) in much the same terms. 8 In
a 1934 letter to Calles, Cárdenas explained that he had ordered the direc­
tor of the PNR to take personal charge of determining which local parties
228 The Politics of Campesino Identity
should receive the PNR's official recognition in order to ensure that only
the strongest political groups would be allowed to join and that the local
parties that were rejected would be "disciplined to the [party cadres] that
enjoy the support of the largest organized following. " 9
Cárdenas eventually hit upon an innovative formula to integrare the
popular organizations with the official party. In 1938, three years after he
had freed himself of Calles's influence and exiled the Jefe Máximo to the
United States, Cárdenas placed the popular organizations (the CNC and
CTM, along with two other mass organizations) within the structure of
the PNR itself. He renamed the party the Party of the Mexican Revolu­
tion (PRM), and a few years later it became known as the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Historians disagree about whether Cárdenas
intended to give the popular classes a voice within the postrevolutionary
state or simply hoped to subject them to party leaders. lt seems most
likely, however, that he made no such distinction. His model of regi­
mented empowerment both disciplined and empowered rural folk by con­
stituting them as an undifferentiated mass of campesinos with a purport­
edly common set of political interests. (In much the same way, he hoped
that ali industrial workers would allow the CTM to speak on their be­
half.) It was a viable strategy to the extent that rural people recognized
the existence of such collective interests, and to the extent that política!
leaders actually intended to advance them.
In the long run, however, the Cárdenas strategy of regimented em­
powerment proved untenable. The institutions that he intended to secure
the popular classes' political discipline outlived their leaders' commit­
ment to revolutionary principies. In the absence of democratic political
structures, the empowerment of the popular classes could proceed only if
national authorities-and ultimately the president himself-remained
committed to doing so. As long as political leaders sought to advance the
interests of campesinos, there was a happy coincidence of political pro­
jects emanating from above with at least sorne of those emanating from
below, especially once popular organizations such as the CNC and the
CTM matured into powerful organizations. Yet in the decades after Cár­
denas left office, pivota! political leaders pursued development strategies
that caused them to withdraw material and political benefits from the
popular classes. The directors of the Cardenista mass organizations even-
The Politics of Campesino Identity 229
tually joined with Mexico's increasingly conservative leaders and agreed
t/
to use the CNC, the CTM, and similar organizations to regulare and cir­
cumscribe their members' activities. It became apparent almost immedi­
ately that the same organizations that Cárdenas had established in order
to empower the popular classes proved capable of disempowering them
\
as well.
THE DECLINE OF AGRARISMO
The concepts of class consciousness and revolutionary citizenship that
structured campesino identity in its contemporary guise began to take
form during the great military eruption of the 1910s, but, as we have
seen, they did not achieve their clearest expression until the postrevolu­
tionary agrarista movement took them up. The revolution had swept
away the regime of Porfirio Díaz and led to the political activation of
rural people in sorne regions such as the far northern states and Zapata's
homeland of Morelos. But it did not spark a generalized peasant uprising,
nor did it break the landed oligarchy's political and economic grip in the
greater part of the countryside. Even the ratification of the revolutionary
Constitution of 1917 did not immediately challenge the existing social or­
der, primarily because President Venustiano Carranza refused to imple­
ment its more far-reaching provisions, including land reform. Only in the
1920s and 1930s did the agrarian populism of presidents and a handful
of radical governors combine with the activation of rural folk in popu­
lous states such as Michoacán, Veracruz, Querétaro, and Yucatán to ere­
ate agrarista movements capable of moving campesinos squarely into the
political life of the nation.
Yet agrarismo began to lose its revolutionary edge in the 1940s as rural
leaders and national politicians sought to consolidate their authority and
curb popular militancy. There were severa! reasons for this retrenchment.
In the countryside, many of the factors that initially sparked the agrarista
movement had lost their urgency. The Cárdenas-era land reform had dec­
imated the hacienda system and had begun to replace it with a regime of
campesino agricu!ture. Between 1934 and 1940 alone, more than ten
thousand communities received land reform parcels. To be sure, many in­
tractable problems continued to plague the countryside. Most rural peo-
 230 The Politics of Campesino Tdentity
ple still lived in poverty, and land reform had yet to touch sorne of the
poorest regions of the nation such as Chiapas.Even where the government
had carried out large-scale agrarian reform, it often redistributed lands in
a haphazard way and established ill-conceived collective-farm ejidos that
rarely functioned as their planners had intended. 10 Yet despite its many
flaws, the land reform program offered one form of response to the de­
mands of campesinos. National organizations such as the CNC and local
agrarian federations did give campesinos a limited voice in national poli­
tics.Moreover, the radical intent and sheer scale of land redistribution sig­
naled the triumph of campesinos over the landed oligarchy.
Yet to the extent that these achievements addressed the major sources
of agrarian discontent, they also served to hasten the end of postrevolu­
tionary agrarismo. By the time Cárdenas's term in office expired in 1940,
political and economic power seemed at hand for mobilized country peo­
ple.The major controversies that had divided rural people into opposing
,, camps-villagers against field hands or agraristas against Cristeros-had
1
¡,. also started to dissipate as laws were changed to Jet hacienda dependents
request ejidos of their own and as the rhetoric of campesino politics be­
gan to encompass ali rural folk. In short, the agrarista movement had lost
sorne of its relevance, and the confrontational politics of rural militancy
seemed like a relic of the past.
The climate had changed in Mexico City as well.Political leaders of the
1940s began to push for political stability, national unity, and increased
economic growth rather than the divisive politics of class struggle and
popular mobilization. Cárdenas had bowed to conservative cadres in the
PRM by handing the presidential nomination to Manuel Ávila Camacho,
a career military officer and scion of a landowning family from the state
of Puebla. The new president slowed the pace of agrarian reform, contin­
uing a trend that Cárdenas himself had initiated during his final years in
of ice. When Mexico declared war against Nazi Germany and the other
f
Axis powers two years later, Ávila Camacho called for an end to domestic
social strife as long as the nation faced a threat from abroad.
The new president's emphasis on social peace reproduced, perh�s un­
consciously, many of the Catholic nationalist ideals of the 1920s.Like the
Catholics, his discourse suggested the fundamental unity and justness of
existing social structures while admonishing campesinos and urban work-
The Politics of Campesino Identity 2 3r
ers to subjugate their own economic demands to the broader needs of the '
1/
nation. In a message directed to ali Mexican workers and campesinos in
1942, for example, the president asserted that wartime conditions re­
quired "labor harmony" and social "equilibrium." 11 Later that year, he
\
presided over an important ceremony laden with political meaning in
which he conferred land reform beneficiaries with new ejido parcels while
simultaneously giving small landholders certificares that exempted their
lands from any future redistributions. Ávila Camacho again called for so­
cial peace in the countryside and explained that land reform beneficiaries
and landowners should "consider themselves united ... in the making of
a strong Homeland." The president exhorted his audience to "mutually
help each other" and lay aside "sterile distinctions" in order to forge a
Mexico without social divisions.12
Ávila Camacho's administration marked the beginning of the Mexican
government's slow and sometimes uneven withdrawal from its official
stance in favor of campesino peasant mobilization and land reform. He
and his successors did continue to redistribute lands, although most of
them did so at a fraction of the pace that Cárdenas had set during his
administration.At the same time, Ávila Camacho withdrew state support
for the politics, and moderated the rhetoric, of agrarian militancy as he
tried to put an end to what he regarded as the divisiveness of peasant
class struggle.The slow but unmistakable abandonment of the principie
of campesino empowerment culminated with the Salinas reforms of 1991
and the nearly complete withdrawal of government support from the
ejido sector in the following years.
Yet even as nacional politics took a conservative swing and the agra­
rista movement lost its momentum in the 1940s, rural folk continued to
embrace campesino identity. Indeed, Ávila Camacho's disdain for class
conflict, along with his overt tolerance of the Catholic Church, probably
made the ideal of campesino solidarity appear less alien to many rural
people, thereby broadening the appeal of campesino politics. 13 The dis­
courses surrounding campesino identity lost much of their radical inflec­
tion during the 1940s, but they nevertheless continued to uphold the no­
tion that people who till the land constitute a unique social and economic
group with certain fundamental rights to the land they work, as well as
to just compensation for their labor.
 232 The Politics of Campesino Identity The Politics of Campesino Identity 2 33

THE MAKING OF CAMPESINO IDENTITY among those who "have persistently struggled for the improvement and
ernancipation of the masses of campesinos and workers in this state and in
It is impossible to extraer the meaning of campesino identity from the
the Republic generally." 14 Similarly, when Juan Gutiérrez, the agrarista
specific relations of landholding and production, the particular local po­
point man in the Zamora region, wrote to inform sorne of his "campesino
litical cultures, and the individual village political histories in which it
comrades" that the government had approved their petitions for land re­
emerged. Campesino identity arase through the interplay of popular mil­
form parcels, his words associated land reform with the "Mexican Social
itancy in the countryside and postrevolutionary ideologies elaborated by
Revolution" itself. The acquisition of land, he wrote, represented "the
radical populists such as Múgica and Cárdenas. To sorne extent, in other
greatest victory" that the beneficiaries would ever score over the "capital­
words, the postrevolutionary campesino is the product of official con­
ist octopuses," "mw·derous landowners," "craven turncoats," and "furtive
ceptions of class consciousness and revolutionary citizenship. This ideo­
priests" who sought to oppress the campesinos of western Michoacán. 15
logical vision began to issue "from the top down" in the 1920s in dis­
For these men, the stakes of agrarian struggle and hence the virtues of
courses issuing from govemment offices, newspapers, and normal schools
campesino solidarity were self-evident. They believed that the loss of vil­
that defined campesinos as a classlike social category of rural people
lage lands during the Porfiriato had divided Mexican society into groups
bound together by their collective economic and political condition. By
of oppressed campesinos and wealthy rapacious landowners (and their
the 1930s, institutions such as the confederation and its successors con­
•. tributed to the establishment of the campesinaje as a political category by
empowering rural folk as a single mass constituency.
ideological allies), and that rural folk could only hope to achieve a victory
over such powerful enemies if they joined with revolutionary leaders such
as Cárdenas. In the fractured world of the postrevolutionary countryside,
Yet campesino identity also originated at the grassroots, through agra­
these men carne to believe that impoverished rural people would natu­
ristas' emerging understanding of their own experiences. As mobilized
rally recognize that they were campesinos whose "objective" interests de­
country people sought to win land and política! power by confronting ha­
manded unity with each other and with postrevolutionary populists such
cienda owners, anti-agrarista priests, and "fanatical" rural folk, they
as Cárdenas.
carne to regard themselves as fundamentally different from other social
Although agrarista headmen claimed to speak on behalf of all rural
groups. In other words, the campesino ideals of proletarian solidarity and
people, it would be a mistake to assume that the majority of country folk
the right to the land they tilled were indeed products of agraristas' expe­
shared their outlook on every count. Yet it seems clear that many or per­
riences, which in turn were structured by local histories of agrarian strug­
haps most rural people began to describe themselves as campesinos (at
gle, economic relations, and political cultures. Mobilized country folk
least in certain circumstances) at about the time the agrarian movement
were not merely aping the discourse of their political leaders; they were
hit its peak in the early 1930s. It is impossible to fully distinguish how
adapting a new and radicalized conceptual lexicon to realities of their
tbese people's understanding of campesino identity differed from the styl­
everyday lives.
ized and radicalized concepts in which vi. llage revolutionaries dealt, but a : 1

Nowhere was the interpenetration of local and official understandings

close reading of village-level political discourse suggests that many rural
of agrarista militancy clearer than in the discourse of agrarista caciques of
folk did become attracted by the postrevolutionary ideals of rural soli­
the 1920s. These emerging political bosses construed themselves and their
darity and ernpowerment of people who worked the land. It would ap­
followers as campesinos beset by hacienda owners, corrupt officials, and
pear, however, that most villagers understood campesino identity in sub­
the instigators of other "outrages" against rural folk in the aggregate. For
stantially less orthodox terms than village revolutionaries and political
example, Ernesto Prado, the gritty agrarista headman who by 1934 had
leaders did. Most villagers accentuated the benefits that they believed
dominated the region of La Cañada for more than a decade, described
they deserved as campesinos but downplayed the prescriptive attitudes
working-class rural folk as his "class brothers." He counted himself

-
 234 The Politics of Campesino Identity
(such as anticlericalism, discipline, and modernity) that village revolu­
tionaries believed campesinos should manifest.
For example, a group of agraristas from Ecuandureo complained in
1924 that local landowners and municipal authorities refused to carry
out revolutionary reforms to benefit rural folk. Writing in broken Span­
ish, the villagers (sharecroppers, as it turns out) stated that the landown­
ers threatened to "hang ali campesinos" and refused to give them good
work even though these same landowners had been happy to "exploit"
their "crops and labor" in years past. 16 Despite this vitriolic complaint,
the self-described campesinos did not ask for the government to nation­
alize the land or jail the landowners. Instead, the sharecroppers simply
asked the government to help them renew their contract with the ha­
cienda. Other self-declared campesinos lodged similar complaints about
landowners who obstructed their ability to work their lands. 17 These
campesino groups took it for granted that their interests conflicted with
those of landowners, but their solution to this conflict of interests was not
to reflexively parrot postrevolutionary dogma. Rather than asking the
government to make radical changes in the social system, they simply
asked the political authorities to ensure that they could work the land as
they had always done without being persecuted. To the extent that dis­
continuities existed between the ways in which average rural people and
political leaders understood the rights and privileges that should accrue
�-,, to politically mobilized rural folk, campesino identity can be regarded as
a contested social category.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that the creation of campesino identity
was the product of a broad consensus that emerged between sorne post­
revolutionary leaders and at least sorne groups of rural folk in the postrev­
olutionary years. The idea that campesinos had specific political and eco­
nomic interests that the revolution had promised to uphold as a matter of
basic justice was in fact very widespread. An impressive number of politi­
cians and rural people, of schoolteachers and parish priests, and of agrar­
ian leaders and landowners understood this point. By the mid-193os, few
people seem to have doubted that a cam_Qesino was someone whose im­
poverishment and política! marginalization derived from historical injus­
tice that cried out for some form of redress, or, in the language of the time,
"redemption." In other words, postrevolutionary conflicts did not revolve
The Politics of Campesino Identity 23 5
around the issue of whether campesinos deserved a better quality of life so
much as how the government should respond to the agrarian question.
But this begs the question of why so many rural people in Michoacán
embraced campesino identity-and even the ideal of an organized and
politically unified campesinaje-far more enduringly than other compo­
nents of postrevolutionary ideology, including that of agrarismo itself. At
least part of the answer seems to be that rural people have found it mean­
ingful to combine campesino identity with their other equally deeply felt
cultural forms in a way that the political discourse of agrarismo would
never allow. Rural people elected to hybridize campesino identity and
thus ensure that it would have a composite rather than an exclusive char­
acter. They have found it useful in sorne circumstances to express soli­
darity and empowerment through campesino-based politics, but not at
the cost of casting off other important cultural identities.
The potential hybridity of campesino identity had been evident from the
late 1920s, when the agrarista movement was at its peak. Perhaps nowhere
did it appear more clearly than in the discourse of agrarista women. In the
late 1920s, a series of community organizations with names like the Wom­
en's Cooperative of Campesinas began to appear in agrarista communities.
Like the men, many of these women claimed to speak on behalf of the
"campesino classes." Unlike the men, they also emphasized their gender by
describing themselves as "campesinas." More than simply following the
rules of good grammar, their decision to identify themselves through the
use of what was at that time an overtly politicized term emphasized not
simply that they were partisans of revolutionary politics but that they were
women who did so. 18
The creation of campesina organizations represented a drastic change ,,"
from women's previous mode of política! participation. In the early 1920s, ,.
I'
the política! personae of women who participated in the agrarista move­ ,,11
ment derived primarily from their relation to men. Women who wrote to
political leaders typically established their political credentials by describ­
ing themselves as mothers or wives of agrarista militants. Agrarista women
brought lawsuits on behalf of their sons or husbands. They confronted the
landowners or paramilitary militias that threatened their families when
their menfolk had taken to the bilis, often at great personal risk. 19 But these
practices served to define women's política! allegiance in an essentially de-
 236 The Politics of Campesino Identity
rivative way by casting women as ancillary members of the agrarista move­
ment rather than as its chief protagonists. When women began to create
their own organizations and to describe themselves as "campesinas" in the
1930s, however, they constituted themselves as independent, class-con­
scious political actors and revolutionary citizens in their own right. Popu­
lar-class women's self-definition as campesinas went hand in hand with
their increasing political activation through temperance leagues, unions,
and other organizations affiliated with the confederation (or in sorne cases
with Social Catholic organizations). As such, it marked their entrance into
the public sphere as women who were also citizens and workers.
Women's adoption of the term campesina also helps to illustrate the
ways in which rural people put limitations on the more dogmatic elements
of postrevolutionary ideology. The discourse of agrarismo and other quasi­
official popular movements of the 1920s and 1930s politicized rural iden­
tity and dichotomized rural folk into mutually exclusive camps of pro- and
counterrevolutionaries. Rural society became increasingly partisan as rural
people got swept up in (and sometimes contributed to) the political con­
flicts involving powerful political actors, including the church, landowners,
and the state. In the long term, however, very few rural people consented
�I
to abide by rules that postrevolutionary ideology sought to impose on
rural society.
Campesino identity formation was governed by a very different cultural
logic. Rather than defining the politics of identity in terms of exclusivities,
in which people had to describe themselves using one category or an­
other-agrarista versus Cristero or revolutionary versus fanatic, for ex­
ample-rural people who defined themselves as campesinos took a more
eclectic route. They created a conceptual vocabulary that allowed them to
represent themselves by using one category and another. By the second
half of the twentieth century, rural people regularly defined themselves
(and were defined by others) through an accretion of hybrid terms: for ex­
ample, as indigenous campesinos/ campesinas, landholding campesinos/
campesinas, or even as Catholic campesinos/ campesinas. 20 Indeed, it
seems reasonable to speculate that if campesino._identity continued to suf­
fuse the countryside throughout the twentieth century, it was precisely be­
cause a broad range of social actors succeeded in adding their voices to the
process of cultural blending, including such divérse groups as indigenous
The Politics of Campesino Identity 237
and mestizo villagers, political radicals, political conservatives, and Cath­
olics. If anything, the decline of militant agrarismo, anticlericalism, and
the rhetoric of class struggle in the 1940s and 19 50s served to broaden the
appeal of campesino identity by disengaging it from the polarizing politics
of postrevolutionary state formation.
A more encompassing and often hybridized formulation of campesino
identity emerged as a standard feature of village political culture in the
latter half of the twentieth century. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the
national state-official party apparatus grew increasingly bureaucratized
and unresponsive during these years, even as an increasingly clear trend
of economic globalization began to restructure the Mexican economy in
ways that jeopardized the viability of village-based agriculture. As a con­
sequence of what sorne observers have called the "global depeasantiza­
tion" of the developing world, millions of rural people were left with no
alternative but to abandon the countryside or turn once again to wage la­
bor in the countryside. 21
Confronted with a wholesale assault on their way of life, rural people
turned to the political skills and conceptual vocabulary they had acquired
in the postrevolutionary years. When they faced the prospect of losing
their lands for the construction of golf courses, airports, or sorne other
outgrowth of the nation's economic model based on urbanization and in­
dustrialization, campesinos often elected to take their case to the court of
public opinion rather than to rely on the legal system to protect their in­
terests. When they did so, they often invoked a political discourse that
emphasized campesino solidarity, thereby articulating their demands in
terms of a cultural identity and revolutionary heritage that has become
deeply embedded in the national consciousness.
No group has made more effective use of this rhetorical strategy than
the neo-Zapatistas from the southern state of Chiapas who rebelled against
the federal government in 1994. The Zapatistas have sought above ali to
buttress their rights as indigenous people, but as their choice of appellation
implies, they have also resuscitated che revolutionary ideal of agrarian mil­
itancy. In their communiqués, national plebiscites, and caravans to the jun­
gle, they have attempted to forge a common front with other rural people
against policies that have imposed free markets on the countryside while
withdrawing basic services from the rural sector. Rather than conceiving of

238 The Politics of Campesino Identity
indigenous people and campesinos as two distinct groups, their sometime
spokesperson Subcommander Marcos has treated the two categories as
essentially indistinguishable, thus drawing upan another culturally embed­
ded notion. More than anything, he has played upon ideals of class strug­
gle and revolutionary citizenship in a way that a postrevolutionary agra­
rista militant would find thoroughly familiar. The particular rhetoric of
campesinaje used by Marcos and other leaders of indigenous movements
functions to build and reproduce symbolic bonds among rural people
throughout Mexico and, in a sense, throughout Latín America as a whole.
Like earlier agrarian discourses, these leaders appeal to an imagined com­
munity of campesinos on the basis of their shared history of poverty and
political victimization at the hands of exploitative outsiders. 22
CAMPESINO IDENTITY AND THE POUTICS OF
COMMUNITY SURVIVAL
Like most rural communities in the Meseta Tarasca, villagers in the old­
time agrarista stronghold of Zurumútaro still celebrate the Day of the
Dead 011 the night of November r. By the light of stumpy candles, they
hold festive vigils at the gravesites of friends and family members. They lay
flowers around the tombstones and perhaps leave sorne candy or cigarettes
for the departed souls. A late-twentieth-century visitar to the Zurumúturo
'',, cemetery could observe what has become a common sight in Michoacán's
observance of the Day of the Dead. Land reform beneficiaries from the vil­
lage ejido dressed in wide belts and straw cowboy hats were gathered
around a portrait of Cárdenas flanked by candles and yellow marigolds.
As rhey whiled away the night chatting about their crops and local politics,
they occasionally paused and glanced over to the portrait, paying their re­
spects to the general one more time. They had come to remember. 23
The land reform has not been a panacea for rural folk in Michoacán
or in most other places in Mexico. In the latter half of the twentieth cen­
tury, bureaucratic institutions such as the Farm Bureau {the Banco Ejidal)
and the Department of Agrarian Reform often implemented inefficient
agricultura] policies that imposed centrally planned production goals on
land reform communities. They choked off the resulting discontent by
denying credit and other benefits to people regarded as troublemakers. As
l
The Politics of CamfJesino ldentity 239
the Mexican economy turned toward industrialization and away from
agriculture after World War II, the government's increasing reluctance to
provide technical support and adequate credit for campesino production
was a prescription for rural underdevelopment. Yet land reform benefi­
ciaries could not effectively resist these trends through the CNC, their of­
ficial mass organization, because its leaders· had neither the capability nor
the inclinarían to challenge Mexico's political establishment.
Many ejidos today do not possess enough agricultura] land to sustain
their members. Others are wracked by the corruption of venal leaders who
are sometimes the descendents of agrarista caciques from the Cárdenas
years. As anthropologist John Gledhill discovered in his study of a poorly
organized ejido on what had been the hacienda of Guaracha, some land
reform beneficiaries feel that they received "almost nothing" despite a
long history of governrnent promises. 24 But the fact remains that the most
successful attempts at popular rnobilization and collective management of
resources in the second half of the twentieth century nearly always in­
volved communities that possessed ejidos or cornmunal lands-that is,
communities of people who explicítly define themselves as campesinos. 25
lt seems reasonable to speculate that one of the most important rhetorícal
and ideological foundations of this community solidarity derives from
campesino identity's legacy of agrarista ideals of class-consciousness and
revolutionary citizenship rights that ir promoted. 26
The land reform beneficiaries' Day of the Dead altar in Zurumútaro re­
flects the longevity, not simply of the Cárdenas myth, but of a politicized
campesino identity in rural Michoacán. In sorne ways, the two are closely
related. Many rural folk continue to think of Cárdenas as their benefactor,
in part because he provided them the land, but also because he is remem­
bered as the president who made the welfare of campesinos his forernost
priority. W hile Cárdenas's project empowered rural people only through
the mediation of bureaucratic structures, and while it was unquestionably
an exercise in postrevolutionary paternalism, it was nonetheless a thor­
oughly inclusive model of politics. His willingness to reward peasant mil­
itancy and to appropriate and reproduce agrarista discourses served to in­
elude rural folk coded as campesinos within the postrevolutionary nation
in ways that resonated deeply with agraristas and non-agraristas alike.
This fact alone had majar repercussions for Mexican politics in the twen-
240 The Politics of Campesino Identity The Politics of Campesino I dentity 24 r
l
tieth century. Cárdenas's successors in ofice eventually co-opted or dis­ ''
f
proof that rural folk and political leaders can reach what in retrospect
mantled his mass organizations, but they could not deny what had become seems like a mutually beneficia! alliance. Many rural people remember
the reality of campesino identity and hence campesino politics. Rural peo­ Cárdenas for his willingness to help them defend what they had come to //
ple simply would not allow them to.
Contemporary observers of the countryside have also come to accept
regard as their collective interests as Mexicans and producers, something
they recognize that recent governments have failed to do. As one wizened
\
this reality, and they nearly universally describe the rural poor as campe­ agrarista from La Cañada recalled, Cárdenas was loved because, unlike
sinos. As often as not, the term functions as a sort of shorthand that allows the political leaders of the r99os, he "always paid attention to the poor,
outsiders to talk about rural people without making meaningful distinc­ the humble, the Indian. He listened to the petitioners that the rich com­
tions among them, simply lumping them into an undifferentiated social plained so much about." In return, rural folk did whatever they could to
group of the nonurban poor.Yet this usage, too, reflects the changes that see him succeed in his political designs. Their actions ran the gamut from
have taken place in rural society since the time of Cárdenas. The persistent composing songs (corridos) about him in the Purépecha language to mo­
impoverishment of the countryside in Mexico has in fact homogenized bilizing to fight under his command. "Campesinos supported Cárdenas,"
rural people in economic terms, diminishing sorne of the material differ­ the old man explained, "because they wanted to help .build him up ....I
ences that once distinguished field hands, small landowners, and land re­ guess you could say they just decided to throw in with him. " 27
form beneficiaries from each other. The rapid urbanization of Mexico has
also promoted the apparent homogenization of rural folk, since many ur­
banites find it easier to contemplare a countryside peopled by indistin­
guishable "campesinos" than to differentiate the many economic and eth­
nic groups that live in the forests and cornfields beyond the highways.
Ironically, then, the economic modernization of Mexico has helped to de­
fine and perpetuare campesino identity both as an ascriptive category and
as a cultural identity. Outsiders lump rural folk into a single social cate­
gory, and many country people find it both meaningful and politically ad­
vantageous to emphasize their collective condition in analogous terms.
It seems likely that rural people's self-identification as campesinos will
continue to provide a cognitive too! that encourages solidarity in struggle
against the worst effects of political marginalization and economic global­
ization in the years to come .The fact that many campesinos in Michoacán
have chosen to remember Cárdenas for his willingness to ally with them
against their perceived adversaries suggests that , in some ways, not much
has changed since the r93os. It remains to be seen, however, whether the
politics of campesino solidarity will serve as a viable option for commu­
nity survival in the unsparing economic environment of the early twenty­
fust century.
Perhaps it will. From the perspective of at least some modern-day cam­
pesinos in Michoacán, the greatest legacy of Cardenismo is that it offers
----�- -

REFERENCE MATERIAL

..
1
b
 APPENDIX

Land Reform in Michoacán, r9r7-r940

Granes Enlargements
(Dotaciones) (Ampliaciones) Total

Toral Total Toral.

Year No. Rccipicnrs Hectares No. Recipients Hecrares No. Recipienrs Hcctarcs

1917* 5 902 7,703 o o o 5 902 7,703

1918 4 1,610 5,539 o o o 4 1,610 5,539
1919 o o o o o o o o o
1920 4 475 1,724 o o o 4 475 1,724
1921 14 2,506 18,123 1 146 607 15 2,652 18,730
1922 o o o o o o o o o
1923 13 4,119 23,872 o o o 13 4,119 23,872
1924 10 4,905 13,960 o o o 10 4,905 13,960
1925 5 1,473 8,032 1 96 488 6 1,569 8,520
1926 8 1,277 6,954 1 109 159 9 1,386 7,113
1927 32 9,298 51,630 2 756 1,759 34 10,054 53,389
1928 19 2,973 23,735 2 611 3,146 21 3,584 26,881
1929 15 2,325 21,137 o o o 15 2,325 21,137
1930 35 3,817 29,310 1 20 438 36 3,837 29,748
1931 14 1,556 7,671 1 38 152 15 1,594 7,823
1932 6 262 2,082 o o o 6 262 2,082
1933 15 1,424 11,695 o o o 15 1,424 11,695
1934 77 8,346 64,427 o o o 77 8,346 64,427
1935 168 17,194 165,472 3 260 2,496 171 17,454 167,968
1936 258 17,414 230,394 46 3,743 36,289 304 21,157 266,683
1937 117 9,787 98,215 26 1,273 14,865 143 11,060 113,080
1938 53 5,774 142,204 20 1,389 15,783 73 7;163 157,987
1939 126 8,137 174,608 5·1 1,368 20,984 177 9,505 195,592
1940 74 5,969 116,380 43 1,822 31,570 117 7,791 147,950
Source: Collared from Registro Agrario Nacional, Historial Agrario (unpublished darabase), 1999.
Note: T he data refer ro presidencial decrees cstablishing permanent ejidos; in some cases, rhe
final size of rhe ejido was slighrly different. Also, particularly in rhe early 1920s, some land
reform beneficiaries occupied rheir ejido parcels on a provisional basis before the final presiden­
tial decree was handed clown.
*One restitution of communal land was also made in r917.

245
 Abbreviations 247

AMZit Archivo Municipal de Zitácuaro

CM Archivo Histórico Manuel Castañeda Ramírez, Fondo Gobernación,
Abbreviations Sección de Secretaría de Gobierno, Serie de Policía y Guerra
FA- Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco Elías Calles y Fernando Torreblanca
AO Archivo Alvaro Obregón
PEC Archivo Plutarco Elías Calles
MPV Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
ACZ Archivo de la Sala Canonical de la Catedral de Zamora México, Centro de Estudios Sobre la Universidad, Fondo Miguel
AGN- Archivo General de la Nación Palomar y Vizcarra
AR Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Abelardo L. Rodríguez RAN Archivo Histórico del Registro Agrario Nacional, Morelia
DAT Fondo Departamento Autónomo del Trabajo
DGG Fondo Dirección General de Gobierno carpeta (folder)
carp.
DT Fondo Departamento del Trabajo
das. clasificación (classification)
EPG Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Emilio Portes Gil
LC Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Lázaro Cárdenas del Río doc. documentación/ número de documento (documentation/
oc Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Álvaro Obregón y de document number)
Plutarco Elías Calles exp. expediente (file)
POR Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Pascual Ortiz Rubio ext. extracto (extract)
R Fondo de Gobernación, Periodo Revolucionario
fo. folio (sheet)
AHC- Archivo Histórico del Centro de Estudios de la Revolución
111V. número de inventario (inventory number)
Mexicana "Lázaro Cárdenas," A.C.
FJM Fondo Papeles de Francisco J. Múgica leg. legajo (bundle)
LC Fondo Papeles de Lázaro Cárdenas trans. transcripción (transcription)
AHMM Archivo Histórico Municipal de Morelia vol. volumen (volume)
AHPEM- Archivo Histórico del Poder Ejecutivo de Michoacán
,, l
A Ramo de Justicia, Sección de Amparos BEAM Boletín Eclesiástico de la Arquidiócesis de Michoacán
B Ramo de Gobernación, Sección de Bosques CERMLC Centro de Estudios de la Revolución Mexicana "Lázaro Cárdenas,"
GE Ramo de Gobernación, Sección de Guerra y Ejército L.C. (Jiquilpan, Mich.)
R Ramo de Gobernación, Sección de Religión
CLA Comisión Local Agraria
AHPJM Archivo Histórico del Poder Judicial de Michoacán
CNA Comisión Nacional Agraria
AHSEP Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública
CRMDT Confederación Revolucionaria Michoacana del Trabajo
AMU Archivo Municipal de Uruapan
DECI Departamento de Educación y Cultura Indígena
AMZ- Archivo Municipal de Zamora
DEFM Director de Educación Federal en Michoacán
G Ramo de Gobernación
IP Ramo de Instrucción Pública GEM Gobernador (Constitucional) del Estado (de Michoacán)

J Ramo de Justicia IIH-UMSNH Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Michoacana

PG Ramo de Policía y Guerra de San Nicolás de Hidalgo
248 Abbreviations

HAHR Hispan/e American Historical Revieiv

1/
HM Historia Mexicana
]LAS }ournal of Latin American History Notes
LARR Latin American Research Review \
LNDLR Liga Nacional Defensora de la Libertad Religiosa
POEM Periódico Oficial del Estado de Michoacán
PM Presidente Municipal (de) Unless otherwise noted, ali translations of archiva! materials are the author's.
PR Presidente de la República
REDZ Revista Eclesiástica de la Diócesis de Zamora INTRODUCTION
SEP Secretaría de Educación Pública
1. Paz, 89.
SG Secretaría de Gobernación
2. Palacios, Pluma, u. See also rn3-9 and his "Postrevolutionary Intellectu­
als," and Becker, "Black and White."
3. Mintz. See also Roseberry, Anthropologies, especially chapter 3, and his
"Beyond the Agrarian Question."
4. Gould; but see also Forster; and Schryer, Ethnicity and Class.
5. On the nineteenth century, see Mallon, esp. r2-20; Guardino, esp. 1-2;
and Thomson, "Bulwarks." On the twentieth century, see Vaughan, Cultural Poi­
/tics, esp. 3 7-46.
6. Laclau, New Reflections; Hall, "Cultural Identity" and "Who Needs
'Identity'?"
7. In general terms, see Córdova, Política. On indigenous people, see Dawson.
On industrial workers, see Collier and Collier; Guadarrama; and Middlebrook.
On women, see Olcott.
8. Tannenbaum, 320-21; Silva Herzog, Agrarismo, 405. See also Molina En­
ríquez, esp. 5:191-93; and Simpson. For an updated and more nuanced version, ,,·
see Knight, Mexican Revolution.
9. See Gilly, Revolución interrumpida; Hart, Revolutionary Mexico; Ruíz;
and, more recently, Womack, "Mexican Revolution."
10. Jean Meyer, 3:35; Armando Bartra, 23.
11. See, Córdova, política; Craig; Falcón, "surgimiento"; Gledhill; González
y González, Artífices; and Hernández.
12. González y González, "Cabos sueltos."
13. Gramsci. For major elaborations on Gramsci's theory, see Comaroff and
Comaroff; Laclau and Mouffe.
14. See Joseph and Nugent, "Popular Culture," and the other contributions
to their edited volume, Everyday Forms; Knight, "Mexican Revolurion"; and the

249
 2 50 Notes to Pages 9-20
May 1999 special edition (79, no. 2) of the HAHR dedicated to a discussion of
the "new cultural history" of Mexico.
15. Vaughan, Cultural Politics, 20.
16. Mallan, 6.
17. See, for example, the discussion of the conflict between President Álvaro
Obregón and Michoacán Governor Francisco J. Múgica in the early 1920s in
Sánchez Rodríguez.
18. In addition to Chapter 5 of this book, see Ceballos, Catolicismo; Boylan.
19. For an illustration of this point in Yucacán, see Wells and Joseph.
20. Becker, Virgin, 162; Bonfil.
21. García Canclini.
22. For other critiques of this way of conceptualizing hegemony, see Cas­
tañeda, 198-200; and Watanabe. But for a cogent rejoinder, see Dagnino.
23. On forms of power, see Wolf, Envisioning Power, esp. 66-67.
CHAPTER l
r. Antonio Cauto to Múgica, Sept. J?, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta, 13 / 4165.
2. Amparo of José Cruz Rodríguez, Morelia, Apr., 1925, AHPEM-A, caja
241, exp. ro.
3. Report of María del Refugio García, Dec. 31, 1923, AHSEP, caja 7264,
exp. 3.
4. Sacramento Sánchez to PR, Apr. 28, 1929, AGN-DGG, 2.380 (13)-9; Re­
port of Evangelina Rodríguez Carvajal, July 3 r, 1924, AHSEP, caja 7264, exp. 3.
5. "Acta," June 9, 1935, AGN-LC, 437 / 70, leg. 2. The entire quotation reads
chat the delegares resolved "Vajo formal protesta, y de acuerdo con los portulados
de la Revolución hecha actualmente Gobierno, unificarse para velar por los in­
tereses del obrero y campecino, hací como por los intereses de las Comunidades
...'•
1/
Agrairas, los cuales unidos defenderan sus intereses de clase, y defenderse de la fer­
, rea mano de los Burgeces y Clericales que se interponen a los sanos principios de
1,
� la Revolución." Ali grammatical and spelling errors are in the originaL
b
6. Even today a working definition of who is and is not a campesino <loes not
come easily. In general terms, a campesino can be thought of as a rural person
who makes a modest living working the land as her or bis prirnary economic ac­
tivity (whether as a subsistence farmer, a tenant on another's land, or as a paid
field hand), who tends to base economic strategies on a household rather than an
individual base, and who, T would argue, recognizes sorne degree of political or
economic affinity wich ocher impoverished and disempowered rural folk.
7. This is, of course, an allusion to the way E. P. Thompson described che for­
mation of class identity in his classic The Making of the English Working Class.
Notes to Pages 21-25 251
"Class-consciousness," he wrote, "is the way in which [working people's] experi­
ences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas,
and institucional forms" (p. ro). 1/
\
8. Clearly, I am arguing here for a historically rooted understanding of the
campesino. Most analysts continue to define campesinos in economic terms, how­
ever, and this has led to a certain amount of analytical contortionism. Ever since
the 1970s, for example, analysts have recognized that campesino productive prac­
tices do not easily fit within one or another mode of production, a fact that led to
a long and ultimately unsatisfying debate on campesinos' class status. For an
overview of the discussion, see de la Peña.
9. Agricultura/ worlwrs was a term favored by the Flores Magón brothers in
their increasingly radical newspaper, Regeneración. Revolutionary intellectuals
such as Luis Cabrera and Andrés Molina Enriquez also used class-based terms to
describe hacienda laborers, though they tended to refer to landless villagers as "el
pueblo."
ro. On the political genealogy of the concept of el pueblo, see Kourí; for a
discussion of the role of community in the imaginary of anthropologists and in­
digenous people, see Monaghan.
11. Guardino, 217-20; Lira González; Mallon, 89-129. For in-depth case
studies, see Thomson, Patriotism, and Vanderwood, Power.
12. As reproduced and translaced in Womack, Zapata, 400-401.
13. In Womack, Zapata, 402, 403. For a further discussion of Zapatismo, see
Warman, "Political Project."
14. Thus intellectuals such as Andrés Malina Enríquez and Antonio Díaz
Soto y Gama tended to draw rigorous distinctions between hacienda laborers and
villagers who primarily farmed their own land, and between mestizos and indige·
nous people in the countryside.
15. Córdova, Política, 47; emphasis in original deleted.
16. Article 27 reads, "pueblos, rancherías y comunidades," as reproduced in
Silva Herzog, 250.
17. For a discussion of village revolutionaries, see Chapter 4, and for Cath­
olics, see Chapter 5. I have not attempted to research how and why these activiscs
adopted the term campesino, however, and the question awaits further research.
Interestingly, che term appears not to have been associated with Mexican anar­
chists in the Partido Liberal Mexicano, or with the early Spanish anarchists, who
apparently did not use the term on a regular basis befare che 1930s. On the other
hand, the term campesinaje had become very popular among peasant militants
and rural labor organizers by the early 1940s. See Santamaría, 1:285.
18. Nugent, 144; see also Alonso, esp. 105-11. For Michoacán, see González
y González, Pueblo en vilo; and Butler.
252 Notes to Pages 26-37
19. For a general overview of the agrarian movement, see González Navarro,
Confederación, esp. 75-88.
20. For analyses of the ability of rancheros and hacienda owners ro retain so­
cial control during and after che revolucion, see, for example, García Ugarte for
Querétaro; and Wells and Joseph for Yucatán.
21. Ochoa, Agraristas, 88-92; Embriz, Liga, 123-30.
22. On the CROM and its organization of the Federation of Unions of Cam­
pesino Workers in the Michoacán region, see multiple union registrations in
AHMM, caja 95; on Cárdenas, see Chapters 6 and 7. For Tapia and Regalado,
see Embriz, Liga; Friedrich, Agarian Revolt; and Ochoa, Agraristas.
23. In sorne cases, they literally dreamed of doing so. See "Diario de Salvador
Sotelo," in Papers of Salvador Sotelo.
24. Feierman, 5. On cultural brokers in Mexico, see also Lomnitz-Adler, Exits,
221-41; Mallan, II-12, 276-309; and WoLf, "Aspects."
25. Palacios, La pluma, 115-28.
26. For an overview of rural areas, see Benjamín, "Laborarories." For Mex­
ico City, see Lear.
27. On the philosophy of liberalism, see González Navarro, "T ipología";
Hale, Transformation; and Chapter 2. Note that the meaning of the term liberal­
ism in Mexico is virtually the opposite of its current usage in che United States ro
refer ro state inrervention in economic and social matters.
28. For overviews of populism in Mexico, see Basurro; Córdova, Política; and
Knight, "Populism." For a broadly cheorecical approach, see Laciau, "Towards a
Theory."
29. See, for example, Andrews; Carr, 15-46, 82-94; Hart, Anarchism, 156-
77; La Botz, esp. 155-221; and Taibo II.
30. Hobsbawm, Age o( Extremes, 85-141.
3 1. Gilly, Revolución; Hart, Revolutionary Mexico; and Ruíz, esp. 409-12.
For a review of chese and other revisionisc works, see Florescano, 69-15 2.
32. On the construction of "che Revolucion" and revolutionary memories, see
Benjamín, La Revolucion; Díaz Arciénega; and O'Malley.
33. For general histories of che Sonaran state, see Córdova, Revolución; Jean
Meyer et al.; and Lorenzo Meyer et al.
34. For an analysis, see González y González, Días, 15-79.
35. Excélsior, Sept. 6, 1923. Reproduced in Elías Calles, 68-70.
36. On posrrevolutionary Mexico specifically, see Bantjes, "Buming Saines";
Knight, "Popular Culture"; and Vaughan, CulturalPolitics, esp. 37-46. For Mex­
ican nationhood generally, see Bartra, Jaula; Brading, Origins; Lomnitz-Adler,
Exits, esp. 261-314; and Mallan. Other analyses chat structure my discussion of
nationhood and revolutionary citizenship include Anderson; and Chatterjee.
Notes to Pages 3 7-48 25 3
37. Leopoldo Lara y Torres, "Discurso," Oct. 30, 1922, MPV, caja 20, exp.
1/
142.
38. Tapia Santamaría, 137-46.
39. On the relative tenacity of traditional actitudes, compare Lumholtz's de­
scripcion of the feast of the Miraculous Christ in the 1890s, 37 5-80, with \
Friedrich's description sixty years later in Naranja in Agrarian Revolt, 27-38.
40. Ernesto Soro Reyes, writing in El Revolucionario, May 20, 1926. See sim-
ilar sentiments in El Eco, May 2, 1926; che newspaper was published by one of
che most powerful polirical families in eastern Michoacán.
41. Gran Partido Vida! Salís, "Acta," May 3, 1926, AGN-DGG, 2.312 (13)-18.
42. See especially Marjorie Becker, Virgin; Jean Meyer, La Cristiada; and
Knight, "Revolutionary Project."
43. Vaughan, Cultural Politics, esp. 102.
44. Report of Representante de la Comunidad, Mar. 12, 1921, AHPEM-A,
caja 208, exp. 18; and "Enérgica y viril protesta," Mar. 14, 1925, AGN-DGG,
F.2.8 l. 2-2.
45. Comunidad Agraria ro PM Zamora, [July 1931?], AMZ-G, 1931, exp. 8.
46. Schryer, Ethnicity.
47. See, for example, a transcription of Miembros de la Defensa ro Múgica,
Jan. 30, 1922, AGN-DGG, C.2.51-17.
48. "Acta," June 9, 1935, AGN-LC, 437 / 70, leg. 2.
49. Cf. Anderson.
50. Cirilo García ro Cárdenas, Feb. 9, 1938, AGN-LC, 404.2 / 631.
CHAPTER 2
r. For a more thoroughgoing critique of Friedrich Engels's dictum thac social
relations are determined "in the last inscance" by che mode of production, see Al­
thusser, 89-II6.
2. Carrasco, 12-22; Vázquez León, 259-73.
3. See Alan Knight's distinction between Serrano and Agrarian revolts in Mex­
ican Revolution, 1:78-127; and Alonso, 30-50, 146-54.
4. See Hamon and Niblo. T he irony here is thac petit bourgeois intellecruals
such as Andrés Malina Enríquez, Pastor Rouaix, Múgica, and others typically
joined che Constitutionalist movemenc, che revolutionary faction whose leader was
least interested in land reform.
5. The social history of the Porfirian countryside is undergoing substantial re­
vision; for sorne recent contributions, see Fram;:ois-Xavier Guerra; Holden; Uribe
Salas; and Wells and Joseph.
6. Katz, "Condiciones"; Tutino, "Hacienda Social Relations." Even in the
254 Notes to Pages 49-53
Yucatán, hacienda field hands often supported their hacendado employers in
agrarian political battles; see Fallaw, 22-23.
7. Moreno, "Buenavista y Cumuato"; see also the example of Zurumútaro in
Chapter 6.
8. Cook and Borah, 300-375. See especially table 48, p. 343.
9. On northern Mexico, see Katz, Secret War, esp. 7-18; Wasserman, esp.
104-29; Aguilar Camín, 19-69; and Franc;:ois-Xavier Guerra, 1:126-81. On Mi­
choacán, see Uribe Salas.
ro. Sánchez Díaz, "Las crisis."
rr. See, for example, Brunk, "Remembering"; and O'Malley.
12. As historian Peter Novick explains in The Holocaust in American Life,
collective memory "has no sense of the passage of time; it denies the 'pastness' of
its objects and insists on their continuing presence.... A memory, once estab­
lished, comes to define . . . eternal truth, and, along with it, an eternal identity for
the members of the group," 4.
13. Benjamín, La Revolución.
14. Julio Calderón to PM, Sept. 4, 1920, AHMM, caja 56, exp. 4; and vari­
ous documents in AMZ, caja 1921, exp. 5.
15. Vecinos de la Colonia Juárez, "Queja," [May 19, 1922?], AHMM, caja
76, exp. 13. See also Report of Pedro Roa V., Nov. 12, 1925, AGN-DT, caja 841,
exp. 3; José Zavala Paz, interview by author, Morelia, May 24, 1995.
16. Report of Manuel Ríos, Sept. 2, 1923, ACZ, Cartas ... ; Cusi, 240-46.
17. Sotelo, 38, and 36-38 generally. For a similar instance sorne years earlier,
see Beezley, 71-74.
18. Rutilio Hernández to SG, Apr. 4, 1923, AGN-DGG, D.2.72-50. On the
Otomí region, see Report of Ayuntamiento de Angangueo, Feb. r, 1923, AGN­
DT, caja 682, exp. 3.
19. See, for example, various documents pertaining to 1921 in AHMM, caja
61, exp. 14 [sic, should be 28] and caja 62, exp. 5.
20. Report of Julio Jecio, Jan. 27, 1920, AHMM, caja 58, exp. 7; "La ma­
yoría de los vecinos de este pueblo de Ichán" to Cárdenas, Jan. 5, 1932, AGN­
DGG, 2.340 (13)-51.
21. Amparo of Isidoro Correa, Oct.31, 1925, AHPEM-A, caja 227, exp. 12.
22. See documents pertaining to 1920 in AHMM, caja 55, exp. 10.
23. See, for example, REDZ, Sept. 1922, 122; and Report of Juventud
Católica Femenina Mexicana, REDZ, June 1932, 169-71. On the altars, see El
Centinela, Apr. 13, 1919.
24. Rodolfo P. Sánchez to Múgica, Feb. n, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta 12 /
3960.
25. Rafael Duarte to J. Jesús Moreno, Sept. 10, 1923, ACZ, Cartas desde el
15 de julio de 1923; Report of Pascual Soto, Apr. 21, 1920, ACZ, Informes.
Notes to .Pages 54-58 255
26. See, for exarnple, María Estefanea Morales and Marciana Acuapa to
Bishop of Zamora, [July 1933?], ACZ, Cherán 29-34.
27. Mexico, Primer censo, 63-64. For a discussion, see Bastian.
28. Cacique was originally a term used by Caribbean Taino peoples who spoke
the Arawak language. Paul Friedrich defines a cacique as a "strong and autocratic
leader in local and regional politics whose characteristically informal, personalis­
tic, and often arbitrary rule is often buttressed by relatives." Princes, 292 n. 5. Use
of the terrn representative (representante) varied widely in Michoacán in the 1920s
and 1930s. Village headmen often called themselves representantes, but so did out­
siders such as regional caciques who sometimes claimed to speak on villagers' be­
half. Finally, villagers sometimes hired lawyers to represent thern in court, and
these people, too, often referred to themselves as representantes.
29. Mayor de Cabildo Turja et al. to Bishop of Zamora, [July 1933?], ACZ,
Cherán 29-34.
30. Joauín L. Calvente, "Memorial," Apr. 2, 1923, AHSEP, caja 673, exp.96;
Beals, 107-8; Purnell, "With Ali Due Respect."
3 r. Report of Fidel Tercero, Dec. 21, 1928, AHPEM-A, caja 267, exp. 24. See
also Vecinos de la comunidad indígena de Corungueo to PR, Oct. 14, 1923,
AGN-DGG, C.2.73-44. On the moralizing and modernizing aspects of cornmu­
nist-inspired revolutionaries, see Carr, "Marxism's Contribution."
32. Jesús Negrete, interviews by author, Atacheo, Mar. 21, 1995, and May 1,
1995. For further discussion of Hispanicized indigenous villages in the Zacapu
area, see Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt; and Purnell, Popular Movements, 111-3 3.
33. Cusi, 77-79.
34. Report of Diego Hernández Topete, Aug. 1, 1930, AHSEP, caja 7229,
exp. 18.
35. Fogiio, 2:168-70.
36. See the example of Villa Jiménez in Embriz, Liga, 93-94.
37. Report of Alfonso Alvírez, May 27, 1915, AGN-R, caja 30, exp. 3, 7-8;
Chowning, 86-93, 142-49, 278-305.
38. Los indígenas de Taretan to GEM, May 21, 1920, AHPEM-A, caja 203,
exp. 8; Cusí; Womack, "Mexican Economy."
39. According to the 1930 census, there were 489 properties of 1,000 hectares
or larger, which I have denominated "haciendas." Together, these 489 haciendas
held 2,129,469 hectares. Ali properties in che census encompassed 3,058,690 hect­
ares. Daca from Foglio, 3 :20.
40. Elíseo Carmona García, interview by author, Nicolás Romero, Mar. 9,
1995·
4r. Report of Pedro Roa Y., Nov. 12, 1925, AGN-DT, C841, Exp. 3.
42. Report of Refugio Morales, July 10, 1926, AHPEM-A, caja 256, exp. 14;
El Baluarte, Apr.7, 1926.See also the report on che company store ar the Dos Es-
 256 Notes to Pages 58-6r
trellas mine in Álvaro Guzmán et al. to PM Tlalpujahua, [Mar. ro, 193 1?], AGN­
POR, (1931) 1262-T; and Romero Flores, 72.
43. According to the 1930 census, 693 of ali properties in the state were
wholly rented out. These renta! arrangements may have been to large-scale farm­
ers, but sorne were probably to peasant communities as well. For data and analy­
sis, see Foglio, 3:239-41.
44. Antonio A. Santoyo and Juan M. Miramontes to PM Morelia, Feb. 19,
1930, AHMM, caja ro4, exp. 59.
45. Esteban Rodríguez to Administrador de la Hacienda Coapa, Dec. 26,
1928, AHMM, caja 91, exp. 32; report of Refugio Morales, July 10, 1926, AH­
PEM-A, caja 2.56, exp. 14; and Luis Guzmán, "Acta," Dec. 6, 192.8, AHMM,
caja 81, exp. 37.
46. Labor contraer ar the Hacienda de Monteleón, [Sept. 1923?), AGN-DT,
caja 662, exp. 13. See also amparo of Eduardo Noriega and Alfredo Noriega,
Mar. 15, 192.4, AHPEM-A, caja 224, exp. 2.
47. Embriz, Liga, 84-90.
48. Schryer, Rancheros, esp. chapter 2; Samuel Gutiérrez et al. to SG, Oct. 14,
1932, AMZ-G 1932, exp. 26/IV.
49. In addition to the discussion of rancheros in the chapters that follow, see
Brading, Haciendas; González y González, Pueblo, 49-62.; and Schryer, Ethnic­
ity, 88-96, 121-26.
50. See for example, Ascención Ramírez to Cárdenas, June 27, 1940, AGN­
LC 404.2./631.
5 I. Celso Valadés to PR, July 8, 192.1; Celso Valadés to Secretaría de Agri­
cultura y Fomento, Aug. 28, 192.1; both in RAN, exp. Zurumútaro.
52. Cusí, 102.
5 3. This can be inferred from the fact that field hands usually complained
about the behavior of administradores rather than that of hacienda owners,
whereas the opposite was true with villagers who had lost their lands to hacienda
.. owners. See Chapters 3 and 4.
54. Report of Herminio Orozco, Dec. 2, 1933, ACZ, Guarachita 29-33.
55. Report of J. Lamberto Moreno, June 28, 1931, AHSEP, caja 7213, exp.
I 1. See also the apparently authentic support of the hacienda by field hands in
"Petición de los vecinos de Queréndaro," May 10, 1921, AHPEM-A, caja 207,
exp. 2.
56. Romero Flores, 73; Becker, Virgin, 19-24.
57. See, for example, Report of Luis López, Aug. 14,.1923, AGN-DT, caja 662,
exp. 13; amparo of Pedro Noriega, June 2, 1922, AHPEM-A, caja 218, exp. 29.
58. For example, see amparo of José Mariche, June 16, 1923; and testimony
of Rafael Vega, Sept. 23, 1921; both in AHPEM-A, caja 220, exp. 7.
Notes to Pages 61-69 257
59. Rodríguez to Administrador, Dec. 26, 1928, AHMM, caja 91, exp. 32;
and Cusi, 154. For a contextualization of these behaviors, see Scott, Weapons.
60. Brenner.
61. Quoted in Brunk, ¡Emiliano Zapata!, 62.
62. Romero Flores, 87-88; Vanderwood, Disorder, u9-31.
63. Ochoa, "Revolución"; Oikión; and Mijangos.
64. Romero Flores, 97, with supplemental information from Ochoa, Repertorio.
65. Romero Flores, 94-105.
66. "Inventario," Dec. 25, 1919, AHPEM-GE, caja 5; Alfonso Alvírez, May
27, 1915, AGN-R, ca ja 30, exp. 3.
67. Sebastián Sánchez Muñoz and Jesús Campuano, interviews by author,
Cherán, May 19, 1995; Memorandum from Pánfilo Bravo, [Sept. 1920?), AGN­
DGG, B.2.71-123.
68. Ochoa, Agraristas, 84-88. José Mendoza, interview by author, Chilchota,
Mar. 25, 1995.
69. This chapter has already discussed how Amaro's lieutenants raised small
armies in 1923. See also El Baluarte, Feb. 14 and 21, 1926, and Mar. 7, 1926.
Amaro's soldiers seem to have come primarily from Zitácuaro (commanded by
Arturo Berna!) and Zamora. Since Amaro himself had fought as a Villista in an
earlier phase of the revolution, Obregón ordered that his men should wear pris­
oners' striped shirts and man the front lines. According to Jesús Romero Flores,
Amaro's Striped Shirts were among the most vigorous fighters in the great battles
that decimated Villa's army in Celaya. See Romero Flores, 267-70; and Joaquín
Amaro to PM Zamora, Jan. 2, 1924, AMZ-PG, 1924, exp. 2.
70. Elvino Prado, interview by author, Tanaquillo, Mar. 25, 1995.
71. Pinet. On the difficulty of sifting out "social banditry" from simple law­
lessness, see Joseph, "On the Trail."
72. Mijangos, 209-20. Mijangos, however, rejects the notion that Villa's de- �··
feat prompted the rise of banditry in Michoacán.
73. Sotelo; Oikión Solano, 437-41.
74. Ochoa, Violencia, 43-48; Cusi, 207-11.
75. Sebastián Sánchez Muñoz, interview by author, Cherán, May r9, 1995;
Ramírez, La verdad, 2?1, and 2:58-71 generally. On La Cañada, see Chapter 4.
76. J. Concepción Rodríguez to Múgica, Jan. 3, 1918, AHC-FJM doc. suelta,
9/2677; Renuncia of Alcalde 1 ° José Naría Hurtado, Jan. 18, 1918, AMZ-J,
1918, exp. 12; Report of N. Rodríguez, Sept. 3, 1918, AMZ-PG, 1918, exp. 6.
77. Crosby, 63, 206-7; Gamboa, 91-92, roo-ro5.
78. Sidronio Sánchez Pineda to SG, June 21, 1922, AGN-DGG, C.2.51-31.
79. Soledad Olivera, interview by author, Opopeo, May 20, 1995.
80. See Ruiz.
 2.58 Notes to Pages 69-80
Sr. See Córdova, Ideología.
82.. Hale, Mexican Liberalism; González Navarro, "Tipología."
83. Actualidades, Jan. 15, 192.2..
84. Chowning, 2.10-49, 2.61-301.
85. Bazant; Powell; and Purnell, "With Ali Due Respect."
86. Coatsworth; Rosenzweig, 413-2.6; and González Navarro, Porfiriato.
87. Holden, esp. 17-2.4.
88. See the discussions of Opopeo and Zurumútaro in Chapters 3 and 6. See
also the case of San Pedro Caro discussed in Purnell, "Politics of Identity," 540-50.
89. Repon of Prefecto de Uruapan, May 17, 1907, AHPEM-B, caja 1, exp. 15.
See also Purnell, "With Ali Due Respect"; and Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt, 34-56.
90. Repon of Breña, April 2., 192.5, ASRA, exp. Tzintzuntzan.
9r. Scott, Moral Economy.
92.. Cbowning, 305.
93. Ruiz y Flores, 6r.
94. Manero, 30. This pamphlet, published in English and Spanish during the
moments that looked most bleak for the Constitutionalist movement, is probably
tbe closest thing to a manifesto the Constitutionalists produced during the war
against Villa and Zapata.
95. Múgica, "El Desprecio a la Ley" and "Consumatum Est" in El Demócrata
Zamorano, [June 1910?), reprinted in Múgica, Hechos, 1:36, 40-41.
96. For overviews, see Cockroft, 99-106; Hamon and Niblo, 30-12.7. See
also Knight, Mexican Revolution, 1:39-70.
97. Womack, Zapata, 87-88; Katz, Pancho Villa, 403-14.
98. Law of Jan. 6, 1915, reproduced in Silva Herzog, 2.35, and see 2.34-36
generally.
99- Article 2.7, as reproduced in Silva Herzog, 2.50. On the debates surround­
ing the passage of Article 2.7, see Rouaix, 175-2.15; and Niemeyer, 134-65.
roo. Simpson, 375-411.
101. Ibid., 78-97, 2.17-2.9. Note that ir became common by rhe 1930s for
governors to bypass the local commission and send their decisions directly to the
Nacional Agrarian Commission or to a rnixed local/ nacional commission.
102.. Rappaporr, 10-12.; on the links between cultural brokers and memory,
2.1-2.7.
CHAPTER 3
I. El Heraldo de Michoacán, Sept. 2.2., 192.0.
2.. José Huerta to SG Morelia, Sept. 2.2., 192.0, AGN-DGG, A.2..73-4, tomo
IV; report on "Banda de Obreros de San Pedro," Sept. 2.0, 192.0, AHC-FJM,
tomo V, doc. 133.
Notes to Pages 80-89 2.59
3. A. R. Campuzano to "Ejército," Sept. 2.3, 192.0, AGN-DGG, A.2..73-4,
tomo IV; Sánchez and Guzmán, "Francisco J. Múgica."
4. Victorino Flores et al., "Acta del Congreso . . . [Garcialeonista]," Aug. 2.7,
192.0, as well as other similar documents in AGN-DGG, A.2..73-4, tomo II; and an
1/
unsigned "Acta" with extensive details about electoral fraud in FA-AO, inv. 2000; \
El Heraldo de Michoacán, July 14, 1920; and La Republicana, July 6, 1920.
5. El Heraldo de Michoacán, Sept. 15, 1920; Sánchez Rodríguez, 109-2.8,
196-99. For each "legislature's" denunciations of the other, see various docu­
ments in AGN-DGG, A.2..73-4, tomo U.
6. El Heraldo de Michoacán, May 27, 1920.
7. La Lucha, May 9, 1921, and May 14, 1921.
8. El Heraldo de Michoacán, June 10, 1920.
9. Actualidades, Nov. 20, 1921.
10. La Lucha, May 20, 1921; El Heraldo de Michoacán, June 10, 1920, and
Aug. 21, 1920.
u. Múgica to Angel Barrios, Nov. 4, 1920, AHC-FJM, tomo V, doc. 90.
12.. Ibid.
13. La Republicana, June 2.2, 1920; Othón Núñez, "Instrucción Pastoral," in
REDZ, Nov. 192.1, 17-28.
14. Múgica, Informe rendido, 2.3. See also Simpson, Ejido, 72.-74.
15. In ali of che propaganda produced by the Socialist Party of Michoacán,
there is only one mention of "socialization of property," and that was listed in the
party platform as a "long-term goal." As soon as the Socialists actually took
powe1� no further menrion was made of the subject.
16. Lynn Hunt describes this dilemma as che conflict between didacticism and
transparency. This is also close to what Ernesto Laciau and Chanta! Mouffe (fol­
lowing Thomas Masaryk) describe as the "crisis of Marxism," i.e., twentieth­
century Marxists' search for an explanation of the proletariat's failure to rebel
against che bourgeoisie in che most economically developed countries and an idea
of what could be done about it. See Hunt, 72.-86; and Laclau and Mouffe, 7-46.
For a discussion of che dilemma in che Mexican conrext, see Knight, "Revolu­
tionary Project."
17. El Heraldo de Michoacán, May 2.0, 192.0, and June 10, 192.0.
18. La Republicana, June 21, 192.0. Emphasis in original deleted.
19. El Cruzado, July 31, 192.r. See also El Cruzado June 19, 192.1; La Re­
pu.blicana, ]une 2.2., 192.0; and Leopoldo Lara y Torres, "Edicto Cuaresmal," in
BEAM, Jan. 192.5, 12..
2.0. La Republicana, July 2., 192.0.
2.1. La Lucha, May 9, 192.r. See also La Lucha, May 2.0, 192.r.
22.. La Lucha, May 14, 1921; Actualidades, Nov. 2.0, 192.r.
2.3. Sufragio, June 3, 192.0.
260 Notes to Pages 89-96
24. Evolución, June 24, 1920.
25. Actualidades, Dec. 25, 1921.
26. Ibid., Oct. 30, 1921.
27. María y Campos, 12-16, 21-35.
28. Múgica, Diario, 23; María y Campos, 45-60.
29. María y Campos, 65-70.
30. Quoted in Niemeyer, 74. On Múgica's participation at the convention, see
60-97; and Djed, 150-61, 699-704.
31. Sánchez Rodríguez, 37-46.
32. On Lemus, see Múgica to Torcuato Lemus, Jan. 3, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc.
suelta, 12 / 3944. On García, see Amparo of María del Refugio García, May 1,
1922, AHPEM-A, caja 219, exp. 20; and La Lucha, June 25, 1921.
33. Martínez, Isaac Arriaga, 103-15; Francisco Múgica, Informe rendido, 2 5;
on the Oficina de Promociones Indígenas generally, see 25-26.
34. Data from POEM, 1920-21.
35. Francisco Múgica, Informe rendido, 23-24.
36. Sánchez Rodríguez, 158-66.
37. See severa! hacienda owner Amparos in Jan. 1920 (nine months befare
Múgica's term began) in AHPEM-A, cajas 202-13.
38. Brief filed by José García, Feb. 19, 1921, AHPEM-A, caja 200, exp. 6.
39. Múgica, Informe rendido, 44-48; Rodríguez, esp. 109-15. For the num­
ber of previously existing schools, see Díaz Babío, 218-19.
40. Jesús Milanez to DECI, Dec. 7, 1922, AHSEP, caja 747, exp. 50.
41. Alfredo Breceda to Múgica, Mar. 31, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta, 12 /
3866. See also La Libertad, Mar. 24, 1921 (Extra).
42. Obregón to Múgica, Sept. 15, 1920, FA-AO, exp. M-67 / 557 (inv. 2573);
Sánchez Rodríguez, 119-20.
43. Múgica, letter published in El 123, Dec. 29, 1921. For a licany of Múg­
ica's complaincs against Estrada, see Múgica's act of resignation, Mar. 9, 1922,
AHC-FJM, tomo X, doc. 1.
44. Múgica to de la Huerta, Dec. 19, 1921, AHC-FJM, tomo VI, doc. 92. See
also the correspondence between the cwo men over the previous three months,
AHC-FJM, tomo VI, <loes. 92-100.
45. Actualidades, Dec. II, 1921.
46. Foglio, 3:179.
47. See, for example, Repon of María del Refugio García, Aug. 25, 1921,
AHC-FJM, doc. suelta, 13 / 4I45.
48. Data from POEM, 1920-21.
49. María del Refugio García to Múgica, Aug. 25, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc.
suelta, 13 / 4145.
Notes to Pages 96-103 261
50. El Baluarte, Mar. 17, 1926; SG to Francisco Aguilar, May 4, 1922, AHC­
FJM, anexo 9, exp. 398.
51. Múgica to Comité Ejecutivo, Mar. 15, 1922, AHPEM-A, caja 203, exp. 27.
52. Mariano Valdés to Múgica, Nov. 19, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta 13 /
4243-
53- Múgica to Jesús Aguilar, Apr. 24, 1922, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta 14 / 4442.
54. El Baluarte, Mar. 21, 1926; and RAN, exp. Chichimequillas.
55. Report of Ladeslao Victoria, Aug. 26, 1922, AHPEM-GE, caja 5. The
neighboring village, Coatepec de Morelos, ironically emerged as a bastion of
agrarian radicalism later in the 1920s. See Boyer, "Old Laves," 449.
56. María del Refugio García to Múgica, Aug. 25, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc.
suelta, 13 / 4145.
57. Múgica, Informe rendido, II-12.
58. Alfredo García to Múgica, Mar. 2, 1921, AHC-FJM, tomo VIIl, doc. 2;
open letter from García to Múgica, printed in La Lucha, May 17, 1921. See also
María y Campos, 165-67.
59. Luis Malina, "Acta," Morelia, July 30, 1922, AHMM, caja 76, exp. 24.
For a similar case in tbe village of Naranja, see Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt, 78-90.
60. Vecinos of Champan to PR, Nov. 27, 1921, AGN-DGG, B.2.71-279; Re­
port of B. Moreno, Mar. 26, 1921, AHPEM-A, caja 209, exp. 7.
61. SG to PM Morelia, June 26, 1920, AHMM, caja 57, exp. 1; La Lucha,
May 31, 1921.
62. Primo Tapia et al. to Múgica, Nov. 9, 1921, AHC-FJM, tomo VI, doc. 33.
63. Miguel A. Quintero to Múgica, May 30, 1921, AHC-FJM, tomo VI, doc.
130.
64. Detailed antecedents of che ejido's creacion can be found in Amparo of
María Ortíz Lazcano, Dec. 30, 1922; and in Report of Bruno Valdez, Dec. 3 r,
1922, AHPEM-A, caja 211, exp. 23. See also Report of J. Jesús Acero, Dec. 30,
1926, RAN, exp. Opopeo.
65. Report of Ricardo García, July 15, 1926, RAN, exp. Opopeo.
66. Report of José Murillo, Feb. 14, 1921, AGN-DGG, B.2.71-126; Report
of Produrador de Justicia, Mar. 15, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta, 12 / 3995.
67. Juan Domínguez to Encargado de la Delegación Agraria, Feb. 16, 1921,
RAN, exp. Opopeo.
68. Report of Procurador de Justicia, Mar. 15, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta,
I2 / 3995
69. Brief of Luis Ortiz Lazcano, Jan. 12, 1923, AHPEM-A, caja 221, exp. 22.
70. Butler.
71. Sánchez Pineda to SG, Jan. 26, 1923, AGN-DGG, C.2.71-391.
72. See the Appendix.
262 Notes to Pages Io4-8
73. Embriz, Liga, 122.
74. La Lucha, May 9, r92r. See also Macías, 404.
75. La Lucha, May 9, r92r.
76. Testimony of Petronilo Esquive! and Maximiliano López, AHC-FJM,
tomo IX, doc. 7; Martínez, Isaac Arriaga, r69. Conmmnists José Allen, Sebastián
Sanvicente, Frank Seaman, and Natasha Seaman took part in the takeover of the
Cathedral, according to Embriz, Liga, r22.
77. Testimony of Vicente Zavala, AHC-FJM, tomo VII, doc. 1; testimony of
Maximiliano López, AHC-FJM, tomo IX, doc. 7; La Lucha, May 20, 192r.
78. Testimony of Vicente Zavala, AHC-FJM, tomo VII, doc. r.
79. On the machine-gun rumor, see testimony of Valentín Arau jo, AHC-FJM,
tomo VII, doc. 1; on the teachers rumor, see La Lucha, May 15, 1921 (Extra).
80. The ACJM and the Padres de Familia club made the formal request for
the pilgrimage. See testimony of Anasracio Guzmán, AHC-FJM, tomo VII, doc.
r; and the text of his order published in La Lucha, May 18, 1921.
8r. Testimony of Vicente Zavala, AHC-FJM, tomo VII, doc. r. Zavala was
president of the Padres de Familia.
82. Testimony of Agustín Martínez Mier, AHC-FJM, tomo VII, doc. r.
83. Testimony of an unnamed storekeeper, AHC-FJM, tomo IX, exp. 7.
84. Both Múgica and his poi ice chief described the Catholic march as a rebel­
lion. See Múgica to Vito Alessio Robles, Mexico City, May 23, 1921, AHC-FJM,
doc. suelta, 12 / 3984; and a quotation of Vicente Coyt in SG to PM Zamora,
Jan. 3, r922, AMZ-J, 1922, exp. 7.
85. La Lucha, May r5, 1921 (Extra); SG to PM Zamora, Morelia, Jan. 3,
1922, AMZ-J, r922, exp. 7; and the testimony of witnesses in AHC-FJM, tomo
VII, doc. 1 and tomo IX, doc. 7.
86. This estimation is based on the number of dead in the socialist camp con­
tained in Múgica to Vito Alessio Robles, May 23, r92r, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta,
12 / 3984, and on the number given by the Catholic La Tribuna, as reported in
the socialist La Lucha, May 18,r92r.
87. Darío Pérez to Múgica, May 31, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta, 12 / 3898.
88. El Cruzado, July 19, 1921; and Actualidades, Dec. 18, 1921. For a de­
tailed account of the deterioration of relations between Múgica and Obregón, see
Sánchez Rodríguez, 2rr-29; and Fowler Salamini, "Revolurionary Caudillos."
89. See the exchange of telegrams between Obregón and Múgica, Nov. 8-12,
1921, AHC-FJM, tomo VII, docs. 83-85.
90. Actualidades, Dec. 18, 1321.
91. Múgica to SG, Feb. 23, 1992, AGN-DGG, C.2.51-31.; Hurtado, 97-98.
On landholdings by Guízar and orher rebels, see "Certificación del Tesorero Gen­
eral de Michoacán," AHC-FJM, anexo 9, doc. 317.
Notes to Pages Io8-I7 263
92. Mention is made of Guízar using his men to dislodge "lndians" granted
ejido plots on his haciendas in Sánchez Pineda to SG, Jan. 26, 1923, AGN-DGG,
C.2.7r-39r.
93. On priests fanning the religious frenzy of Guízar's "fanatical" followers,
see José D. Baez to Múgica, Feb. 15, 1922, AHC-FJM, anexo 9, doc. 246.
94. PM to SG, Feb. ro, r922; and testimony of Rafael Villaseñor Olivo, Juan
de Dios García, and José Maciel, AHPJM, Juzgado de Primera Instancia, Distrito
de Zinapécuaro.
9 5. El Cruzado, Feb. 26, 1922.
96. See, for example, Rodrigo Méndez to Múgica, Mar. 26, r922, AHC-FJM,
anexo 9, doc. 319; and Froylán Sandoval to Múgica, Apr. 4, 1922, AHC-FJM,
anexo 9, doc. 339.
97. Memorandum by Múgica, Feb. 20, 1922, AGN-DGG, C.2.51-31.
98. Gabino R. Alcaraz to Múgica, Feb. ro, 1922, AHPEM-GE, caja 5. See
also Alcaraz to Múgica, Feb. 17, 1922, AMPEM-GE, caja 5,
99. On home guards' wavering allegiance, see José D. Baez to Múgica, Feb.
15, 1922, AHC-FJM, anexo 9, doc. 246; and Procurador General de Justicia to
Juez de Primera Instancia, Feb. 22, 1922, AHPJM, Juzgado de Primera Instancia,
Distrito de Zinapécuaro.
roo. See various court documents, AHPEM-A, caja 212, exp. 14; and Fidel-
món López et al. to Múgica, Feb. 7, 1921, AHC-FJM, tomo VIII, doc. 4.
rnr. Baez to Múgica, Feb. 15, 1922, AHC-FJM, anexo 9, doc. 246.
102. Múgica, "Renuncia," Mar. 9, 1922, AHC, tomo X, doc. r.
ro3. Rodrigo Méndez to Múgica, Mar. 26, 1922, AHC-FJM, anexo 9, doc.
319; and Martínez, Primo Tapia, 61-64.
104. On Múgica's continuing contact with Chilchota, see Sánchez and
Guzmán; on Naranja, see Paul Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt, ro5-12; on Curimeo,
see Comunidad de Indígenas to Múgica, Mar. 5, 1923, AHC-FJM, anexo 3.1,
doc. 54.
105. Sánchez Rodríguez, 228-29.
106. Hobsbawm, "Introduction."
CHAPTER 4
r. Wolf, "Aspects." For ;:liscussions of subaltern cultural brokers, see Feier­
man; Lomnitz-Adler, Exits, 234-41; Mallon, 12-20, 28 5-309; and Wells and
Joseph, 233-47.
2. María y Campos, 189-206. See also see Llerenas and Tamayo, 73-78.
3. De la Huerta, "Manifiesto," Dec. 7, 1923.
4. On rebel governor Ponciano Pulido, see various documents in AGN-OC,
264 Notes to Pages r r7-2r
818-CH-17, leg. r. On the political fallout from che rebellion, see Friedrich,
Agrarian Revolt, 105-12; and Sánchez Rodríguez, 239-42.
5. On municipal governments, see Francisco Zepeda to Múgica, Mar. II,
1922, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta, 13 / 4347; and Jesús Romero Flores to Múgica,
Apr.2, 1922, AHC-FJM, doc.suelta, 14 / 4457. On Uruapan, see Report of PM
Interino, transcribed in Sánchez Pineda to Obregón, May 19, 1922, AGN-OC,
408-M-15.
6. Unsigned "Resúmen ...," [Mar. 1923?], FA-PEC, inv.5291; Verdades so­
bre México, xii-xiii.
7. José Sobreyra Ortiz to Múgica, Mar. 24, 1922, AHC-FJM, anexo 9, doc.
316; Froylán Sandoval to Múgica, Apr. 4, 1922, AHC-FJM, anexo 9, doc. 339.
On the attack on Tacámbaro, see Sobreyra to Múgica, Mar.28, 29, and 31, 1922,
AHC-FJM, anexo 9, docs.323, 324, and 32 5, respectively.
8. Unsigned "Resúmen .. . ," [Mar.1923?], APEC, inv.5291; Daniel Coyt to
Múgica, May 9, 1922, AHC-FJM, doc.suelta, 14 / 4540.Cf. Sánchez Pineda to
Obregón, May 13, 1922, AGN-OC, 408-M-15.
9. See various documents in AGN-OC, 818-CH-17, leg. r.
ro. Primo Tapia to Múgica, Aug. 15, 1922, AHC-FJM, doc.suelta, 4 / 4608;
Martínez, Primo Tapia, 121.
1 I. Juan Domínguez to Secretaría de Guerra y Marina, Dec. 11, 1922; and
Sánchez Pineda to SG, Sept. 19, 1922, and Dec. 25, 1922; ali in AGN-DGG,
C.2.71-88.
12. Valdovinos, 101-2; Cárdenas to Calles, Jan. 1, 1925, AGN-OC, 428-M-34.
13. Quoted in Krauze, 1u, and 107-18 generally.
14. See Valdovinos, 101-18; Enrique Ramírez to Calles, Jan. ro, 1925, AGN­
OC, 428-M-34; El Cuarto Poder, Mar. 8, 1925.
15. On Veracruz, see Falcón, El agrarismo; and Fowler Salamini, Agrarian
Radicalism. On San Luis Potosí, see Falcón, "Charisma." On Yucatán, see Fallaw;
and Joseph, Revolution. On Tamaulipas, see Alvarado.
16. El Baluarte, March 21, 1926. See also Sindicato de Campesinos de San
José Coapa, "Pliego de peticiones," November 24, 1928, AHMM, caja 91, exp.
32; and Sindicato de Campesios de la Hacienda del Calvario, "Pliego de peti­
ciones," May 3, 1929, AHMM, caja 95, exp.27.
17. On Tapia's Liga de Comunidades y Sindicatos Agraristas de la Región Mi­
choacana, José de la Cruz, interview by author, Zurumútaro, Mar. 5, 199 5; and
Maldonado, 36-40.
18. Galván et al. to SG, December 16, 1926, AGN-DGG, 2.384.r.1 (13)-5;
Carr, Marxism, 32-3 5.
19. Joseph, Revolution, II 5-21.
20. Raby, "Los principios"; and Rodríguez.
Notes to Pages rzz-29 265
21. See Friedrich, Princes, 17-20, 36-40; and Lomnitz-Adler "Provincial
Intellectuals."
22. Juan Olivos et al. to PM Morelia, Apr. 12, 1923, AHMM, caja 86, exp.
6; and M. Sipriano et al. to Manuel Fulcheri y Pietra Santa, Ichán, [July 1929?],
ACZ, exp. Taretan VII-1929-V-1936. Rural Michoacanos today continue to
draw a close link between respeto and leadership ability: Jesús Negrete, interview
by author, Atacheo, Mar.21, 199 5.
23. Telésforo Gómez to Fulcheri, May 12-17, 1931, ACZ, exp.Taretan Vll-
1929-V-1936.
24. María Guadalupe Chávez M. to PM Zamora, Feb. ro, 1930, AMZ-IP,
1930, exp. 10.
25. PM Zamora to Ministr o Público, [Oct.1924?], AMZ-G, 1924, exp. 33.
26. Murillo; Tapia Santamaría, Campo religioso.
27. Friedrich, Princes, 135-38.
28. Report of Agustín Altamirano, Dec . 22, 1928, AHPEM0A, caja 267, exp.24.
29. See, for example, Beals, Cherán, 109-11.
30. Guardino, 85-94; Thomson, Patriotism, 241-60.
31. Falcón, "Force."
32. On Naranja, see Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt, 91-92. On Guanoro, see
Juan Avilés, "Acta," Oct. 30, 1929, AMZit, Apéndice 1929, leg. I.
33. Alcántara's name appears along with those of other local peasant leaders
in an anonymous letter to Múgica dated in Ocampo, July 3, 1922, AHC-FJM,
tomo X, doc. 10.
34. Partido Agrarista Revolucionario "Benito Juárez" to Portes Gil, Oct.15,
1928, AGN-EPG, exp.8 / 105, doc.580; Report of Valdespino, Aug. 7, 1933,
AHSEP, caja 7221, exp. 32; and Martín García, et al. to Abelardo Rodríguez,
Sept. 25, 1933, AGN-AR, 552.14 / 200.
3 5. See "Libro de identificación y hoja de servicios de los Socios de la Junta
Patriótica Liberal 'Benito Juárez' de la H. Zitácuaro, Mich.," manuscript, Feb.
1930, Papers of che Junta Liberal "Beníto Juárez"; Firmeza, June 6 and 13, 1928,
and El Baluarte, issues between Feb.and June 1926.
36. Feierman, 123.
37. Report of Agustín Altamirano, December 22, 1928, AHPEM-A, caja 267,
exp.24; and "Indígenas de Nahuatzen" [sic] to Benigno Serrato, November 20,
1933, AGN-AR 524 / 437·
38. Purnell, "Politics of Identity," 331-35.
39. Ramón O. Cuevas to Procuraduría de Pueblos, .July 2, 1923, AMZ-PG,
1929, exp. 6. For a similar case in Panindícuaro, see Report of CLA, Jan 28,
1922, AHPEM-A, caja, 217 exp.3. On push and pul! factors during this period,
see Cardoso, Mexican Migration.
266 Notes to Pages r29-33
40. Mendoza, 29.
41. Friedrich, Agrarian Reuolt, 58-70.
42. Ochoa, Repertorio, 373. On Zavala, see Chapter 3.
43. Sotelo, 29-35. Sotelo's son traced his father's unquiet spirit back to his so­
journ in the United States. Adonaí Sotelo Quesada, interview by author, Ario
Santa Mónica, Sept. 21, 1994.
44. See commentaries in REDZ, Oct. 1920, 200-203 and Oct. 1925, 403;
and El Clarinete, Mar.24, 1920.
45. On Regalado, see Ochoa, Agraristas, 94-96. On López Leco,Jesús Cam­
puano, interview by author, Cherán, Apr. 19, 1995. On Prado, Elvino Prado, in­
terview by author, Tanaquillo, Mar. 25, 1995, and Chapter 6 below. On Cruz, see
biographical details in Embriz and León, 37; on Talavera,José de la Cruz, inter­
view by author, Zurumútaro, May 22, 1995.
46. De la Cruz, interview.
47. J. Trinidad Coronel Sosa, interview by author, Coatepec de Morelos,
Mar.9, 1995.
48. Amparo of María del Refugio García, May 1, 1922, AHPEM-A, caja 219,
exp. 20; La LuchaJune 25, 1921.
49. Reyes García, Política educativa, 32-40. ·
50. On 1923 and 1925, see tables A.2 and A.3 in Vaughan, The State, 278-
79. On 1924, see "Estadística Mensual," AHSEP, caja 3149, exp. 8. On 1926, see
"Relación," Jan. 18, 1926, AHSEP, caja 4665, exp.6.
51. "Estadística Mensual," AHSEP, caja 3149, exp. 8; and Vaughan, The
State, 278-79. Ir is likely that the total percentage of children attending some type
of governrnent school was somewhat higher, since this report does not appear to
factor in attendance ar schools run by the Michoacán state government.
52. See, for example, PM Zamora to Ramírez, Feb. 17, 1926, AMZ-IP, 1926,
exp. 3, doc. 23; Salvador Sotelo, "Monografía," 3-4 in Papers of Salvador Sotelo.
53. J. Alcazar Robledo toJefe del Departamento de Educación Rural, Pará­
cuaro,July 26, 1929, AHSEP, caja 7208, exp. 10.
54. Raby, Educación.
55. J. Guadalupe Nájera, "Decálogo del Maestro Rural," June 1926, Papers
of Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal. Emphasis in original deleted.
56. In addition to the discussion of revolutionary discourse in Chapter 5, see
Repon of Ocampo N. Bolaños, Mar. 1, 1925, AHSEP, caja 7264, exp. I.
57. See various documents in AHSEP, cajas 2700 and 1708.
58. Sáenz, 20.
59. For example, the following politicians began their careers as teachers and/
or school inspectors: J. Guadalupe Bolaños, Joaquín Calvante, Rafael Cano, Al­
berto Coria, Celso Flores Zamora, Jesús Múgica Manínez, Elías Miranda,
Notes to Pages 134-36 267
J. Guadalupe Nájera, Anselmo Palomino, Félix C. Ramirez, and Jesús Romero
Flores.
60. Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal, "Memorial," Jan. 7, 1924, Papers of
Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal; La Voz de Michoacán, Aug.16, 1989. Cf. Mar­
jorie Becker's unflattering portrayal of her in Virgin, 53-54. For Rodríguez's or­
ganizational activities, see her repon ofJune 15, 1925, AHSEP, caja 7264, exp. 1;
and her memorandum dated Mar. 21, 1933, in Papers of Evangelina Rodríguez
Carbajal. Examples of her speechmaking activities are contained in her report of
Sept. 30, 1924, AHSEP, caja 7264, exp.3; and "Acta," Cofradía, Feb. 18, 1927,
AHSEP, caja 7221, exp. 8.
61. Lemus, "Autobiografía," 39.
62. See Melchor Ortega to SEP,June 20, 1925, AHSEP, caja 747, exp. 49; Re­
pon of J. Guadalupe Nájera, Mar. 18, 1925, AHSEP, caja 7264, exp. I. David
Raby notes that, on national average, rural teachers were often more ideologically
conunitted to radicalism chan cheir urban counterparts; see "Los principios."
63. Joaquín L. Calvante, "Memorial dirigido a la Delegación ele Educación
Pública Federal de Michoacán, por el Director de la Escuela Elemental de
Aquila ... , Apr. 2, 1923, AHSEP, caja 673, exp. 96.
64. Sotelo, Historia, 40; Adonaí Sotelo Quesada, interview by author, Ario
Santa Mónica, Sept. 21, 1994.See also Boyer, "Revolución."
65. For complaints about religious training in public schools, see PM Zamora
to Director General ele Educación Primaria, Apr. 8, 1925, AMZ-IP, 1925, exp. 1,
doc. 85; Ignacio G. López to PM Zamora, Nov. 25, 1927, AMZ-IP, 1927, exp. 4.
For teachers' clandestine contacts with the church, see Pbro. Antonio Rojas to
Fulcheri, Dec. II, 1930, ACZ, exp. Jiquilpan 29-30; Enrique Amezcua to Sal­
vador Martínez Silva, July 19, 1930, ACZ, exp. Parangaricutiro 29-32.
66. Gladium, Sept. 12, 1926, 2.
67. Report ofJonás García, Oct. 20, 1923, AHSEP, caja 3138, exp. 4.
68. Repon of Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal, Apr. 26, 1925, AHSEP, caja
7264, exp. 1; Eligio Vallarta to SEP, Mar.24, 1924, AHSEP, caja 847, exp. 58;
Repon of María del Cármen Zavala, Apr. 21, 1923, AHMM, caja 86, exp. 30.
69. Sáenz, 28.
70. Report of Zacarías Portugal, Nov. 20, 1932, AHSEP, caja 7227, exp.6.
For another instance in a similar vein in Tzintzuntzan a decade earlier, see Jesús
Milanez to DEFM, Aug. 26 1922, AHSEP, caja 747, exp. 50; and Reyes, 79-81.
For other problems tbac teachers encountered, see Report of C. Navarrete, Feb.
10, 1920, AMZ-IP, 1920, exp. n; and La República,June 29, 1920.
71. Vecinos de San Miguel del Monte to PM Morelia,Jan.6, 1931, AHMM,
caja IIO, exp. 7; J. Trinidad Coronel Sosa, interview by author, Coatepec de
Morelos, Mar.9, 199 5.
268 Notes to Pages 137-41
72. María del Refugio García to DECI, Dec. 6, 1920, AHSEP, caja 747, exp. 49.
73. Quoted in Report of J. Guadalupe Nájera, Sept. 1, 1926, AHSEP, caja
7212, exp. 29. Other examples of villagers' enthusiasm for public education are
reported in Aporo, Paracho, and Ranchería Silva.
74. On the availability of paper, Rafaela Pichardo, interview by author,
Chichirnequillas, Mar. 5, 1995. One exception (though probably not the only one)
was the activist priest of Atacheo, Rafael Galván, who advised Miguel Regalado
in his quest to win an ejido there. See Tapia Santamaría, Campo religioso, 188-91.
75. La Lucha, June 25, 1921, credited María del Refugio García with estab-
lishing three ejidos around Zitácuaro.
76. Report of J. Lamberto Moreno, Apr. 27, 1932, AHSEP, caja 7229, exp. 2.
77. Report of Antonio Gaitán, Oct. 9, 1924, AHSEP, caja 845, exp. 7.
78. Report of Reinaldo Valdespino, Aug. 7, 1933, AHSEP, caja 7221, exp. 32.
79. Poster, "Los vecinos de la Ranchería Laguna Verde, unidos al C. Prof.
José A. Montero . .. ," May 15, 1925; and Report of Evangelina Rodríguez Car­
bajal, June 15, 1925; both in AHSEP, caja 7264, exp. 1. José Moreno, the teacher
who led the effort to establish the school in Laguna Verde later served as school­
teacher and advisor to other agrarista caciques-in-the-making, members of the
Gochi clan in Naranja. See Ezequiel Cruz et al. to Ortiz Rubio, Aug. 24, 1930,
AGN-POR, (1930) 18 / 10337.
80. "Hoja de servicios de Ernesto Prado," Sept. 3, 1954, in Papers of Ernesto
Prado; Ochoa, Agraristas, 97; and Ochoa, "Revolución" 2:463-88.
Sr. J. Jesús Álvarez Herrera and Josefa Herrera de Álvarez to de la Huerta,
June II, 1920, AGN-DGG, A.2.71-21. See Jesús Álvarez to SG, Sept. 5, 1922,
AGN-DGG, C.2. 71-39 5.
82. Elíseo Ortiz to Jesús Moreno, Oct. 27, 1923, ACZ, exp. Cartas desde el
15 de julio de 1923. The gente de razón tag dated from the colonial period when
Europeans used it to distinguish themselves from the indigenous (and increasingly
mestizo) masses.
83. Ochoa, Violencia.
84. Confederación Nacional Agraria to Fulcheri, Sept. 26, 1923,_ ACZ, exp.
Cartas desde el 15 de julio de 1923; El Cruzado, July IO and 17, 1921; and José
Mendoza, interview by author, Chilchota, Mar. 25, 1995.
85. Herrera and Herrera de Álvarez to de la Huerta, June II, 1920, AGN­
DGG, A.2.71-21.
86. Vicente Sámano, "Declaración," Jan. 5, 1921, AMZ-J, 1921, exp. 3.
87. Elíseo Ortiz to Jesús Moreno, Oct. 27, 1923, ACZ, exp. Cartas desde el
15 de julio de 1923.
88. Amparo of Francisco Escobar y Chávez, Mar. 12, 1922, AHPEM-A, caja
212, exp. 2; Daniel Coyt to Múgica, Apr. II, 1922, AHC-FJM, doc. suelta, 14 /
4419; and Fidencio R. to PR, Apr. 28, 1922, AGN-DGG, C.2.71-88.
Notes to Pages 141-46 269
89. Agustín Méndez Macías and Octavio Magaña to Ernesto Prado, May 15,
1924, AMZ-G, 1924, exp. 16.
90. For issues of horses and arms, see Cárdenas to PM, Dec. 22, 1928, AMZ­
PG, 1928, exp. 4; and José Mendoza, interview by author, Chilchota, March 25,
1995. For military actions, see also Octavio Magaña to SG, May 6, 1925, AGN­
DGG, F.2.80-40; and Elvino Prado, interview by author, Tanaquillo, Mar. 25, 1995.
91. Sáenz, 13.
92. La mayoría de los vecinos . . . de Ichán to Portes Gil, Jan. 5, 1932, AGN­
DGG, 2.340 (13)-5r; Concepción Silva et al. to SG, May 16, 1930, AGN-DGG,
2.340 (13)-52; "De rodillas y con lágrimas en los ojos . . . ," June 28, 1931, ACZ,
exp. Charapan.
93. Salvador Sotelo, "Biografía Histórica," Papers of Salvador Sotelo; Andrea
Molina et al. to SG, June 6, 1931, AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-52; Amparo of Veci­
nos de la Tenencia de San Bartolomé Urén, [1931?], AMZ-J, 1931, exp. IO.
94. Sáenz, 164.
9 5. José Mendoza, interview by author, Chilchota, Mar. 25, 199 5.
96. For dress and dance, see Novo, 5 5-62. For the procession, Mons. Fran-
cisco Valencia Ayala, interview by author, Jacona, May 4, 1995.
97. Sáenz, 165.
98. Friedrich, "Revolutionary Politics," 209.
99. Quoted in ibid., 2rn.
rno. La mayoría de los vecinos de . .. Ichán to Portes Gil, Jan. 5, 1932,
AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-51.
rnr. Abrahám Gerónirno to GEM, Dec. 28, 1932, AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-51.
102. Becker, Virgin, 152.
rn3. Alberto Prado et al. to PR, Mar. 14, 1925, AGN-DGG, F.2.80-40; Se­
ferino Gallardo et al. to PM de Chilchota, Dec. 27, 1932, AGN-DGG, 2.311.M
(13)-50. See also "Carta Abierta a los ciudadanos Daniel Álvarez, Leopoldo
Velázquez y Socios de Chilchota, Mich.," Oct. 31, 1933, AGN-AR, 542.7 / 36.
rn4. Novo, 49; Sáenz, 6.
105. Joaquín G. Castellanos to Adalberto Tejada, July II, 1927, AGN-DGG,
2.317.4 (13)-4. For similar examples of agrarista leaders claiming to represent the
en tire pueblo, see Los suscritos por sí en representación de los vecinos del pueblo
de Huiramba to PR, July 12, 1923, AGN-DGG, D.2.71-547; and Juan Rodríguez
Martínez to Partido Nacional Agrarista, [Aug. 1925?], AGN-DGG, F.2.81-129.
106. Sotelo, Historia, 51. See also Joaquín L. Calvante, "Memorial," Apr.2,
1923, AHSEP, caja 673, exp. 96.
rn7. Pedro Rosales to Aureliano Esquivel, Apr. 22, 1923, AHSEP, caja 3138,
exp. 4.
rn8. See, for example, Gledhill.
rn9. Vecinos de la manzana el Aguacate to DECI, Jan. 30, 1925, AHSEP, caja
270 Notes to Pages r46-JI
845, exp. 1; more broadly, see rile minutes of the conventions to establish politi­
cal parties in AGN-DGG, 2.312 series. Still, village leaders sometimes fooled res­
idents into signing petitions by claiming that signatures were needed on census
forms or on correspondence with the ecclesiastical see: "Acta," in Rancho Gua­
noro, Oct. 30, 1929, AMZit, apéndice 1929, leg. 1; and Friedrich, Agrarian Re­
volt, u 3-15.
uo. Juan Torres and Ocampo N. Bolaños; poster, "Programa de la inaugu­
ración de la escuela rural 'Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla,"' Oct. 1924, AHSEP, caja
847, exp. 2; "Acta levantada en Ziracuaretiro . . . ," Mar. 1, 1925, AHSEP, caja
7264, exp r.
III. Juan Cruz de la Cruz et al. to Alfredo Elizondo, Aug. 17, 1915, AH­
PEM-A, caja 216, exp. 14.
II2. Cruz de la Cruz et al. to Presidente de la Junta Agraria y de Reclama­
ciones, Oct. 9, 1915, quoted in Embriz and León, 37-38.
II3. Cruz may well have known that Governor Elizondo himself had partic­
ipated in the battles against Pancho Villa in Celaya.
114. Jesús Gutiérrez et al. to Obregón, July 1922, quoted in Embriz and
León, 45-47.
II5. J. Carmen Alvarado to Calles, May 31, 1925, AGN-DGG, F.2.81-72.
II6. Rafael Hernández et al. to PM Zamora, July 7, 1927, AMZ-J, 1927,
exp. 4. Emphasis in original deleted.
II7. María del Refugio García to Múgica, Aug. 25, 1921, AHC-FJM, doc.
suelta, 13 / 4145.
II8. See Poster, "La Escuela Rural: preparación del Indio y Campesino hacia
el Progreso," May 1929, AHSEP, caja 7212, exp. 26; Evangelina Rodríguez to
Cárdenas, Oct. 26, 1929, Papers of Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal; or Report of
J. Lamberto Moreno, Apr. 24, 1931, AHSEP, caja 7259, exp. 9.
II9. Cited in Palacios, Pluma, 62, and see 61-62, and 103-9 generally; and
Vaughan, Cultural Politics, 25-46. On Cárdenas in Michoacán, see Chapter 6.
120. Reporc of Isabel Rodríguez Vásquez, Aug. ro, 1931, AHSEP, caja 7199,
exp. I.
121. J. Lamberto Moreno to Celerino Cano, June 19, 1932, AHSEP, caja
7199 exp. I.
122. Anonymous letter to Procuraduría de Pueblos de Michoacán, Aug. 23,
1925, AHMM, caja 64, exp. 18; Comité Agrario y Vecinos to PR, Jan. 7, 1927,
AGN-DGG, 2.380 (13)-1.
123. Confederación de Comunidades Agrarias to the Court, Sept. 23, 1925,
AHPEM, caja 224, exp. 2.
124. Poster, "Enérgica y viril protesta que formulan las Counidades Agraristas
de la Municipalidad de Chilchota . . . ," March 14, 1925, AGN-DGG, F.2.80-40.
Notes to Pages 151-58 271
125. Alberto Prado et al. to PR, March 14, 1925, AGN-DGG, F.2.80-40. Em­
phasis in original. Although people often signed petitions without knowing what
they said, it is likely that in this case the petition or something like it was read to
the assembled agraristas.
126. Liga de Comunidades y Sindicatos Agraristas to CNA, Feb. 7, 1923,
AGN-DGG, C.2.71-88.
127. Juan Rodríguez Martínez to Partido Nacional Agrarista, [Aug. 1925?),
AGN-DGG, F.2.81-129.
128. Severo Espinosa and Félix Espinosa to SG, Sept. 14, 1923, AGN-DGG,
D.2.71-773.
129. Juan Ramírez to Consejo de Educación Federal y del Estado, June 19,
1922, AHMM, caja 71, exp. 30; "Varios vecinos de Ucareo" to SG, Sept._ 15,
1922, AGN-DGG, C.2.84-59; Vecinos de San Pedro Caro to CNA, Sept. 26,
1924, AGN-DGG, E.2.72-65.
130. See also Boyer, "Old Laves."
CHAPTER 5
r. T his estima te is based on J. Meyer, 3 :260-64; and on a discussion in Chi­
cago with Paul Friedrich, Sept. 9, 1997.
2. Ruiz y Flores, 8 5. Anacleto Flores was the leader of a social Catholic orga­
nization in Jalisco, the Unión Popular.
3. Olivera, 153.
4. Report of Comandante de la Brigada Anacleto González Flores, Oct. 23,
1927, MPV, caja 59, exp. 479.
5. Purnell, "Politics of Identity," 529. See also Reconquista, Aug.-Sept. 1930;
and Jean Meyer, 1:190-91.
6. See Purnell, Popular Movements, 18. As Jennie Purnell notes, this is not to
say that the Cristiada was "really about land," but rather that "peasants under­
stood land, religious practice, and local political authority to be intertwined in
ways that depended upon their own local histories." See also Jrade.
7. See, for example, the complaints of Zurumútaro-area rancheros described
in Chapter 2 as well as González y González, P ueblo en vilo, 178.
8. See, for example, the conflict between Chichimequillas and Coatepec de
Morelos described in Chapter 3.
9. For example, Balibar; Hobsbawm, Nationalism. My understanding of na­
tionalism, following Chatterjee, esp. chapters 3 and 4, diverges from models that
assume nationhood must be based on secular, Enlightenment ideals.
10. REDZ, Aug. 1925, 304. On sacred rights, see especially Bishop Othón
Núnez, "Instrucción Pastoral," REDZ, Nov. 1921, 17-28. See also preprinted
 272 Notes to Pages r59-6r
statutes to be used when incorporating Catholic unions printed by che archdiocese,
an example of which can be found in AGN-DT, caja 671, exp. 7. On che need to
"harmonize" these righcs or intereses, see in addition "Pastoral Colectiva," REDZ,
Nov. 1920, 7-8; and comments of Catholic gubernatorial candidate Márquez de
la Mora in che aptly named Unión, June 22, 1920. On che influence of che Rerum
novarum, see "La Huelga Según los Principios de la Moral," BEAM, Jan. 15,
1923, 14-17; Othón y Núñez, "Instrucción Pastoral," REDZ, Nov. 1921, 17-28;
and che verbatim publication of sections of che Rerum novarum in REDZ, Mar.,
Apr., and May 1922; see also Ceballos, "Rerum novarum"; and Jean Meyer, 2:46-
47, 2:219.
rr. Ceballos, Catolicismo.
12. Untitled document from che congress of bishops and archbishops in Mex­
ico City, published in REDZ, Nov. 1920, 7-8. According to che Revista, Bishop
Othón ordered che document read in ics entirety throughout che state during cel­
ebracion of Mass.
13. El Cruzado, July 31, 1921.
14. See Knight, "Popular Culture."
15. See, for example, Van Young, which discusses che deeply spiritual side of
che peasant wars for Mexican independence.
16. Leopoldo Lara y Torres, "Discurso sobre la reconscruccíon de la Patria,"
Oct. 30, 1922, MPV, caja 20, exp. 142.
17. See, for example, La Republicana, June 30, 1920.
18. Episcopado Mexicano, "Pastoral Colectiva," REDZ, Nov. 1923, 212. See
also See Becker, Virgin, 27-31, on che manner in which hegemonic Catholic views
of che family depended on asymmetries of power between men and women.
19. Lara y Torres, "Exhortación," advised priests to respond to government
repression with "che propaganda of printed flyers, whose diffusion should be
maximized." He encouraged "family members to read [che flyers] and then pass
them on to other people who should do the same." See BEAM, Oct . 1926, 342.
20. "Edicto Cuaresmal," BEAM, Jan. 1925, 12.
21. Partido Electoral Independiente, "Acta de Constitución," Oct, 17, 1921,
AMZ-G, 1921, exp. 43. For a similar linkage between improvement of people's
moral and material lives wich che creation of Catholic nationhood, see Bishop
José Othón y Núñez, "Instrucción Pastoral," REDZ, Nov. 1921, 17-28.
22. J. Guadalupe Nájera to Jefe del Departamento, June 9, 1925, AHSEP, caja
4655, exp. 11. According to chis source, che religious schools were che Instituto
Colón,_Liceo Iturbide, Seminario, Colegio Salesiano, Colegio Teresiano, Colegio
Guadalpano, Colegio de San Juan, Escuela Preparatoria Libre, Escuela Primaria
anexa a la Escuela Preparatoria Libre, and two others.
23. CienciayLetras,Jan. 31, 1928.
Notes to Pages 162-64 273
24. Lara y Torres, "Discurso sobre la reconstrucción de la Patria."
25. Oraciones,§ "En el Colegio," 18; Repon of Antonio Gracián, Apr. 23,
1922, ACZ, exp. Informes de los Vicarios Foráneos.
26. On che Catholic schools, see Ciencia yLetras, Nov. 30, 1927; Report of
1/
Daniel Galván, Jan. 26, 1920, ACZ, exp. Informes de los Vicarios Foráneos; Rafael
Ordorica, "Memorial Administrativa," Aug. 26, 1929, AMZ-G, 1928, exp. 28.
\
The major rounds of Catholic school closures occurred under Múgica in 1921 and
in the months preceding che Cristiada. See, for example, Amparo of Güilebaldo
Murillo, Feb. 25, 1926, AHPEM-A, caja 259, exp. 8; and Amparo of Ramón Equi­
hua and Francisco Barbosa, Sept. 3, 1925, AHPEM-A, caja 238, exp. 5.
27. Letter from Pbro. Antonio Gracián, July 1925, published in REDZ, Oct.
1925, 403. On che church's stance on emigration, see Carta pastoral, 2-8.
28. Méndez Medina, rr8.
29. See che discussion of a presentation by R. P. Arnulfo Castro in Zamora in
1921 ancl che report of che Congreso Nacional Obrero, both in REDZ, May
1921, 242-44, 343, and June 1922, 343-64.
30. Untitled document signed by José García, Feb. 19, 1921, AHPEM-A, caja
200, exp. 6.
31. El Cru zado, Jan. 15, 1923. For a superb discussion of che mutually sup­
portive advocacy of privare propei:ty righcs by che church ancl landowners, see
Becker, Virgin, 10-26.
32. La Voz del Pueblo, June 6, 1926, r. (The Partido Popular was a Catholic
party with ties to economic elites.) For similar scances on land reform, see La Re­
publicana, June 22, 1920, 3; Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra, "El problema de la ti­
erra," REDZ, Oct. 1925, 400-402; and José González Romo to José Méndez,
Apr. rr, 1929, MPV, caja 59, exp. 484.
33. Quoted in La Republicana, July 1920. Emphasis in original.
34. Epifanio Padilla to Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra, Aug. rr, 1917; and
Leopoldo Lara y Torres to Palomar y Vizcarra, Mar. 5, 1923, both in MPV, caja
39, exp. 307. Eclmundo Contreras to Palomar y Vizcarra, May 22, 1924, MPV,
caja 39, exp. 308; according to chis letter, cajas rurales were located in Angama­
cutiro, Coeneo, Huandacareo, Morelia, Panindícuaro, Pénjamo, Presa de Her­
rera, Purépero, Puruándiro, San Bartolo, Tanahuato, Villa Jiménez, Zacapu, and
Zinapécuaro. For che bishops' interese in che cajas, see Espinosa; and Article 15
of che statutes approvecl by che 1922 Congreso Nacional Obrero in Guadalajara,
as published in REDZ, June 1922, 343-64.
35. Lara y Torres to Palomar y Vizcarra, Aug. 28, 1923, MPV, caja 39, exp.
307. See also the letter by Palomar y Vizcarra in REDZ, 0cc. 1925, 400 -402.
36. Quoted in Eligio P. Cartagena, "Mons. Leopolclo Lara y Torres Obispo de
Tacámbaro," Dec. 1939, MPV, caja 24, exp. 177 (emphasis in original deleted). A
274 Notes to Pages r65-70
letter from Antonio Gracián dated July 1925 and published in the REDZ, Oct.
1925, speaks of the "thousand difficulties" that rural people themselves threw up
to the caja rural there. See also correspondence in MPV, caja 39.
37. Othón y Núñez, quoted in Memoria de la Segunda Gran Dieta, rn; see
also "Del Congreso Nacional," REDZ, June 1922, 345, and 343-54 generally.
38. See, for example, the mission statement of the "Unión Profesional de Em­
pleados de Uruapan," June 8, 1923, AGN-DT, caja 671, exp. 7. For a discussion
of the misión social in Uruapan, see REDZ, July 1923, 45-47.
39. For a detailed discussion of statutes of the Catholic unions in the Zamora
diocese, see Sánchez Rodríguez, 71-76.
40. Repon of Alfonso Rodríguez, May 6, 1922, ACZ, Informes; and Jesús
Gutiérrez, interview by author, Angangueo, Feb. 22, 1995; Agente del Ministerio
Público to Procurador General de la República, Jan. 29, 1923, AGN-DGG,
D.2.51-20.
41. Deister, 20-23; and descriptions of a "literary-rnusical salon," found in
La República, June 30, 1920.
42. REDZ, July 1923, 45-47; El Cruzado, July rn, 1921.
43. Múgica to Adolfo de la Huerta, Oct. 12, 1920, AHPEM-R, caja 2, exp. 2.
44. For a Catholic union that did generare enthusiasm (although it was dis-
guised as an anarchist union), see Boyer, "Threads of Class."
45. El Cruzado, Jan. 15, 1923.
46. J. Meyer, 2:123-28, 2:143-66.
47. For overviews, see Bailey; Jean Meyer, 2:50-54; and Olivera, 121-22.
48. Lara y Torres, "Discurso Pronunciado," 44.
49. Modesta Aguilar, interview by author, San Juan Nuevo, Apr. 3, 1995;
Amparo of Isidoro Correa, Oct. 21, 1925; and transcribed testimony of Manuel
Villegas, AHPEM-A, caja 227, exp. 12.
50. "Reglemantación de toques de campanas"; and PM Zamora to Sidronio
Sánchez Pineda, Sept. 2, 1924; both in AMZ-G, 1924, exp. 33.
51. PM Ciudad Hidalgo to SG, June 15, 1925, AGN-DGG, F.2.50-7 (13).
52. Amparo of Isidoro Correa (and see the testimony of Manuel Villegas,
from whence carne the quotations), Oct. 31, 1925, AHPEM-A, caja 227, exp. 12.
53. Amparo of Mariano Calvez, June rn, 1925, AHPEM-A, caja 232, exp. 8.
54. J. López and A. Uribe to SG, June 29, 1925, AGN-DGG, F.2.50-7 (13).
55. José C. Ávalos to GEM, Apr. 14, 1926, AHPEM-R, caja 2, exp. 4.
56. Cándido Gómez to PR, Mar. 24, 1926, AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-9.
57. "Instrucción a los sacerdotes de la Arquidiócesis de Michoacán," REDZ,
Apr. 1926, 99.
58. Ruiz y Flores, 83; El Universal, Apr. 30, 1926.
59. PM Zitácuaro to SG, Apr. 30, 1926, AHPEM-R, caja 2, exp. 4; PM to
Notes to Pages r7r-77 275
SG, May 4, 1926, AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-8; El Universal, Apr. 29 and 30, 1926,
and May 3, 1926.
60. Boyer, "Old Loves," 419, 449. See also Francisco Guardián to Enrique
Ramírez, Jan. 15, 1928, AHPEM-R, caja 2, exp. 12.
61. Interview with Francisco Valencia Ayala, Jacona, March 22, 1995; figures
on the number of agraristas are from El Universal Gráfico, Jan. 18, 1927.
62. Poster, '"La Liga de Defensa Revolucionaria de Michoacán' al Estado y a
la República!" signed Daniel Ramírez D. et al., Sept. 1926, AGN-DGG, 2.340
(13)-4.
63. Ibid.
64. José González N. to GEM, Apr. 22, 1926, AHPEM-R, caja 2, exp. 4; Jean
Meyer, 3:5r.
65. Severino Terrazas to Arturo A. Aragón, Dec. 2, 1926, AGN-D. GG,
2.384.1 (13)-4.
66. Army units forcibly disarmed agrarista home guards as late as Feb. 1925.
See Agraristas de Sahuayo, "Memorial," Feb. rn, 1925, AGN-DGG, 2.386 (13)-r.
67. José Guízar O et al. to Obispo de Zamora, Mar. 8, 1926, ACZ, Cartas 16
noviembre 1925 a 8 abril 1926.
68. Moreno, Cotija, 205-9.
69. Repon of Gustavo Corona, [Mar. 1928?], AMZ-PG, 1928, exp. 2.
70. Report of Luis Guízar Morfín, [Nov. 1927?], MPV, caja 59, exp. 479.
Guízar alleged that he lost four men in the artack and the government, twenty-two.
71. Degollado was a native of Cotija who plied his trade as a pharmacist in
the Jalisco highland. See Purnell, "Politics of Identity," 241-42.
72. González y González, P ueblo en vilo, 186; Bernardo González Cárdenas,
"Diario manuscrito, 1927-1929," reproduced in ibid., 189, and 184-205 generally.
73. Jesús Campuano, interview by author, Cherán, May 19, 1995.
74. Modesta Aguilar, interview by author, San Juan Parangaricutiro, Apr. 3, '1
1995; Purnell, Popular Movements, 134-49; Moheno, 135-48.
75. Testimonio del jefe de la defensa civil de Nocupétaro, Aug. 1, 1928, AH­
PEM-A, caja 266, exp. 11.
76. On collaboration during the de la Huerta revolt, see SG Michoacán to SG
Mexico City, Feb. 25, 1924, AGN-DGG, D.2.59.1, Tomo III. On the Cristiada,
see Juan de Dios Avellaneda to PR, Dec. 26, 1928, AGN-EPG, ext. 2066.
77. Rafael Ordorica, "Informe Confidencial," May 4, 1929, AMZ-G, 1929,
exp. 2
78. [bid.; and Amparo of Rafael Ruíz, Jan. JI, 1921, AHPEM-A, caja 209,
exp. 19. On Aguilar, see Ochoa, Repertorio, 47. On the Masons, see Centro Rev­
olucionario de Principios, "Acta," Feb. rn, 1932, AGN-POR, 1932, 180 / rn56.
79. See various documents in AGN-DGG, 2.38r.1 (13)-1 and 2.381.1 (13)-2.

276 Notes to Pages 177-85
80. PM Tangancícuaro to PM Zamora, Aug. r, 1927, AMZ-PG, 1927, exp. r.
8r. J. Trinidad Coronel Sosa, interview by author, Coatepec de Morelos, Mar.
9, 1995.
82. José de la Cruz, interview by author, Zurumútaro, May 22, 1995.
83. See documentation on army deserters in AMZ-PG, 1927, exp. 2; 1928,
exp. 3; and 1929, exp. 3.
84. Coronel Sosa, interview; Report of Severino Terrazas, Mar. 18, 1926, AH­
PEM-A, caja 252, exp. 15; and "Semblanzas Ejemplares: José Sánchez del Río,"
[1934?], MPV, caja 62, exp. 515.
85. See, for example, Macedonio Huanosta to Leobardo Parra y Marquina,
June 8, 1928, AHSEP, caja 7259, exp. r; and Berta Fuentes to DEFM, July 21,
1928, AHSEP, caja 7221, exp. II.
86. Report of Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal, June 17, 1929, AHSEP, caja
7212, exp. 26.
87. Report of Donacio E. Sánchez, Sept. 27, 1927, AHSEP, caja 7251, Exp. 24.
88. Quoted in Jean Meyer, 3:83.
89. "Circular 27 / 6," June 24, 1929, AMZ-PG, 1929, exp. 1; J. Trinidad
Aguirre Díaz et al. to SG, June 8, 1926, AGN-DGG, 2.380.1 (13)-9; de la Cruz,
interview.
90. Isidoro Olivera, interview by author, Casas Blancas, May 5, 1995.
91. R. Aguilar et al. to GEM, Dec. 2, 1930, AGN-DGG, 2.387.2 (13)-3.
92. Juan Bueno to PM, Mar. 9, 1929, AGN-EPG, exp. 2 / 951, doc. 4708.
93. See, for example, Macedonio Huanosta to Leobardo Parra y Marquina,
June 8, 1928, AHSEP, caja 7259, exp. r.
94. Vecinos de la Tenencia Jesús Huiramba to Liga de Comunidades y Sindi­
catos Agraristas of Michoacán, Apr. 12, 1928, AHMM, caja 81, exp. 54.
95. J. Guadalupe Sánchez and Juan Arroyo to PM, (July 25, 1926?], AGN-
DGG, 2.340 (13)-20.
96. Ruiz y Flores, 89-91.
97. Lorenzo Meyer et al., 67-83.
98. Cárdenas to PM Zamora, Jan. 30, 1929, AMZ-PG, 1929, exp. r. On
Cortez's physical state, see Jean Meyer, 1:258; for the quote, see n. 40. On
Cortez's subsequent position, de la Cruz, interview by author, Zurumútaro, May
22, 1995.
99. See, for example, Anguiano, 34-36.
roo. For a detailed study of the modus vivendi, see Reich, 17-34.
ror. There were eighty-eight priests attached to the archdioceses of Moreüa;
forty-three, to the bishopric of Tacámbaro; and fifty-three, to the bishopric of
Zamora. See "Lista de los sacerdotes . . . ," [1929-30?], AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-33.
102. Pedro Peña to Emilio Portes Gil, Aug. 7, 1929, AGN-DGG, 2.380 (13)-rr.
--�·
11-
l:c
Notes to Pages 185-93 277
103. Ankerson, 129.
,�
' 104. Report of Comandante de la Brigada Anacleto González Flores, Oct. 23,
r927, MPV, caja 59, exp. 479; Reconquista, Aug.-Sept. r930; González Romo to
LNDLR, May 5, 1929, MPY, caja 59, exp. 484. Note that the rancheros of Coal­
comán had expanded their landholdings at the expense of the local indigenous
comrnunity, which had mostly disappeared by the end of the nineteenth century;
see Purnell, "Politics of Identity," 526-28.
ro5. Sánchez Díaz and Carreño, II3-r4.
ro6. Cárdenas to Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal, Aug. II, 1929, Papers of '
i
Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal.
ro7. Antonio E. Sancén to Portes Gil,July 12, r929, AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-38.
1
ro8. Sancén to SG, Feb. 25, r930, AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-39; and Sancén to
1
Portes Gil, [Nov. r, 1929?], AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-38.
·'!
109. Sancén to PR, Feb. 25, r930, AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-39.
¡
rro. Cárdenas to SG, Apr. 29, r930, AGN-DGG, 2.340 (13)-38.
III. Jean Meyer, 1:349-50. For more on the Cruz de Palo, see Guerra Manzo.
1
CHAPTER 6
r. La Razón, May 20, 1928.
2. Ibid.
3. Enriquejiménez to PR, Feb. 27, r931, AGN-DGG, 2.331.2 (13)-2;José de
la Cruz, interview by author, Zurumútaro, May 22, r995.
4. Ginzberg, Lázaro Cárdenas, 36-37.
11
5. On ejido fonnation, see Appendix. 11
6. Diego, 38-40; González, Los artifices, 225-26.
7. Unlike the Catholics, however, Cardenistas believed that such a urnon
should prosecute the class struggle, not harmonize the interests of labor and cap­
ital. For an example of Catholic labor thought in Michoacán, see the previous
chapter as well as "Instrucción Pastoral" by Bishop José Othón Núñez y Zárate,
1
published in REDZ, Nov. r92r, I7-28. On the relationship between organic sta­
tist ideologies such as Cárdenas's and Catholic thought, see Stepan, 3-45.
8. CRMDT, Estatutos Confedera/es, 38. The PNR was formed in a manner
similar to the confederation. lt accepted only one revolutionary party for mem­
bership from each municipality. The resulting frenzy to receive official recognition
followed a similar course to that of the confederation. On the PNR, see Córdova,
La Revolución, 280-85.
9. "Preambulo," read aloud at the first CRMDT Congress, Pátzcuaro, 1929,
in Múgica Martínez, 97.
ro. CRMDT, Estatutos Confedera/es, 40. Most if not all of these rules were
11:
278 Notes to Pages 193-97
in effect between 1929 and at least 1931, and probably until 1937, when the con­
federation disbanded.
II. !bid., 4.
12. See severa! letters between the mayor of Zamora and federal officials in
AMZ-PG, 1930, exp. 5.
13. On the politics of CROM in the Tlalpujahua area, see various documents
in AGN-DGG, 2.311.M (13)-15 and 2.311.M (13)-18. On Juárez, see AGN­
POR, (1930) 2 / 2629 (whence carne the quote); and Julián Cruz Martínez, inter­
view by author, Dos Estrellas, Feb. 23, 1995.
14. Agustín de la Torre and J. Trinidad Zavala to PM Morelia, May 28, 1929,
AHMM, caja 95, exp. 127. This union's approximately sixty members, organized
in the Sindicato de Electricistas Libres, managed to maintain their independence
from the confederation at least through 1931, apparently because they were the
most highly skilled electricians in the city. See various documents in AHMM, caja
95, exp. 127;caja 102, exp. 3;and caja 102, exp. 10.
15. CRMDT, "Circular," Apr. 25, 1929, AHMM, caja 95, exp. I.
16. Ibid.
17. CRMDT, "Circular," Sept. 13, 1929, AHMM, caja 95, exp. 38.
18. Anguiano, 35-36.
19. See, for example, Vecinos de la tenencia de San Angel to SG, Feb. 8, 1931,
AGN-DGG, 2.380 (13)-17; and José Molina to Secretario Particular, Nov. 6,
1931, AGN-POR, (1931) 5359-A. For statistics on the land reform, see Appendix.
20. La mayoría de los vecinos, "Memorial," Jan. 5, 1932, AGN-DGG, 2.340
(13)-51.
21. The final break did not come until 1939, when Múgica, acting as regional
military commander, disarmed Prado's home guard. See Marjorie Becker, Virgin,
142-52;Mendoza, 80-82. On the other hand, the Prados remained the preemi­
nent political and economic force in La Cañada until the 1970s, according to José
Mendoza, interview by author, Chilchota, Mar. 25, 1995.
22. Josefina Aranda, conversation with the author, Oaxaca City, July 13, 2002.
23. Ezequiel Cruz et al. to SG, Dec. 15, 1932, AGN-DGG, 2.316 (13)-1. See
also poster, "Acta levantada," AHSEP, caja 7200, exp. 16;and Mendoza, Pági­
nas, 80-82.
24. On Cejudo, see Defensa Proletaria, July 9, 1933; Federación Agraria y
Sindicalista Distrital de Zitácuaro to SG, Jan. 29, 1934, AGN-DGG, 2.317.4
(13)-37;and Teja, 109. On Chávez, see Amparo of Justino Chávez et al., Mar. 30,
1922, AHPEM-A, caja. 212, exp. 25; "Registro" of Gran Partido Agrarista Mi­
choacano, May 16, 1928, AGN-DGG, 2.312 (13)-71; and Comité Central of
Liga de Comunidades y Sindicatos Agraristas del Estado de Michoacán to Calles,
Dec. 8, 1925, AGN-DGG, 2.380.1 (13)-2.
Notes to Pages 197-201 279
25. Becker, Virgin, 84-88.
26. See, for example, the 1932 cases of Daniel Miranda in San Nicolás Obispo
and of Librado Cuamba in Teremendo, both in AHMM, caja 121, exp. 36. 1/
\
27. Efraín Buenrostro to Rafael Vaca Solario, Sept. 24, 1931, carp. Taretan
29-37;Diego Hernández Topete to Vaca, Aug. 22, 1930, carp. 2, 1930; Buen­
rostro (Morelia) to Vaca, Aug. 29, 1932, Carp. 193 2;ali in Papers of Rafael Vaca
Solorio. On Vaca's background, Pilar Ortega Varela, interview by author, More­
lia, May 16, 1995.
28. On Zamora's background, see Emiliano Moreno Ramos, interview, in La
hacienda de los Cusi, 22.
29. For the hacienda owners' actitudes, see Alejandro Cusi to SG, Aug. 26,
1933, AGN-DGG, 2.331.9 (13)-3, tomo l.
30. Juan Reyes Sánchez and Juan Quinteros, interviews, in La hacienda de los
Cusi, 24, 26-29.
31. !bid. On schoolteachers' unionizing activities, see Glantz, 91;and Agente
Número 2 to Jefe del Departamento Confidencial, Feb. 13, 1933, AGN-DGG,
2.330 (13)-5.
32. Agente Número 2 to Jefe del Departamento Confidencial, Feb. 13, 1933,
AGN-DGG, 2.330 (13)-5
33. For a roughly similar unionization-ejidalization effort in the nearby Gua­
racha hacienda, see Moreno, Guaracha, 204-35.
34. Diego Hernández Topete to Rafael Vaca Solario, Nov. 10 1930, Papers of
Rafael Vaca Solario, carp. 1930-31 Lombardía Nueva Italia;Cámara de Comercio
de la Ciudad de Uruapan to GEM, Sept. 17, 1930, AGN-POR, (1930) 8 / n586.
35. Sindicato de Obreros y Campesinos de Nueva Italia to PR, Nov. 21, 1933,
AGN-DGG, 2.331.9 (13)-3, tomo II.
36. See Glantz, 101- 91.
37. This point would seem to coincide with Marjorie Becker's assertion that
"Michoacán peasants showed him a more effective way to reconstruct the postrev­
olutionary govemment" (Virgin, 155), but not necessarily with her assertion that
Cárdenas ultimately proved incapable of understanding campesino culture.
38. José de la Cruz, interview by author, Zurumútaro, Apr. 22, 199 5. On Al­
caraz, see unsigned Memorandum, [perhaps written by Antonio Díaz Soto y
Gama] [Mar. 1922?], AHC-FJM, doc. suelta, 13 / 4217.
39. See "Copia certificada . . . 9 de diciembre de 1773 ";and an untitled re­
pare from the Comité Local Agraria;both in RAN, exp. Zurumútaro.
40. Re_J)ort of Macedonio Alejandre, Oct. 6, 1917;and Report of CLA, Aug.
3, 1920;both in RAN, exp. Zurumútaro.
41. "Sin oficio ni beneficio." Celso Valadés to PR, Aug. 17, 1920, as well as
various other land titles, ali in RAN, exp. Zurumútaro.
 --ri
280 Notes to Pages 20I-7
42. Obregón, "Decreto," June II, 1921; and Repon of Candelario Reyes,
Nov. 10, 1921; both in RAN, exp. Zurumútaro. Report of CLA, Dec. 10, 1921,
¡:;
AHC-FJM, tomo VII, doc. 142; de la Cruz, interview.
43. Sindicato de Obreros y Campesinos to CROM, Jan. 25, 1928, AGN­
DGG, 2.380.1 (13)-8; CROM to SG, May 22, 1926, AGN-DGG, 2.380.1 (13)-8.
44. Repon, unsigned [Apr. 1925 ?], RAN, exp. Tzintzuntzan.
45. Francisco Villagomes S. et al. to CLA, Apr. 13, 1926, RAN, exp.
Tzintzuntzan.
46. J. M. Vallejo to Múgica, Dec. 7, 1921, AHC-FJM, tomo VII, exp. 90; and
de la Cruz, interview.
47. Flyer, "Digna actitud de nuestros elementos libres," Mar. 31, 1930, AMZ­
G, 1930, exp. 13.
48. Federación Agraria y Forestal to Emilio Portes Gil, Apr. 8, 1930, AGN­
DGG, 2.342 (13)-47. Transforming the chapel into a library was a bit utopian;
instead, agraristas used it as a granary and occasional meeting place. See Repon
of Diego Hernández Topete, May 20, 1932, AHSEP, caja 7208, exp. 1 r.
49. Jesús Múgica Martínez, interview by author, Morelia, May 24, 1995; Re­
pon of Hernández Topete, May 20, 1932, AHSEP, caja 7208, exp. u; and un­
signed "Informe," 1953, AGN-DGG, 2.342 (13)-74 bis.
50. Múgica Martínez, interview.
51. Report of Hernández Topete, May 20, 1932, AHSEP, caja 7208, exp. II.
52. Eliseo Galván Mendoza to Celso Flores Zamora, Sept. 22, 1930; Report
of Hernández Topete, May 20, 1932; and Report of Raul Reyes, Oct. 28, 1933;
ali in AHSEP, caja 7208, exp. II. Unsmprisingly, Talavera eventually gained con­
trol of the corn flom mili, according to an interview with de la Cruz
53. De la Crnz, interview.
54. "Acta," May 25, 1930, Papers of Vaca Solario, carp. Taretan 29-37.
5 5. See Múgica Martínez, ro9-26, 167-84.
56. Indeed, the affinity between a certain cadre of schoolteachers and the gov­
ernor would reach such proportions that they would be among the first to con­
strnct the myth of Cárdenas as revolutionary redeemer. On schoolteachers' acti­
tudes, see Raby, Educación, 207. For a contemporaneous educacional initiative in
Sonora that found a similar resonance among schoolteachers, see Vaughan, Cul­
tural Politics, 56-63.
57. La Vanguardia, Apr. 25, 1926.
58. Sotelo, 58, see generally 50-61; Salvador Lemus, "Autobiografía," 32-39.
59. Orientación, Apr. 26, 1928, 3.
60. Unsigned "Informe," Sept. 5, 1929, AHMM, caja roo, exp. 21; Carlos
García de León, "Circular," Mar. 13, 1930, AHMM, caja 105, exp. 46.
61. Untitled Ayer, Nov. 29, 1929; Report of María Ayala Torres, Nov. 28,
Notes to Pages 207-rI 281
1929; both in AHSEP, caja 72II, exp. 3; see also PM Zamora to Emilio Portes
Gil, Sept. 5, 1930, AMZ-IP, 1930, exp. 2; and Salvador Hernández to DEFM,
1/
Dec. ro, 1929, AHSEP, caja 7223, exp. 7.
62. "Bases de la Liga Anti-alcohólica de Purechucho," [Oct. 1934?], AHSEP,
caja 7208, exp. 8. \
63. For a woman whose alcoholic husband lost everything while drunkenly
gambling, see Rafaela Pichardo, interview by author, Chichimequillas, Mar. 5,
199 5. For more on temperance leagues and gender relatio9s, see Sindicato Feme­
nil Anti-Alcohólica, "Escrito," Nov. 15, 1934, AGN-DGG, 2.347 (13)-15609;
Cristina Verduzco to CRMDT, Aug. 24, 1933, AGN-AR, 524.2 / 55; and Olcott,
37-39, and 2p-59.
64. Hilario Harracho to PM Zamora, Nov. 18, 1930, AMZ-IP, 1930, exp. 1.
See also Becker, "Lázaro Cárdenas," 178-84.
65. Bases Constitucionales.
66. Report of Francisco Valadez, Aug. 23, 1932, AMZ-IP, 1932, exp. 1-b; Re­
port of Diego Hernández Topete, Jan. 24, 1931, AHSEP, c;ja 7199, exp. 11.
67. J. Lamberto Moreno to DEFM, June 19, 1932, AHSEP, caja 7199, exp. r;
emphasis in original. See also Alejandro Pérez S. to PM Zamora, June 21, 1934,
AMZ-IP, 1934, exp. 3; and Report of D. E. Sánchez, Feb. 5, 1932, AHSEP, caja
1
4208, exp. 13.
68. Representantes del Centro Nocturno to PM Zamora, May 2, 1932; and
María Guadalupe García to PM Zamora, July 20, 1932; both in AMZ-IP, 1932,
exp. r-b.
69. On pulque vendors, see, for example, Luciana Florentino, Buenaventura 1
Muñoz, and Carmen Gutiérrez to Cárdenas, Apr. 18, 1930, AHMM, caja 105,
exp. 46 (whence carne the quotation); and Filomena Moreno et al. to Cárdenas,
Dec. 31, 1931, AHMM, caja 106, exp. 12. On local politicians with a family in­
terese in the liquor trade, see Aurelio Yáñez to Inspector de la 3a Zona, July 18, ,,fl
1932, AHSEP, caja 72p, exp. I.
70. María de Los Angeles González to DEFM, Nov. 23, 1929, AHSEP, caja
7213, exp. r.
71. Miguel A. Quintero to Múgica, Aug. 17, 1931, AHC-FJM, vol. 16, exp. 346.
72. SG to PM Zamora, Sept. ro, 1929, AMZ-IP, 1929, exp. 7.
73. Flyer, "Invitación a los trabajadores," Mar. 1931, AMZ-G, 1931, exp. 17.
74. Foster, 26-28.
7 5. J. de Jesús Airoyo to Salvador Martínez, Dec. 3, 1930, ACZ, exp. "Jiquil­
pan 29-30."
76. Telésforo Gómez to Secretario de la Mitra, Oct. 25, 1934, ACZ, exp.
Taretan VII-1929-V-1936.
77. Report of J. G. Nájera, Dec. 21, 1929, AHSEP, caja 7329, exp. 6.
1
1
 !"."
1:::
282 Notes to Pages 2u-I8
78. Sáenz, 6. The seven-month educational mission in Carapan was caUed the
Estación Experimental de Incorporación del Indio. Sáenz objected to the term Ex­
perúnental, (but not, tellingly, the term Incorporación) finding it "a symptom of
the 'scientism' even in the midst of the revolutionary era" (7-8). Sáenz was refer­
ring to the fact that the Porfirian politico-intellectual elite were called "scientists,"
i.e., "científicos."
79. Ibid., 22.
80. Ibid., 29. The events are recounted on 28-33.
8 r. Ibid., 198.
82. Quiroz to Jefe de Hacienda, Feb. 27, 1930, AHSEP, caja 7200, exp. 3
83. GEM, "Convocatoria," Jan. 9, 1929, AHMM, caja 95, exp. 136.
84. Ernesto Soto Reyes to Múgica, Aug. 12, 1931, AHC-FJM, vol. 16, doc. 432.
85. Múgica to Ernesto Soto Reyes, Sept. 26, 1931, AHC-FJM, vol. 16. doc.
439; Cárdenas to Emilio Portes Gil, Oct. 30, 1929, AGN-PG, exp. 672 / 217,
doc. 14738.
86. De la Cruz, interview. The key Cardenista politicians included Luis Mora
Tovar, José Solórzano, Ernesto Soto Reyes, and Antonio Mayés Navarro.
87. CRMDT, Estatutos Confedera/es, 3, in Papers of Juan Gutiérrez.
88. Ibid, 28-29.
89. Ibid, 29, 36; see generally 29-37.
1::
90. Undated poster, "Programa General," 1930, AMZ-IP, 1930, exp. 13.
9r. For discussions of how such practices help to build social identity, see Mc-
Neil; and Connerton.
92. Anguiano, 37.
93. Lemus, "Autobiografía," 91-97.
94. Samuel Hernández, quoted in Anguiano, sr- Other quotes from An-
guiano, 49-52.
95. Becker, "Torching," 248.
96. Anguiano, 75.
97. Luis Mora Tovar to Múgica, Oct. 12, 1932, AHC-FJM, anexo 3, doc. 343;
CRMDT to Liga Nacional Campesina, [Dec. 1, 1932?J, AGN-DGG, 2.316 (13)-r.
98. Benigno Serrato to Abelardo Rodríguez, June 20, 1933, AGN-AR, 524 /
431-r.
99. See various complaints in AGN-DGG, 2.331.9 (13l-3, tomo II.
roo. CRMDT [Serratista], "Circular," Dec. 23, 1932, AGN-DGG, 2.330 (13)-5.
1or. CRMDT [Cardenista], "Circular 73," [ Jan. 1933?], AGN-DGG, 2.330
(13)-5; Múgica Martínez, 154-60. Unlike the letterhead of the Cardenista Con­
federation, which displayed both the sickle and scythe superimposed over a
book, the letterhead of the Serratista Confederation did not exhibir any logo or
motto at ali.
Notes to Pages 218-26 283
ro2. This aspect of Cardenismo has been amply studied. See especially An­
guiano, 122-82; Becker, Virgin; and Knight, "Revolutionary Project."
ro3. Testimony of Marciana García Vda. de Vallejo, June 28, 1933, AGN­
1/
\
DGG, 2.331.9 (13l-3, tomo I.
ro4. Pedro Sánchez et al. to PR, Mar. 26, 1933, AGN-DGG, 2.33r.9 (13)-3,
tomo I.
105. J. Jesús Rico, "Discurso," Mar. 26, 1933; and "Acta del Congreso Ex­
traordinario de la CRMDT [Cardenista]," Mar. 26, 1933; both in AGN-DGG,
2.331.9 (13)-3, tomo l. !
ro6. La Comunidad Indígena de Tiríndaro to Jefe del Departamento Agrario,
Feb. 16, 1934, AGN-AR, 552.14 / 21r.
107. Federación Distrital to Jefe del Sector Militar, [Apr. ro, 1933?], AMZ-G,
1933, exp. 8 / III.
ro8. See J. Jesús Torres to Pedro López, Dec. 6, 1933, AGN-AR, 524 / 435-r.
Among the dead were Isidro Vásquez (ex-treasurer of the Cieneguitas ejido),
J. Jesús Alcalá (president of the Federación Noreste and Secretary of the Mon­
teleón ejido), Juan Miranda (president of the Grupo Político Radical de Yuré­
cuaro), and Agustín Murillo.
ro9. Diego, 49; CRMDT to Procurador General de la República, June 27,
1933, AGN-DGG, 2.331.9 (13)-3, tomo I.
no. Report of CLA, June 28, 1933, AGN-DGG, 2.331.9 (13)-3, tomo I.
III. See, for example, Miguel Corona et al. to PR, Oct. 5, 1933, AGN-DGG,
2.33 r.9 (13 )-3, tomo II; and Juan Solario to Secretaría de Guerra y Marina, June
26, 1933, AGN-DGG, 2.331.9 (13)-3, tomo I.
u2. Sindicato Antialcohólico to PR, Jan. 18, 1933, AGN-DGG, 2.316 (13)-r.
n3. María de la Cruz Negrara et al. to PR, Mar. 30, 1933, AGN-DGG,
2.331.9 (13)-3, tomo l.
n4. Origionarios indígenas y vecinos to CRMDT, June 25, 1933, AGN-AR,
524 I 175.
CHAPTER 7
r. Salinas, 63-64.
2. Cornelius; de Janvry et al., 13-25. Specifically, the reforms barred the ac­
ceptance of new requests for land reform, though the Department of Land Re­
form would continue to process solicitations that had already been received. Eji­
dos could be privatized if the majority of beneficiaries elected to do so.
3. Lemus, 84; Ginzberg, "Abriendo," 601-9.
4. Cárdenas to Manuel Pérez Treviño, [1931?], AGN-POR, (1931) 48 / 2720.
284 Notes to Pages 226-38
Notes to Pages 238-41 285

5. See Knight, "Populism"; and Dawson. Cárdenas made much use of public Díaz, of Servicios del Pueblo Mixe, during the March 2001 push for a constitu­
forums during his presidency as well. He called seores of meetings at which cam­ tional amendment recognizing indigenous people's rights. As reproduced in La
pesinos and indigenous people could express themselves, and thus established a Jornada, March 27, 2001, she explained that the movement for auconomy is "not
seemingly personal bond with his followers throughout the 1930s. simply about indigenous pueblos. There are many people who are not indigenous,
6. Quoted in Múgica Martínez, 202. See also Cárdenas to Múgica, Sept. 28, who are mestizos, but who are campesinos and live in extreme poverty. There are
1932, AHC-FJM, anexo 3, doc. 91. man y marginalized and ignored peoples."
7. Cárdenas to Múgica, Apr. 9, 1932, AHC-FJM, anexo 3, doc. 88. 23. Author's field notes.
8. For overviews, see Córdova, Política; González, Días; Hamilton; and 24. Gledhill.
Middlebrook. 25. Recent examples include agrarian communities that opposed golf course
9. Cárdenas to Calles, Mar. 22, 1934, AHC-LC, Epistolar, 27 / IO / 12. construction in the state of Morelos in 1998, the planned international airport in
rn. See, for example, Gledhill; Fallaw; and Warman, Campesinos. Mexico Sta te in 2002, and the efforts of land reform beneficiaries to halt indis­
II. Ávila Camacho, "A los trabajadores," 52.
criminate logging in the states of Guerrero and Chihuahua.
12. Avila Camacho, "Discurso," 6. 26. For a similar appraisal, see Vaughan, Cultural Politics, 199-200.
I 3. Reich, 68-72.
27. José Mendoza, interview by author, Chilchota, Mar. 25, 1995.
14. Ernesto Prado to CRMDT, Jan. 11, 1934, AGN-AR 525.3 / 72. See also
Representante de la Comunidad to Procurador de Pueblos, Feb. 15, 1923, AGN­
DGG, D.2.71-81.
15. Leaflet, from Juan Gutiérrez to "los camaradas campesinos," Oct. 21,
1935, Papers of Juan Gutiérrez, exp. Documentos de la Federación Agraria de
Zamora.
16. Francisco Herrera Arciga et al., "Escrito," Oct. 20, 1924, AGN-DT, caja
7 26, exp. 4.
17. Jsidrio Cázares to CNA, Jan. rn, 1929, RAN, exp. Opopeo.
18. For example, the Cooperativa Femenil Campesina to Abelardo Ro­
dríguez, [Jan. 1934?], AGN-AR 06 / 36; and María de la Cruz Negrara et al. to
Abelardo Rodríguez, Mar. 30, 1933, AGN-DGG, 2.331.9 (13)-3, tomo I. Note
chat nouns in Spanish (and many adjectives that modify them) are gendered: the
word "campesina" therefore refers to a female campesin(o).
19. See for example, Liga Femenista to PR, [June 7, 1924?], AGN-DGG,
E.2.79-58; or amparos of Cristina González de Tapia on behalf of Primo Tapia,
Mar. 4, 1923, AHPEM-A, caja 222, exp. 1; or Elena Martínez on behalf of Juan
Ascencio, Mar. 29, 1927, AHPEM-A, caja 261, exp. 11.
20. Respecrively, "campesino indígena," "campesino agricultor," or "campe­
sino católico"-all terms rhat informants applied ro themselves during interviews.
For a richer discussion of the political organization of women in Michoacán dur­
ing che Cárdenas presidency than the one presented here, see Olcott, "Las Hijas,"
228-304.
21. Araghi.
22. In addition to che example of Marcos's discourse given in the epigraph to
the lntroduction to chis book, see, for example, che observations of Virginia Pérez
 7 Glossary
Glossary
ACJM-Asociación Católica de la Juventud Mexicana (Association of Mexican
Catholic Youth) A national organization of middle- and upper-class young
people inspired by Social Catholicism of the early twentieth century.
agrarismo The peasant movement that emerged in Michoacán and other
Mexican states in che 1920s and 1930s, primarily to support the land
reform.
agrarista A rural person who adopted ideas of revolutionary citizenship and
class struggle associated with agrarismo.
cabildo Literally, "council." The term can refer to the governing bodies of
cities, rural communities, or ecclesiastical units such as parishes and
bishoprics.
cacicazgo The geographic region or fiefdom controlled by a cacique.
cacique From the Taíno word (in che Arawak language), meaning "indigenous
chief." In modern usage, the term refers to rural political bosses who often
held informal power and had close contacts with política! leaders outside
the village. An arrangement that allows caciques to wield power at che local
leve! is known as caciquismo.
campesinaje The class-like social category comprised of campesinos in the
aggregate.
campesino Literally, "a person of the field." It is a term that entered into
wide circulation in che postrevolutionary decades to describe rural people
dependent on agricultura! labor, whether on their own land or someone
else's.
Cardenismo The political movement in support of Lázaro Cárdenas's policies.
cargo Literally, a "duty." In Michoacán, it referred to a common practice in
indigenous communities in which a notable local resident agreed to fund
certain community religious celebrations over the course of an entire year.
CNC-Confederación Nacional Campesina (Nacional Federation of Campe­
sinos) An umbrella confederation of land reform co)llmunities (ejidos)
286
287
and other campesino organizations. President Lázaro Cárdenas called for
its creation in 1935, but it was not formally established until 1938. It was
integrated into the PRM that year.
communal land (tierras comunales) Land that is legally held by a peasant
community rather than by an individual or an ejido.
CRMDT-Confederación Revolucionaria Michoacana del Trabajo
(Revolutionary Labor Confederation of Michoacán). A partylike federation
of peasant leagues and labor unions founded by Governor Lázaro Cárdenas
111 1929.
CROM-Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana (Mexican Regional
Federation of Labor) An important nacional labor syndicate, formed in
1918. The CROM worked closely with the federal government from 1920·
to 1928 but interna! conflicts and political crisis caused it to decline rapidly
thereafter.
Cristero / Cristera A person who rebelled against the governrnent during the
Cristiada.
Cristiada The 1926-29 religious guerrilla war fought by groups of rancheros,
rural folk, and middle-class Catholics against President Plutarco Elías Calles
and the postrevolutionary government.
CTM-Confederación de Trabajadores de México (Mexican Federation of
Labor) The national umbrella organization of labor unions. The CTM
was formed in 1936 and was integrated into the PRM in 1938.
ejidatario / ejidataria A land reform beneficiary, or more precisely, an officially
inscribed member of an ejido.
ejido A land reform parce!. Also, the term applied to the community of
beneficiaries living on a land reform parcel. Ejido lands are technically
owned by the nation given in perpetuity (that is, as usufruct) to a specific
group of beneficiaries who are formally empowered to decide how che land
should be worked.
hacienda A large agricultura! estate.
hectare (hectárea) A unir of land equivalent to 2.471 U.S. acres.
LNDLR-Liga Nacional Defensora de la Libertad Religiosa (League for the
Nacional Defense of Religious Freedom) An organization of lay Catholics
founded in 1925 to oppose the government's campaign of anticlericalism. It
created a military command structure che following year that attempted to
coordinare and organize the Cristero rebellion.
288 Glossary

r/
Max.imato The period between 1928 and 193 5 during which ex-President
Plutarco Elías Calles indirectly controlled the federal government as
Mexico's self-declared Supreme Leader, or Jefe Máximo. Bibliography
mestizo / mestiza A person of mixed ethnic herirage of indigenous, European,
and in many instances African descent.
Otomí A majar indigenous group of Central Mexico. In Michoacán, the
Otomí popularion is located primarily in the northeast, particularly in the
mountains around Zitácuaro. ARCHIVAL SOURCES
PNR-Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Parry)
Mexico City
The official revolutionary party formed by President Plutarco Elías Calles
in 1929. It was initially formed by incorporating one existing party from Archivo General de la Nación
each municipality. Fondo Departamento del Trabajo
Porfiriato The regime of General Porfirio Díaz, who held rhe Mexican Fondo Departamento Autónomo de Trabajo
presidency in the years 1876-80 and 1884-1911. Fondo Dirección General de Gobierno
PRM-Partido de la Revolución Mexicana (Parry of the Mexican Revolution). Fondo de Gobernación, Periodo Revolucionario
The successor to che PNR, which President Lázaro Cárdenas renamed and Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Lázaro Cárdenas del Río
refounded in 1938 by incorporating popular organizations including the Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Alvaro Obregón y Plutarco Elías Calles
CNC and rhe CTM into its structure. In 1946 President Manuel Avila Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Pascual Ortiz Rubio
Camacho changed its name to the Institutional Revolucionary Parry (PRI). Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Emilio Portes Gil
Fondo Papeles Presidenciales de Abelardo L. Rodríguez
Purépecha (also known as Tarascans) The largest indigenous group in
Michoacán. The Purépecha populacion is located primarily around lake Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública
Pátzcuaro, che Meseta Tarasca, and the Bajío area near Zamora.
Archivo H·istórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro
ranchero In Michoacán and western Mexico generally, a term referring to de Estudios Sobre la Universidad, Fondo de Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra
predominantly mestizo farmers who own a modest amount of their own
privare property. Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco Elías Calles y Fernando Torreblanca
SEP-Secretaría de Educación Pública (Department of Public Educarion) Archivo Plutarco Elías Calles
Established in 1921 dming rhe administracion of President Alvaro Obregón, Archivo Álvaro Obregón
ir builr hundreds of rural primary schools in Michoacán in the 1920s and Michoacán
1930s.
Archivo de la Sala Canonical de la Catedral de Zamora
Tarascans See Purépecha.
Archivo Histórico del Centro de Estudios de la Revolución Mexicana
"Lázaro Cárdenas," A.C., Jiquilpan
Fondo Papeles de Francisco J. Múgica
Sección de Anexos
Sección de Documentación Suelta
Sección de Tomos
Sección de Volúmenes
Fondo Papeles de Lázaro Cárdenas
290 Bibliography Bibliography 291

Archivo Histórico Municipal de Morelia NEWSPAPERS ANO PERIODICALS

Archivo Histórico del Poder Ejecutivo de Michoacán, Morelia El 123 (Morelia)
Ramo de Justicia, Sección Amparos Actualidades (Morelia)
Ramo de Gobernación: Alma Bohemia (Zamora)
Sección de Bosques Ariel (Morelia)
Sección de Guerra y Ejército El Baluarte (Zitácuaro)
Sección de Religión Boletín Eclesiástico de la Arquidiócesis de Michoacán, Tercera Época (Morelia)
El Centinela (Morelia)
Archivo Histórico del Poder Judicial de Michoacán, Morelia, Juzgado de Ciencia y Letras (Morelia)
Primera Instancia, Distrito de Zinapécuaro El Clarinete (Morelia)
Archivo Histórico del Registro Agrario Nacional, Morelia El Cruzado (Zamora)
El Cuarto Poder (Mexico City}
Archivo Municipal de Uruapan Defensa Proletaria (Zitácuaro)
Archivo Municipal de Zamora El Eco (Ciudad Hidalgo)
Evolución (Morelia)
Ramo de Gobernación (aka Ramo de Estado)
Firmeza (Zitácuaro)
Ramo de Instrucción Pública
Gladium (Guadalajara)
Ramo de Justicia
El Heraldo de Michoacán (Morelia)
Ramo de Policía y Guerra
La Jornada (Mexico City)
Archivo Municipal de Zitácuaro La Libertad (Morelia)
La Lucha (Morelia)
Archivo Histórico Manuel Castañeda Ramírez (Casa de Morelos), Morelia,
Minerva (Zitácuaro)
Fondo Gobernación, Sección de Secretaría de Gobierno, Serie Policía y
Orientación (Zitácuaro)
Guerra
Prensa Libre (Mexico City)
Prívate Collections La Razón (Mexico City)
Reconquista (Mexico City)
Papers of Juan Gutiérrez, in the possession of Fidelmar Castro, Zamora
Reconstrucción (Mexico City)
Papers of the Junta Liberal Benito Juárez, in the possession of Samuel Ruiz
Redención Tarasca (Erongarícuaro)
Madrigal, Zitácuaro
La República (Morelia)
Papers of Ernesto Prado, in the possession of Alvaro Ochoa Serrano,
La Republicana (Morelia)
Zamora
Revista Eclesiástica de la Diócesis de Zamora (Zamora)
Papers of Evangelina Rodríguez Carbajal, in the possession of Samuel Ruiz
El Revolucionario (La Piedad)
Madrigal, Zitácuaro
Los Sucesos (Morelia)
Papers of Salvador Sotelo, in the possession of Adonaí Sotelo Quesada,
Sufragio (Morelia)
Ario Santa Mónica
Unión (Morelia)
Papers of Rafael Vaca Solorio, in the possession of Pilar Ortega Varela,
El Universal (Mexico City)
Morelia
El Universal Gráfico (Mexico City)
La Vanguardia (Morelia)
La Voz de Michoacán (Morelia)
La Voz del Pueblo (Tlalpujahua)
Zitácuaro (Zitácuaro)
 """"

292 Bibliography Bibliography 293

MEMOIRS, PARTICIPANT HISTORIES, ANO Lemus, Salvador. "Autobiografía." Morelia, 1986. Unpublished typescript.

t/
PRINTED DOCUMENTS Lumholtz, Carl. Unknown Mexico: Explorations in the Sierra Madre and Other
regions, 1890-1898. 2 vols. 1902. Reprint, New York: Dover Publications,

\
Anguiano Equihua, Victoriano. Lázaro Cárdenas, su feudo y la política
1987.
nacional. Mexico City: Editorial Eréndira, 19 p.
Manero, Antonio. The Meaning of the Mexican Revolution. Veracruz: n.p., 1915.
Ávila Camacho, Manuel. "A los Trabajadores." September 18, 1942. In Ideario
Memoria de la Segunda Gran Dieta de la Confederación Nacional de los Círcu­
de la Nación Mexicana. Mexico City: Tallares de la Cámara de Diputados,
los Católicos de Obreros, Reunido en Zamora 19-23 enero de 1913.
1942.
Zamora: Tipografía de la Escuela de Artes, 1913.
---. "Discurso Pronunciado anee los Campesinos del Estado de Hidalgo."
Méndez Medina, Alfredo. "La cuestión Social en México. Orientaciones." In
October 28, 1942. In Un Nuevo Capítulo de la Expresión del Gobernante de
Memoria de la Segunda Gran Dieta de la Condederación Nacional de los
México. Mexico City: La Impresora S. Turanzas del Valle, 1942.
Círculos Católicos de Obreros, Reunido en Zamora, 19-23 enero de 1913,
Bases Constitucionales y Estatutos del "Centro Deportivo Michoacano." More­
ro3-19. Zamora: Tipografía de la Escuela de Artes, 1913.
lia: Tipografía "El Arte," 1929.
Mendoza Vázquez, Anacleto. Páginas de las luchas sociales en Michoacán.
Carta pastoral colectiva de los prelados de la Provincia de Michoacán acordada
Uruapan: Ediciones Amigos del Autor, 1989.
en la junta provincial celebrada en la ciudad de Ce/aya en el mes de febrero
Mexico. Dirección de los Censos. El primer censo de edificios de los Estados
de MCMXX. Morelia: Tipografía de Agustín Martínez Meir, 1920.
Unidos Mexicanos. Mexico City: Imprenta mundial, 1930.
Confederación Revolucionaria Michaocana del Trabajo. Estatutos
Múgica, Francisco José. Hechos no palabras. 1919. Reprint, Morelia: Gobierno
Confedera/es. Morelia: n.p., 1933.
de Michoacán, 1982.
Cusi, Ezio. Memorias de un colono. 211d ed. Colección México Heróico. Mexico
---. Informe rendido a la XXXVIII Legislatura de Michoacán de Ocampo,
City: Editorial Jus, 1969.
por el Ciudadano General Francisco J. Múgica, acerca de su labor adminis­
De la Huerta, Adolfo. "Manifiesto Revolucionario." In Berta Ulloa and Joel
trativa como Gobernador Constitucional del Estado, en el período transcur­
Hernández Santiago, eds, Planes en la nación mexicana, 8?8-79. Mexico
rido del 22 de septiembre de 1920 al 16 del mismo mes de 192I. Morelia:
City: Senado de la República, 1987.
Talleres Tipográficos de la Escuela de Artes y Oficios, 192r.
Deister, John L. Mártires mexicanos. Soldados fieles de Cristo Rey. N.p., 1928.
---. Diario de Campaña del General Francisco J. Múgica. Villahermosa:
Díaz Babío, Francisco. Actividades del Ing. Pascual Ortiz Rubio (Su obra como
Universidad Júarez Autónoma de Tabasco, 1984.
funcionario y escritor nicolaita). 1929. Reprint, Morelia: Centro de Estudios
Novo, Salvador. Jalisco-Michoacán. 1933. Reprint, Guadalajara: Secretaría de
Sobre la Cultura Nicolaita, 1992.
Cultura de Jalisco, 1992.
Elías Calles, Plutarco. Pensamiento político y social: Antología {r9r3-r936),
Oraciones para uso de las alumnas de los colegios de las Hijas de María Auxili­
comp. Carlos Macías. Abridged ed. Mexico City: Secretaría de Educación
adora. Morelia: Inspectoría Ntra. Sra. de Guadalupe, [1920?].
Pública/ Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco Elías Calles y Fernando Torreblanca/
Ramírez, Félix C. La verdad sobre la revolución Mexicana. 2 vols. Mexico City:
Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992.
Casa Ramírez, 19 5 8-60.
Embriz Osorio, Arnulfo, and Ricardo León García. Documentos para la histo­
Ruiz y Flores, Leopoldo. Recuerdo de recuerdos. Autobiografía del Excmo. Sr.
ria del agrarismo en Michoacán. Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Históricos
Dr. Don Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores, Arzobispo de Morelia y Asistente al Solio
del Agrarismo en México, 1982.
Pontificio. Mexico City: "Buena Prensa," 1942.
Espinosa, José. Monografía de la caja Rural de Villa Jiménez, Mich. Archivo
Sáenz, Moisés. Carapan. 211d ed. 1936. Reprint, Morelia: Talleres Linotipográfi­
Social, no. 44. N.p., 1923.
cos del Gobierno del Estado, 1969.
La hacienda de los Cusí. Mexico City: Secretaría de la Reforma Agraria/ Insti­
Salinas de Gortari, Carlos. Tercer Informe de Gobierno. Mexico City: Presiden­
tuto de Capacitación Agraria, 198r.
cia de la RepC1blica, Dirección General de Comunicación Social, 199r.
Lara Y Torres, Leopoldo. "Discurso Pronunciado en la Solemne Presentación de
Sotelo Arévalo, Salvador. Historia de mi vida. Autobiografía y memorias de un
Premios, hecha a los alumnos del Colegio Seminario de la Diócesis, el día 30
maestro rural en México, 1904-1965. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de
de octobre de 192 3." In Lara y Torres, ed. Documentos para la historia de la
Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1996.
persecución religiosa en México. 2nd ed. Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1972.
294 Bibliography
Valdovinos Garza, José. Tres capítulos de la política michoacana. Mexico City:
Ediciones "Casa de Michoacán," 1960.
Verdades sobre México. El libro azul de México, edición especial dedicada al
Estado de Michoacán. Mexico City: Editorial Pan-Americana, 1923.
SECONDARY WORKS CITED
Aguilar Camín, Héctor. La frontera nómada. Sonora y la revolución mexicana.
Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1977.
Alonso, Ana María. Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on
Mexico's Northern Frontier. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995.
Althusser, Louis. Por Marx. Translated by Ben Brewster. London: New Left
Books, 1974.
Al varado Mendoza, Arturo. El portesgilismo en Tamaulipas. Estudio sobre la
constitución de la autoridad pública en el México posrevolucionario. Mexico
City: El Colegio de México, 1992.
Anderson, Benedict. lmagined Con11nunities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism. 2nd ed. London: Verso, 1991.
Andre.ws, Gregg. Shoulder to Shoulder? The American Pederation of Labor, the
United States, and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1924. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1991.
Ankerson, Dudley. Agrarian Warlord: Saturnino Cedilla and the Mexican Revo­
lution in San Luis Potosí. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1984.
Araghi, Farshad A. "Global Depeasantization, 1945-1990." Sociological Quar­
terly 36, no. 2 ( 1995): 337-68.
Baena Paz, Guillermina. "La Confederación General de Trabajadores, 1921-
193r." Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales 83 (1976): u3-86.
Bailey, David C. ¡ Viva Cristo Rey! The Cristero Rebellion and the Church-State
Conf/ict in Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974.
Balibar, Etienne. "The Nation Form: History and Ideology." In Etienne Balibar
and lmmanuel Wallerstein, eds., Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities,
86-106. London: Verso, 1991.
Bantjes, Adrian A. "Burning Saints, Molding Minds: lconoclasm, Civic Ritual,
and the Failed Cultural Revolution." In William H. Beezley, Cheryl English
Martín, and William E. French, eds., Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance:
Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico, 261-84. Wilmington,
Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1994.
---. As If Jesus Walked the Earth: Cardenisnw, Sonora, and the Mexican
Revolution. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1998.
Bartra, Armando. Los herederos de Zapata: movimientos ·campesinos posrev­
olucionarios en Mexico, 1920-1980. Mexico City: Era, 1985.
Bibliography 29 5
Bartra, Roger. La jaula de la melancolía: Identidad y metamorfosis del mexi­
cano. Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1987.
Bastian, Jean Pierre. Los disidentes: Sociedades protestantes y revolución en
México, 1872-r9n. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica/ El Colegio
/1
1
de México, 1989.
Basurto, Jorge. "Populism in Mexico: From Cárdenas to Cuauhtémoc." In
Michael Conniff, ed., Populism in Latin America, 75-96. Tuscaloosa:
University of Alabama Press, 1999.
Bazant, Jan. Alienation of Church Wealth in Mexico: Social and Economic
Aspects of the Liberal Revolution 1856-1875. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1971.
Beals, Ralph L. Cherán: A Sierra Tarascan Village. Washington: Smithsonian
Institution, 1946.
Becker, Marjorie. "Black and White and Color: Cardenismo and the Search for
a Campesino Ideology." Comparative Studies in Society and History 29
( 1987): 453-65.
---. "Lázaro Cárdenas and the Mexican Counter-Revolution: The Struggle
over Culture in Michoacán, 1934-1940." Ph.D. diss., Yale University,
1988.
---. Setting the Virgin on Pire: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán Peasants,
and the Redemption of the Mexican Revolution. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1995.
---. "Torching La Purísima, Dancing at the Altar: The Construction of
Revolutionary Hegemony in Michoacán, 1934-1940." In Joseph and
Nugent, eds., Everyday Porms of State Formation: Revolution and the
Negotiation of Rule in Modem Mexico, 2.47-64. Durham: Duke University
Press, 1994.
Beezley, William H. Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian
Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987.
Benjamín, Thomas. "Laboratories of the New State, 1920-1929: Regional
Social Reform and Experiments in Mass Politics." In Thomas Benjamín and
Mark Wasserman, eds., Provinces of the Revolution: Essays on Regional
Mexican History 1910-1929, 71-90. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1990.
---. La Revolución: Mexico's Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and
History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2.000.
Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo. México profundo. Una civilización negada. Mexico
City: Grijalbo, 1987.
Boyer, Christopher R. "Old Loves, New Loyalties: Agrarismo in Michoacán,
1920 -1928." HAHR 78 (1998 ): 419-55.
---. "La revolución inventada. Salvador Sotelo y el papel del 'intelectual
 296 Bibliography
local' en el Michoacán posrevolucionario." In Martín Sánchez Rodríguez
and Cecilia A. Bautista, eds., Estudios Michoacanos IX, 169-95. Zamora:
El Colegio de Michoacán, 2001.
---. "The Threads of Class at La Virgen: Misrepresentation and Identity ar
a Mexican Textile Mili, 1918-1935." American Historical Review 105
(2000): 1576-98.
Boylan, K.ristina A. "Mexican Catholic Women's Grassroots Organizing in
Rural Jalisco, Mexico, 1929-1940." Paper presented ar the Internacional
Congress of che Latin American Studies Association, Miami, 2000.
Brading, D. A. Haciendas and Ranchos in the Mexican Bajío: León,
1700-1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
---. The Origins of Mexican Nationa.lism. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­
sity Press, 198 5.
Brenner, Anita. The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Rev­
olution, 1910-1942. 1942. Reprint, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.
Bnmk, Samuel. ¡Emiliano Zapata! Revolution and Betrayal in Mexico. Albu­
querque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.
---. "Remembering Emiliano Zapata: Three Moments in the Posthumous
Career of the Martyr of Chinameca." HAHR 78 (1998): 457-90.
Butler, Matthew. "The 'Liberal' Cristero: Ladislao Molina and the Cristero
Rebellion in Michoacán, 1927-9." ]LAS 3I (1999): 645-71.
Buve, Raymond, and Romana Falcón. "Tlaxcala and San Luis Potosí under the
Sonorenses (1920-1934): Regional Revolutionary Power Groups and the
Nacional Sta te." In Wil Pansters and Arij Ouweneel, eds., Regían, State
and Capitalism in Mexico: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, rro-33.
Amsterdam: CEDLA, 1989.
Cardoso, Lawrence. Mexican Migration to the United States, 1897-1931.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980.
Carr, Barry. Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-Century Mexico. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
---. "The Fate of the Vanguard under a Revolutionary State: Marxism's
Contribution to the Construction of the Great Arch." In Joseph and Nugent,
eds., Everyday Fonns of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of
Rule in Modern Mexico, 326-52. Durham: Duke University Press, 1994.
Carrasco, Pedro. Tarascan Folk Religion: An Analysis of Economic, Social, and
Religious lnteractions. New Orleans: Middle American Research lnstitute,
Tulane University, 1952.
Castañeda, Jorge G. Utopía Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold
War. New York: Vintage, 1993.
Ceballos Ramírez, Manuel. "Rerum novarum en México: cuarenta años entre la
)
Bibliography 297
conciliación y la intransigencia (1891-1931)." Revista Mexicana de Soci­
1/
ología 49 (1987): 151-70.
---. El Catolicismo Social: Un tercero en discordia. Rerum Novarum, la
"cuestión social" y la movilización de los católicos mexicanos (1891-19n).
Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1991. \
Chatterjee, Parcha. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative
Discourse? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
Chowning, Margaret. Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico: Michoacán from
the Late Colony to the Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1999.
Coatsworth, John H. Growth Against Development: The Economic Impact of
Railroads in Porfirian Mexico. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press,
1981.
Cockroft, James D. Intellectual Precursors of the Mexican Revolution. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1968.
Collier, Ruth Berins, and David Collier. Shaping the Political Arena: Critica/
Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.
Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff. Of Revelation and Revolution: Christian­
ity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South A/rica. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1991.
Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989.
Cook, Sherburne F., and Woodrow Borah. Essays in Population History:
Mexico and the Caribbean. Vol. r. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1 971.
Córdova, Arnaldo. La ideología de la Revolución mexicana: La Formación del
nuevo régimen. 2nd ed. Mexico City: Era, 1973.
---. La política de masas del cardenismo. Mexico City: Era, 1974.
---. La Revolución en crisis. La aventura del maximato. Mexico City:
Cal y Arena, 1995.
Cornelius, Wayne A. "The politics and economics of Reforming the Ejido
Sector in Mexico: An Overview and Research Agenda." LASA Forum 23
(1992): 3-10.
Craig, Ann L. The First Agraristas: An Oral History of a Mexican Reform
Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
Crosby, Alfred W. America's Forgotten Pandemic: The lnf/,uenza of 1918.
Reprint of Epidemic and Peace, 1918. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1976.
Dagnino, Evelina. "The Cultural Politics of Citizenship, Democracy, and the
298 Bibliography
Sta te." In Sonia E. Álvarez, EvelinaDagnino, and Arturo Escobar, eds.,
Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures, 33-63. Boulder: Westview, 1998.
Dawson, Alexander S. "From Models for the Nation to Model Citizens: Indi­
genismo and the 'Revindication' of the Mexican Indian, 1920-40." ]LAS 30
(1998): 279-308.
DeJanvry, Alain, Gustavo Gordillo, and Elisabeth Sadoulet. Mexico's Second
Agrarian Reform: Household and Community Responses, I990-I994. La
]olla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, SanDiego,
1997.
De la Peña, Guillermo. "Los desafíos de la clase incómoda: El campesinado
frente a la antropología americanista." In Miguel León-Portilla, ed., Motivos
de la antropología americanista, 134-66. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 2001.
Díaz Arciénega, Víctor. Querella por la citltura "revolucionaria" (I925).
Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989.
Djed Bojórquez,Juan de. Crónica del Constituyente. Mexico City: Ediciones
Botas, 1938.
Diego Hernández, Manuel. La Confederación Revolucionaria Michoacana
del Trabajo.Jiquilpan, Michoacán: Centro de Estudios de la Revolución
Mexicana "Lázaro Cárdenas," 1982.
Embriz Osorio, Arnulfo. "En torno a los repartos y la política! agraria del
general Francisco J. Múgica, gobernador de Michoacán." In VII Jornadas
de Historia Occidente, 129-35.Jiquilpan, Michoacán: Centro de Estudios
de la Revolución Mexicana "Lázaro Cárdenas," 1985.
---. La Liga de Comunidades y Sindicatos Agraristas de Michoacán.
P ráctica político-social I9I9-I929. Mexico City: Centro de Estudios
Históricos del Agrarismo en México, 1984.
Falcón, Romana. El agrarismo en Veracruz. La etapa radical {I920-I935).
Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1977.
---. "Charisma, Tradition, and Caciquismo: Revolution in San Luis
Potosí." In Friedrich Katz, ed., Riot, Rebellion, and Revolution: Rural
Social Conflict in Mexico, 4I7-47. Princeron: Princeton University Press,
1988.
---. "Force and the Search for Consent: The Role of theJefaturas Políticas
of Coahuila in National State Formation." In Gilbert M.Joseph andDaniel
Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the
Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico, 107-34.Durham: Duke Universicy
Press, 1994.
---. "El surgimiento del agrarismo cardenista-una revisión de las tesis
populistas." HM 27 (1978): 333-86.
Bibliography 299
Fallaw, Ben. Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolution­
ary Yucatán. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.
Feierman, Steven. Peasant lntellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
Florescano, Enrique. El nuevo pasado mexicano. Mexico City: Cal y Aiena, 1991.
Foglio Miramontes, Fernando. Geografía económica agrícola del estado de
Michoacán. 3 vols. Mexico City: Editorial Cultura, 1936.
Forster, Cindy. "Reforging Nacional Revolution: Campesino Labor Struggles
in Guatemala, 1944-1954." In Aviva Chomsky and Aldo Lamia-Santiago,
eds., Jdentity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring
Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean, 196-226.Durham:
Duke University Press, 1998.
Foster, George. Tzintzuntzan: Mexican Peasants in a Changing World. Bostoi1:
Little, Brown, 1967.
Fowler Salamini, Heather. Agrarian Radicalism in Veracruz, I920-38. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1977.
---. "Revolutionary Caudillos in the 1920s: Francisco Múgica and Adal­
berto Tejeda." InD. A. Brading, ed., Caudillo and Peasant in the Mexican
Revolution, 169-92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Friedrich, Paul. Agrarian Revolt in a Mexican Village. 211d ed. Chicago: Univer­
sity of Chicago Press, 1977.
---. "The Legitimacy of a Cacique." In Marc J. Swartz, ed., Local-Leve/
Politics: Social and Cultural Perspectives, 243-69. Chicago: Aldine Publish­
ing, 1968.
---. The Princes of Naranja: An Essay in Anthrohistorical Method. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1986.
---. "Revolutionary Politics and Communal Ritual." In MarcJ. Swartz,
Víctor W. Turner, and Arthur Tuden, eds., Political Anthropology, 191-210.
Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1966.
Gamboa Ojeda, Leticia. "La epidemia de influenza de 1918: Sanidad y política
en la ciudad de Puebla." Quipu 8 (1991): 91-109.
García Canclini, Néstor. Culturas híbridas. Estrategias para entrar y salir de la
modernidad. Mexico City: Grijalbo / Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las
Artes, 1990.
García Ugarte, Marta Eugenia. Génesis del Porvenir: Sociedad y politica en
Queretaro (1913-1940). Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales,
UNAM / Gobierno del Estado de Queretaro / Fondo de Cultura Económica,
1997·
Gilly, Adolfo. El Cardenismo, una utopía mexicana. Mexico City: Cal y Arena,
1994.
 300 Bibliography
---. La revolución interrumpida. Mexico City: Ediciones El Caballito, 1971.
Ginzberg, Eitan. "Abriendo nuevos surcos: ideología, política y labor social de
Lázaro Cárdenas en Michoacán, 1928-1932." HM 48 (1999): 567-633.
---. Lázaro Cárdenas, Gobernador de Michoacán (1928-1932). Zamora:
El Colegio deMichoacán/Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás
de Hidalgo, 1999.
Glantz, Susana. El ejido colectivo de Nueva Italia. Mexico City: Secretaría de
Educación Pública / Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1974.
Gledhill, John. Casi Nada: A Study of Agrarian Reform in the Homeland of
Cardenismo. Auscin: Inscitute for Meso-American Studies, 1991.
González y González, Luis. Los artífices del Cardenismo. Vol. 14 of Historia
de la Revolución mexicana.Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1979.
---. "Cabos sueltos: La revolución mexicana y los revolucionados." Nexos
104 (1986): 60-66.
---. Los días del Presidente Cárdenas. Mexico Cicy: Clío, 1997.
---. Pueblo en vilo: Microhistoria de San José de Gracia. 3d ed.Mexico
City: El Colegio deMéxico, 1979.
González Navarro, Moisés. El Porfiriato: la vida social. Vol. 4 of Daniel Cosío
Villegas, ed., Historia Moderna de México. Mexico Cicy: Editorial Hermes,
1957.
---. La Confederación Nacional Campesina: Un grupo de presión en la
reforma agraria mexicana. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México, 1977.
---. "Tipología del liberalismo mexicano." HM 32 (1982): 198-225.
Gould, Jeffrey L. To Lead as Equals: Rural Protest and Political Consciousness
in Chinandega, Nicaragua, 1912-1979. Chapel Hill: Universicy of Norch
Carolina Press, 1990.
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Translaced by
Quintín Hoare. New York: Incernational Publishers, 1971.
Guadarrama, Rocío. Los sindicatos y la política en México: La CROM,
1918-1928. Mexico Ciry: Era, 1981.
Guardino, Pecer F. Peasants, Politics, and the Transfonnation of the Mexican
National State: Guerrero, 1800-1857. Scanford: Scanford Universiry Press,
1996.
Guerra, Frarn;:ois-Xavier. México: del Antiguo Régimen a la Revolución. 2nd ed.
2 vols.Mexico Cicy: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991.
GuerraManzo, Enrique. "Guerra cciscera y orden público en Coalcomán,
Michoacán (1927-1932)." HM 51 (2001): 325-62.
Hale, Charles A. Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 1821-1853. New
Haven: Yale Universicy Press, 1968.
Bibliography 301
---. The Transformation of Liberalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico.
Princecon: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Hall, Scuarc. "Cultural Idenrity and Diaspora." In Jonachan Rutherford, ed.,
Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, 222-37. London: Lawrence &
Wishart, 1990.
---. "Who Needs 'Idenrity'?" In Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, eds., Ques­
tions of Cultural Identity, 1-17. London: Sage, 1996.
Hamilton, Nora. The Limits of State Autonomy: Post Revolutionary Mexico.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.
Hamon, James L., and Stephen R. Niblo. Precursores de la revolución agraria
en México: Las obras de Winstano Luis Orozco y Andrés Malina Enríquez.
Translated by Ornar Cosca Acosca.Mexico City: SepSetentas, 197 5.
Hart, John Mason. Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931.
Auscin: University of Texas Press, 1978.
---. Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revo­
lution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Hernández Chávez, Alicia. La mecánica cardenista. Vol. 16 of Historia de la
Revolución mexicana. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1979.
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991.
New York: Vinrage, 1996.
---. "Introduction: Inventing Traditions." In Eric Hobsbawm and Terence
Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition, 1-14. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983.
---. Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge:
Cambridge Universicy Press, 1990.
Holden, Robert H. Mexico and the Survey of Public Lands: The Management of
Modernization, 1876-1911. DeKalb: Northern Illinois Universicy Press,
1993·
Hunr, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. Berkeley:
Universicy of California Press, 1984.
Hurtado Mendoza, Francisco. La vida política de Uruapan. Morelia: Linotipo­
gráfica "Omega," 1989.
Joseph, Gilbert M. "On che Trail of Lacin American Bandics: A Reexamination
of Peasanc Resiscance." LARR 26 (1990): 7-5 3.
---. Revolution from Without: Yucatán, Mexico, and the United States,
1880-1924. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Joseph, GilbertM., and Daniel Nugenc. "Popular Culture and Scate Formacion
in Revolutionary Mexico." In Joseph and Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of
State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modem Mexico,
3-23. Durham: Duke Universicy Press, 1994 .
302 Bibliography
Joseph, Gilbert M., and Daniel Nugent, eds. Everyday Forms of State Forma­
tion: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico. Durham:
Duke University Press, 1994.
Jrade, Ramón. "Inquiries into the Cristero Insurrection Against the Mexican
Revolution." LARR 20 (1985): 53-69.
Katz, Friedrich. "Condiciones de trabajo en las haciendas de México durante el
Porfiriato: modalidades y tendencias." In Katz, ed., La servidumbre agraria
en México en la época porfiriana, 15-91. Mexico City: SepSetentas, 1976.
---. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1998.
---. The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican
Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Katz, Friedrich, ed. Riot, Rebellion, and Revolution: Rural Social Conflict in
Mexico. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Knight, Alan. The Mexican Revolution. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­
sity Press, 1986.
---. "The Mexican Revolution: Bourgeois? Nationalist? Or just a 'Great
Rebellion'?" Bulletin of Latin American Research 4 (198 5): 1-37.
---. "Popular Culture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910-1940."
HAHR 74 (1994): 393-444.
---. "Populism and Neo-Populism in Latin America, Especially Mexico."
]LAS 30 (1998): 223-48.
---. "Revolutionary Project, Recalcitrant People: Mexico, 1910-1940." In
Jaime E. Rodríguez O., ed., The Revolutionary Process in Mexico, 227-64.
Los Angeles: UCLA Latin America Center Publications, 1990.
Kourí, Emilio. "Interpreting the Expropriation of Indian Pueblo Lands in
Porfirian Mexico: The Unexamined Legacies of Andrés Molina Enríquez."
HAHR 82 (2002): 69-1 17.
Krauze, Enrique. La reconstrucción económica. Vol. 10 of Historia de la revolu­
ción mexicana. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1977.
La Botz, Daniel Herbert. "'Slackers': American War Resisters and Comrnunists
in Mexico, 1917-1927." Ph.D. diss., University of Cincinnati, 1998.
Lacia u, Ernesto. "Towards a Theory of Populism." In Laciau, ed., Politics and
Ideology in Marxist Theory, 143-98. London: New Left Books, 1977.
---. New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. New York: Norton,
1990.
Laclau, Ernesto, and ChantalMouil. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards
a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso, 1985.
Lear, John. Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
Bibliography 303
León de Palacios, Ana María et al., eds. Gral. Francisco J. Múgica: Agrarista I
educador. Morelia: Gobierno del Estado de Michoacán, 198 5.
Lira González, Andrés. Comimidades indígenas frente a la Ciudad de México:
Tenochtitlán y Tlatelolco, sus pueblos y barrios, 18n-1919. Mexico City:
El Colegio de México/Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1983.
Llerenas, Fidelina G., and Jaime Tamayo. El levantamiento delahuertista:
Cuatro rebeliones y cuatro jefes militares. Guadalajara: Universidad de
Guadalajara, 1995.
Lomnitz-Adler, Claudio. Exits from the Labyrinth: Culture and Ideology in the
Mexican National Space. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
---. "Provincial Intellectuals and the Sociology of the So-Called 'Deep
Mexico."' In Lomnitz-Adler, ed. Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthro­
pology of Nationalism, 263-87. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 200 1.
Macías, Pablo G. Aula Nobilis (monografía del Colegio Primitivo y Nacional
de San Nicolás de Hidalgo). Mexico City: Ediciones Vanguardia Nicolaita,
1940.
Maldonado Gallardo, Alejo. Agrarismo y poder político: 1917-1938. Morelia:
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1993.
Mallon, Florencia E. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico
and Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press, 199 5.
María y Campos, Armando de. Múgica, crónica biográfica. Mexico City: Com­
pañía de Ediciones Populares, 1939.
Martínez Múgica, Apolinar. Isaac Arriaga, revolucionario nicolaita. Morelia:
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1982.
---. Primo Tapia. Semblanza de un revolucionario michoacano. 2nd ed.
Mexico City: El Libro Perfecto, 1946.
McNeill, William. Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Dril! in Human
History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 199 5.
Medin, Tzvi. El minimato presidencial: Historia política del maximato
(1928-1935). Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1982.
Meyer, Jean. La Cristiada. 12th ed. 3 vols. Translated by Aurelio Garzón del
Camino. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1990.
Meyer, Jean, et al., Estado )' sociedad con Calles. 2nd ed. Vol. II of Historia de
la revolución mexicana. Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1977.
Meyer, Lorenzo, et al., Los inicios de la institucionalización: La política del
. maximato. Vol. 12 of Historia de la revolución mexicana. Mexico City:
El Colegio de México, 1978.
Middlebrook, Kevin J. The Paradox of Revolution: Labo1; the State, and Au­
thoritarianism in Mexico. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 199 5.
304 Bibliography
Mijangos Díaz, Eduardo Nomelí. La Revolución y el poder político en Micho­
acán, I9ro-I920. Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de
Hidalgo, 1997.
Mintz, Sidney W. "The Rural Proletariat and the Problem of Rural Proletarian
Consciousness." ]ournal of Peasant Studies 1 (1974): 291-325.
Moheno, César. Las historias y los hombres de San Juan. Zamora: El Colegio
de Michoacán/ CONACYT, 1985.
Molina Enríquez, Andrés. Revolución agraria en México. 5 vols. Mexico City:
Talleres graficos del Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Historia y Etnografia,
1933-37.
Monaghan, John. The Covenants with Earth and Rain: Exchange, Sacrifice,
and Revelation in Mixtec Sociality. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1995.
Moreno García, Heriberto. "Buenavista y Cumuato vs. la comunidad de Pa­
jacuarán." In Francsisco Miranda, ed., La cultura Purhé: II Coloquio de
Antropología e Historia Regionales. Fuentes e historia, 180-98. Morelia:
El Colegio de Michoacán/ FONA PAS-Michoacán, 1981.
---. Cotija. Monografías municipales del Estado de Michoacán. Morelia:
Gobierno del Estado de Michoacán, 1980.
---. Guaracha. Tiempos viejos, tiempos nuevos. 211d ed. Zamora: El Colegio
de Michoacán, 1994.
Múgica Martínez, Jesús. La Confederación Revolucionaria Michoacana del
Trabajo. Mexico City: Eddisa, 1982.
Murillo, Luis. "An Identity Crisis? Mexican Identity during the Porfirian Era:
T he View from the Michoacán Countryside." Paper presented at the Interna­
tional Congress of Latin American Studies Association, Miami, 2000.
Niemeyer, E.V., Jr. Revolution at Querétaro: The Mexican Constitutional Con­
vention of r9r6-r9r7. Austin: Institute of Latín American Studies, 1974.
Novick, Peter. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1999·
Nugent, Daniel. Spent Cartridges of Revolution: An Anthropological History of
Namiquipa, Chihuahua. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Ochoa Serrano, Álvaro. Los Agraristas de Atacheo. Zamora: El Colegio de
Michoacán, 1989.
---. Repertorio Michoacano. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1996.
---. "La revolución maderista en Michoacán." In La revolución en las
regiones. 2 vols., 463-88. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1986.
---. La violencia en Michoacán (ahí viene Chávez García). Morelia: Go­
bierno del Estado de Michoacán, 1990.
Oikión Solano, Verónica. El constitucionalismo en Michoacán: El periodo de
Bibliography 305
los gobiernos militares (r9I4-1917). Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la
Cultura y las Artes, 1992.
Olcott, Jocelyn Harrison. "Las Hijas de La Malinche: Women's Organizing and
State Formation in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1934-1940." Ph.D. diss., Yale
University, 2000.
Olivera Sedano, Alicia. Aspectos del conflicto religioso de 1926 a I929: Sus an­
tecedentes y consecuencias. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología
e Historia, 1966.
O'Malley, llene V. The Myth of the Revolution: Hero Cults and the Institution­
alization of the Mexican State, 1920-1940. New York: Greenwood Press,
1986.
Palacios, Guillermo. La fJluma y el arado: Los intelectuales pedagogos y la con­
strucción sociocultural del "f)roblema camf)esino" en México, I932-1934.
Mexico City: El Colegio de México/ CIDE, 1999.
---. "Postrevolutionary Intellectuals, Rural Reading, and the Shaping of the
'Peasant Problem' in Mexico: El Maestro Rural, 1932-1934." ]LAS 30
(1998): 309-39.
Pani, Erika. Para mexicanizar el Segundo Imf)erio: El imaginario f)olítico de los
imperialistas. Mexico City: El Colegio de México/ Instituto Mora, 2001.
Paz, Octavio. El laberinto de la soledad y otras obras. 1950. Reprint, Ham­
mondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997.
Pinet P., Alejandro. "Bandolerismo Social y Revolución Maderista en el Bajío."
In La Revolución en Michoacán 1900-1926, 16-23. Morelia: Universidad
Michoacana San Nicolás Hidalgo, 1987.
Powell, T. G. "Priests and Peasants in Central Mexico: Social Conílict During
La Reforma." HAHR 97 (1997): 296-313.
Purnell, Jennie. "The Politics of Identity: Cristeros and Agraristas in Revolu­
tionary Michoacán." Ph.D. diss. (revised), Massachusetts Institute of Tech­
nology, 1993.
---. Pof)itlar Movemen.ts and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico:
The Agraristas and Cristeros of Michoacán. Durham: Duke University Press,
1999.
---. "With Ali Due Respect: Popular Resistance to the Privatization of
Communal Lands in 19th Century Michoacán." LARR 34 (1999): 85-121.
Raby, David L. Educación y revolución social en México (1921-1940). Mexico
City: SepSetentas, 1974.
---. "Los principios de la educación rural en México: El caso de Michoacán,
1915-1929." HM 22 (1973): 553 -81.
Rappaport, Joanne. The Politics of Memory: Native Historical Interpretations
in the Colombian Andes. 211d ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.
 306 Bibliography
Reich, Peter Lester. Mexico's Hidden Revolution: The Catholic Church in Law
and Politics Since I929. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.
Reyes García, Cayetano. Política educativa y realidad escolar en Michoacán,
I92I-I924. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1993.
Rodríguez, María del Rosario. "Francisco J. Múgica y los principios de una
nueva educación." In Ana María León de Palacios et al., eds., Gral. Fran­
cisco]. Múgica: Agrarista/ educador, 83-126. Morelia: Gobierno del Estado
de Michoacán, r985.
Romero Flores, Jesús. Historia de la Revolución en Michoacán. Mexico City:
Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1964.
Roseberry, William. Anthropologies and Histories: Essays in Culture, History,
and Political Economy. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press,
1989.
---. "Beyond the Agrarian Question in Latin America." In Fredric Cooper
et al., eds., Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capi­
talist World System in Africa and Latin America, 318-68. Madison: Univer­
sity of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
Rosenzweig, Fernando. "El desarollo económico de México de 1877 a 191 r."
El Trimestre Económico 32 (1965): 405-54.
Rouaix, Pastor. Génesis de los Artículos 27 y 123 de la Constitución Política de
19I7. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolu­
ción Mexicana, 1959.
Rubin, Jeffrey W. Decentering the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democ­
racy in Juchitán, Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.
Ruíz, Ramón Eduardo. The Great Rebellion: Mexico, 1905-1924. New York:
W. W. Norton, 1980.
Sahlins, Marshal. Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the
Early History of the Sandwich lslands Kingdom. ASAO Special Publication
no. r. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 198 r.
Sánchez Díaz, Gerardo. "Las crises agrícolas y la carestía del maíz, 1886-1910."
In Enrique Florescano, ed., El siglo XIX. Vol. 3 of Historia general de Mi­
choacán, 251-65. Morelia: Gobierno del Estado de Michoacán, 1989.
---. "El Partido Socialista Michoacano, 1917-1922." In VII Jornadas de
Historia de Occidente, 141-67. Jiquilpan, Michoacán: Centro de Estudios de
la Revolución Mexicana "Lázaro Cárdenas," 1985.
Sánchez Díaz, Gerardo, and Gloria Carreño. "El movimiento cristero en el
distrito de Coalcomán, 1927-1929." Boletín del Centro de.Estudios de la
Revolución "Lázaro Cárdenas" 2 (1979): 99-120.
Sánchez Díaz, Gerardo, and José Napoleón Guzmán. "Francisco J. Múgica:
pensamiento y práxis agraria." In Ana María León de Palacios et al., eds.,
Bibliography 307
Gral. Francisco J. Múgica: Agrarista/ educador, 133-90. Morelia: Gobierno
del Estado de Michoacán, 1985.
Sánchez Rodríguez, Martín. Grupos de poder y centralización política en
México. El caso Michoacán 1920-1924. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional
de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1994.
Santamaría, Francisco J. Diccionario General de Americanismos. 2 vols. Mexico
City: Editorial Pedro Robrero, 1942.
Schryer, Franz J. Ethnicity and Class Conflict in Rural Mexico. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990.
---. The Rancheros of Pisaflores: The History of a Peasant Bourgeoisie in
Twentieth-Century Mexico. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980.
Scorr, James C. The MoralEconomy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence
in Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976.
---. Wea/Jons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New
Ha ven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Sewell, William H., Jr. "Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: In­
venting Revolution at the Bastille." Theory and Society 25 (1996): 841-81.
Silva Herzog, Jesús.El agrarismo mexicano y la reforma agraria. Exposición y
crítica. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1959.
Simpson, Eyler N. The Eiido: Mexico's Way Out. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1937.
Stedman Jones, Gareth. Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class
History, 1832-1982. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Steinberg, Marc W. "'The Great End of Ali Government . . . ': Working People's
Construction of Citizenship Claims in Early Nineteenth-Century England
and the Matter of Class." lnternational Review of Social History 40, Supple­
ment 3, (1995): 19-50.
Stepan, Alfred. State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1978.
Taibo II, Paco Ignacio. Los Bolshevikis: Historia narrativa de los orígenes del
comunismo en México, 1919-1925. Mexico City: J. Mortiz, 1986.
Tannenbaum, Frank. The Mexican Agrarian Revolution. New York: Macmillan,
1929.
Tapia Santamaría, Jesús. Campo religioso y evolución política en el Bajío
zamorano. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1986.
---. "Intermediación y construcción social del poder en el Bajío zamorano."
In Tapia Santamaría, ed., Intermediación Social y Procesos Políticos en
Michoacán, 379-426. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1992.
Teja Andra de, Jesús. Zitácuaro. Monografías municipales del Estado de Michoa­
cán. Morelia: Gobierno del Estado de Michoacán, 1978.
 ◄

308 Bibliography Bibliography 309

Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Vintage, Watanabe, John M. "With Ali the Means That Prudence Would Suggest: 'Proce­
1963. dural Culture' and the Writing of Cultural Histories of Power About 19th­
Thomson, Guy P. C. "Bulwarks of Patriotic Liberalism: the National Guard, Century Mesoamerica." ]ournal of Latín American Anthropology 6 (2001 ):
Philharmonic Corps and Patriotic Juntas in Mexico, 1847-88." ]LAS 22 1 34-74.
(1990): 31-68. Wells, Allen, and Gilbert M. Joseph. Summer of Discontent, Seasons of Up­
---. Patriotism, Politics, and Popular Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century heaval: Elite Politics and Rural lnsurgency in Yucatán, 1816-1915. Stanford:
Mexico: Juan Francisco Lucas and the Puebla Sierra. Wilmington, Del.: Stanford University Press, 1996.
Scholarly Resources, 1998. Wolf, Eric R. "Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society: Mexico."
Tutino, John. "Hacienda Social Relations in Mexico: The Chalco Region in the American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 1065-76.
Era ofindependence." HAHR 55 (1975): 496-528. ---. Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis. Berkeley:
---. From Insurrection to Revolution: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, University of California Press, 1999.
1750-1940. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Womack, John, Jr. "The Mexican Economy During the Revolution, 1910-1920:
Uribe Salas, José Alfredo. "Desempleo y emigracion en el occidente de Michoa­ Historiography and Analysis." Marxist Perspectives 1 (1978): 80-123.
can a finales del Porfiriato." In Michoacán en el siglo XIX: Cinco ensayos de ---. "The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920." In Leslie Bethell, ed., Mexico
historia económica y social, 133-62. Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de Since Independence, 125-200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1999. 1991.
Van Young, Eric. "The Cuautla Lazarus: Double Subjectives in Reading Texts ---. Zapata and the Mexican Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1968.
on Popular Collective Action." Colonial Latín American Review 2 (1993):
3-26.
Vanderwood, Paul J. Disorder and Progress: Bandits, Po/ice, and Mexican
Development. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
---. The Power of God Against the Guns of Government: Religious
Upheaval in Mexico at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998.
Vaughan, Mary Kay. Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and
Schools in Mexico, 1930-1940. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997.
---. The State, Education, and Social Class in Mexico, 1880-1928. DeKalb:
Northern lllinois University Press, 1982.
Vázquez León, Luis. Ser indio otra vez: La purepechización de los tarascos ser­
ranos. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y los Artes, 1992.
Warman, Arturo. Los campesinos: Hi¡os predelictos del Régimen. 211d ed.
Mexico City: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1974.
---. "The Política! Project of Zapatismo." In Friedrich Katz, ed., Riot,
Rebellion, and Revolution: Rural Social Conflict in Mexico, 321-38.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988
---. Y venimos a contradecir. Los campesinos de More/os y el estado
nacional. Mexico City: CIESAS / INAH, 1976.
Wasserman, Mark. Capitalists, Caciques, and Revolution: The Native Elite
and Foreign Enterprise in Chihuahua, Mexico, 1854-19n. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1984.

Index
acasillados. See hacienda laborers, as resi­
dent laborers (acasillados)
ACJM (Asociación Católica de la Juventud
Mexicana),ro8,155,165-66,168,r69
agrarian reform. See land reform
agrarismo: as anticlerical,13,30, 44,89-
90,104-5,137,140,141,152-53,171,
196,203,210,213,215-16,218,219-
20, 221, 237;actitudes of rural people
toward,8,9-10,r6-r7, r9-2r,24-25,
30-31,43-45,83,87,95-96,97-98,
104,1r2-13, 115,126-27,157,216,
232-38;as class struggle,29-30,37,
39-4I,78,82-90,92,95,98, I04-5,
111,115,120,127,133,145,148,
150-53, 171-7�180,181-82,183,
r91,218,230,231,233,277n7;and
CRMDT,191-200,203,204-5, 212-20,
221-22,225; and local politics,98,99,
128, 145;relationship to campesino
identity,3, 4-6,11-12,13,22-23,25,
29,30, 36,39-41,43-45,83,126-27,
146-50,190,191,212-17,225-26,229,
232-35,239. See a/so agraristas;cam­
pesino identity; land reform
agrarista leaders. See caciques; school­
teachers
agraristas,26-31; agrarista mi lirias,14,
95-98,99-103,107, 109-10, 111,112,
117,118,125,140,141,171-73,177-
80,191,193-94,196,202,213,214,
219; during Cristero rebellion,17,41,
u8,125,141,153,158, 171-73,191,
193-94, 202, 214, 230;indigenous
people as,16-17,19-20,27,40-41,
42-43,59-60,95-98,100-103; rela­
tions with cabildos,54-55;relations
with federal army,102,111,114,118,
r40-4I,143,r73,177,18�213,221;
relations with politicians, 3,5,6,7-8,
10,13-15,27, F,32-34,36,38-39,
41-42,95-98,99-103,107,111,112,
125-26,130-31,17I-73,I77,182-83,
r88-94, r95-96,212-17,227,232-33,
238,239-41,2781121. See a/so caciques;
310
campesino identity;schoolteachers;
village revolutionaries
Aguilar,Jesús "Chucho," 96-98,126
Aguilar,Ramón,176-77,186
Alcalá,J. Jesús,28311108
Alcántara,José,125,126, 138
alcohol,alcoholism,133,206-7,209. See
a/so ritual drinking;temperance
Allen,José,2621176
Alvarado,Carmen,148-49
Alvarado, Salvador, 120
Amaro, Joaquín, 62,65,2571169
American Federation of Labor,33,192
anarchists,anarchism, 39,129
Angangueo,137,2731134
Anguiano Equihua, Victoriano,215
anticlericalism: official,8,14,24,30,37,
42,61,69,83,88-89,93-94,95,104,
109, lll,113, 122, 134-35, 137,145,
147,154,15� 157,162, 166-71, 177,
237,2721119; popular,13,30,44,89-
90, 104-5, 137,140,141,152-53, 171,
196,203,210,213,215-16,218,219-
20,221,237
Ario de Rosales, 109
Ario Santa Mónica,122,129
army. See federal army
Arriaga, Isaac,92,104,105-6
Asociación Católica de la Juventud
Mexicana. See ACJM
Atacheo,65,128,129,130,135,149,
178,2681174
Avila Camacho,Manuel,230-31
Avii\a, Pascual,149, r 50
Ba jío,the,49,56,58,67,106-7,109-10,
114, 119-20,173-74
Ballascero,Nicolás,104,105-6
banditry,62,65-69,139-40,201
Becker,Marjorie,II, 216,2791137
Benjamín, Thomas, 51
Berna!, Arturo, r26,2571169
Bolaños,J. Guadalupe, 2661159
brokerage, 29-30, u5. See a/so clien-
telism; village revolutionaries
Buenavista hacienda,220
cabildos,54-55,122,128
Cabrera,Luis,251119
caciques,121-3r; attitudes toward land
reform, 8,24,28-29,77,112,113,115,
142,144,147,225; definition of cacique,
2551128;Prado family cacicazgo,122-23,
138-44,151,2n, 2781121; relations
with politicians,125-26,141,147-49,
171-73,182-83, 190,195-96,197-200,
204-5,212,214,220,226,227,232-33;
relations with schoolteachers,29,126,
137,138,181,203-4, 2681179;respect
of followers toward,29,121-24,130-
31; travel to United States by,128,129-
30; and violence,123,142. See a/so
schoolteachers;village revolutionaries
cajas rurales, 10,164,166,2731134
Calles, Plutarco Elías, n6-17,141,151,
206;anticlerical policies,154,156,157,
J66-71;education policies,36-37,146,
189; labor poljcies,32-34,35,36-37,
226;land reform policies, 32-34,35,
36-37,50,114,118,120,148-49,172,
182,189,191,226; liberalism of, 32;
rhe Maximato,34;and PNR,34,126,
192-93; populism of,33-34,36-37,42,
69;relationship with Cárdenas,34-36,
189, 191,226, 227-28; relationship with
Serrato, 217
Calvante, Joaquín,2661159
campesino identity and campesinaje: atti­
rudes of politicians toward,1-2,3,5,6,
8,9, ro,23-24; attitudes of rural people
toward,3, 4-6,9, 11-12,16-17,19-21,
23,24-25,232-36,284n2o;and Catho­
lic Church, 162-63; class consciousness
as component of,2,3-4,6,9-10,14,
15, r9-20, 21,22,23,25,29-30,39-
42,43-45,78-79,83-90, 112-13,115,
120, I27, 132,133, :r35, 145-46,149-
53,173,191,205,211,212,213, 224-
26,228,229, 231-33, 238,239;and
CRMDT,191,212-22,226-27,232;
definition and use of campesino, 162-
63, 250116,25rn17;as historically con­
structed,2-3,5, rr-13,20-21,23-25,
44-45,251118; as hybrid in forrn,3,
11-13,15, 20-21, 25,44-45,232-34,
236-38; localized versions of,3-4, II-
13, 25, rr5,190,232-34,236-38;rela­
tionship to agrarismo,3,4-6,11-12,13,
22-23,25,29,30,36,39-41,43-45,
83, 126-27,146-50,190,191,212-17,
225-26,229,232-35,239;relationship
Index 311
to Catholic identity, 5,II-12, 15,39-
r/
40,44-45; relationship to community
identity,30,40, 40-41, 43, 44-45;
relationship to ethnic identity,5, II-!2,
15,23,40-41,43,44-45;relationship
to gender identity,5,15,171-72;rela­
tionship to means of production,21-22, \
23; relationship to Mexican Revolution,
1-2,4,19,20,21,25,30,43,127,147-
48,224-25;relationship to poverty,1,
23, 25,36,78,233,234,238,240,
2851122;revolutionary citizenship as
component of,3-4,6,8,10,14,15,
19-20,21,25,29-30,36-39,42,43-45,
115,132,145-46,147-50,158,173,
191,205,211,229,232,238,239;and
women,235-36. See a/so agrarismo;
agraristas;rural people
campesino unions,20,24,27-28, 28,39.
See a/so CNC;CRMDT;hacienda
laborers,unionization of
Cano,Rafael,2661159
Cantabria hacienda,roo
capitalism, 7,8-9,31,32,33,84-85, 163,
213. See a/so property,privare
Carácuaro,1II
Carapan,133,136, r41,211,2821178
Cárdenas, Francisco, 107
Cárdenas del Río,Lázaro: attitudes toward
rural people,1-2,6,ro,11,14-15,24,
189,224,239-41,284115;class struggle
ideology of,37,133,194;and CNC,15;
during Cristero rebellion,183-87, 189;
and CRMDT, 14-15,28,42,126,189-
90, 191-200,204-5,211,212,215-16,
222,225,226-29,232; economjc poli­
cies,188,189,203-4; education policies,
24,133-35,150,188-89,190,204,
205-n,2801156; as governor of Micho­
acán,6,17,24,35,42,133-35,141,
150, 183-87,188-200,204-5,211,212,
215,225-27, 2791137;labor policies,42,
190-91,194-95;land reform policies,7,
8,15,17,19,24, 35-36,42-43,76,186,
188-90,191,195-200,226, 229-30,
232,238,239-41;nationalization of
petroleum reserves by,75; populism of,
28,42-43,192-93,195-96,226-27,
284115; as president of Mexico,6,7, 15,
17,19,23-24,24,34-36,44,191,217,
222,227-28,230; relationship with
Amaro,65; relationship with Calles,
34-36,189,191,226,227-28;relacion­
ship with María del Refugio García,
133-34,206;relationship with Múgica,
2, 80,144,212,226-27;relationship

312 Index
with Ernesto Prado,I4I, I44,I96-97,
2I4, 278112I; relationship with Ramírez,
u8;relationship with Solórzano,I95;
relationship with Talavera,I30,200,
204,214;relations wich agraristas,188-
94,195-96,197,199-200,212-17,227,
232,233,238, 239-41. See a/so CNC;
CRMDT;PNR
cargo sy stem,54, 121,128, 139, 142,
143
Carranza, Yenusciano: land reform poli­
cies,7,50,74-75, 86,91,229, 253114;
during Mexican revolmion,63,64, 69,
9I,229,253114;relationship with
Obregón, JI,90, 94
Carrillo Puerco, Felipe, r9r
Casas Blancas hacienda, Ioo-Io3,Io4
Cacholic activiscs,9,14,32,33, 37-38, 83,
85, 89-90, 105-7, 108,117,142, r44,
147, r 50,166-71. See a/so Carholic
Church;Catholic Nationalism;Cristero
rebellion; Social Catholicism
Catholic Church: and campesino idenrity,
I62-63;Church lands,46,70;Church
schools,89,90, 91,94,104,161-62;
clergy,13,14,25,37,53-54,88-89,95,
102,106-7,108,135,152-53,167-68,
181,185,208,210,221,234;and credit
unions (cajas rurales), ro,164,166,
2731134;during Cristero rebellion,14,
157-58,174-75,183, r85;and labor
unions,ro,164-65,r66;opposition to
land reform,38,40, 41,8I, 86,88,95,
140,151, 152-53, 157,163,183,221;
opposicion to secular educacion,135,
152, 161-62, 208;paternalism in,ro,
14,37-38;during the Porfiriato, 72,73;
privare property defended by,14,41, 83,
87-88,158, 163,166; social harmony
advocated by,Io,37,4I,82-83,85,
87-88,r58-6r,164-65, 230-31,277117.
See a/so anticlericalism;Cristero rebel­
lion;Social Cacholicism
Cacholic Lady's Club,165
Cacholic nacionalism,14,37-38, 157-71,
230-3r;and economic development,
162,163;and education,161-62; and
labor unions,164-65,166. See a/so
Cristero rebellion
Catholic schools, 89, 90,91,104,161-62;
Colegio Teresiano,94
Cedillo,Saturnino,II9,183,185
Cejudo,Neftalí N., 126,197
Cerda, Maclovio, r39-40
Cerda,Soledad,140
Champan,roo
Chávez,Justino, 197
Chávez García, Inés, 66-69, II8, I39-40,
201
Cherán,65,67,128,130,173,175,216
Chiapas,1, 12,224,230,237-38
Chichimequillas (San Miguel Chichime-
quillas),96-98, 103,126
Chihuahua,32,47,62, 2851125
Chilcota,38, rn,140,141
Chinandega,Nicaragua, 4
Churumuco,148-49, 151
cirizenship. See campesino identity, revo­
lucionary citizenship as component of
Ciudad Hidalgo, 168-69,170,194
civic rituals, 9,rr 5. See a/so cultural
festivals/mjssions
CLA (Comisión Local Agraria),76-77,92,
II4
class: and agrarista militias, 99-100;
Cacholic attitudes roward class conflict,
ro, 37,41, 82-83,85,87-88,158-61,
164-65,230-31, 277n7;clancon­
sciousness,2,3-4,6,9-10,14,15,
19-20,21,22,23,25, 29-30, 39-42,
43-45,78-79,83-90,112-13, 115,
120,127,132,133,135,145-46,
149-53,173,191,205,211,212,213,
224-26,228,229,231-33,238,239,
250117;ideology of class struggle,3,ro,
29-30,37,39-41,82-90,92,95,98,
104-5,lll,II5,120, 127,133,145,
148, 150-53,159,163,171,173,191,
193,212,2I3,222,230,231,233,237,
238, 277117;Liberal attitudes toward,
10-11,83,89
clientelism,8,36,39, r25-26,227. See
a/so brokerage
CNC (Confederación Nacional Campe­
sino),15,196,197,227-29,230,239
Coahuila,63
Coalcomán,145,155,156,183, 185-87,
27711104
Coarepec,128,173
Coeneo,I29, 2731134
Cofradía, 150
Cojumatlán, r74
Colegio Teresiano,94
Colima,155
Cominrern,33
Comisión Local Agraria. See CLA
communal lands., 46, 5 5, 69,roo, ror,
128,140,191,200-201,27711104; loss
of,7,13,22,27,29,40-41,47-48,
49, 50-51,64,65,70, 7I-72,78, 84,
86,233
communists, communism,33,115,120,
149,160,192,199,206,2621176.See
a/so Marxism
community representatives (representantes
de comunidades),71-72,96,2551128.
See a/so caciques
Confederación Nacional Agraria,26
Confederación Nacional Campesino. See
CNC
Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana.
See CROM
Confederación Revolucionaria
Michoacana del Trabajo. See CRMDT
Constitution of 1857,22,75
Constitution of 1917: access to education
in,4,37, 43,91; and anticlericalism,37;
Article 3,91;Arride 27, 75-76, 86, r48,
223, 225; constitutional convention,37,
75,91; labor rights in,4,37,43; and
land reform,4,7,24, 27,30,39,43,73,
75-79,86,148,223,225,229
Constitutionalists,2,7,31,50,63,64,65,
73, 74,91,147-48,253114,2571169,
2581194. See a/so Carranza, Venustiano;
Obregón, Alvaro
Córdova,Amoldo, 23-24
Coria,Alberto,205,2661159
Corpus Crisri celebrations,53,168-69
Cortés,Simón,175-76,177, 184
Cotija,173-74
credit unions. See cajas rurales
Cristero rebellion,6,8,39, 136,145,
r54-87;agraristas during,r7,41, II8,
r25,141,153, r58,171-73,r91,193-
94,202, 214, 230; assassination of
Obregón during,34;Cárdenas during,
183-87, 189;Catholic Church during,
14, 157-58,174-75,r83,185;federal
army during,14, 173,175, 177,180,
182,185;hacienda laborers during,156,
176,180-81,202; indigenous people
during,14,16-17,128,156,175,202;
land reform during, II9, 180, 188;ne­
gotiations to end, 183-85,189;priests
during, 14, 153, 183; rancheros during,
14,153, 154-55,156,174,176-77,
185,186. See a/so Catholic activists;
Catholic Church;Catholic nationalism
CRMDT (Confederación Revolucionaria
Michoacana del Trabajo): agrarista dis­
course in, 191-200,203, 204-5,212-
20,221-22,225;and campesino iden­
tity,191,212-22,226-27, 232; and Cár­
denas,14-15,28,42,126,189-90,191-
200, 204-5, 211,212,215-16, 22�
225, 226-29, 232; labor organizing by,
I90-91 , 194-95, 197-99, 204-5;orga-
��---------:'�7
lndex 313
nization of,192-94;relarions
_ wirh Ser­
rato adm1111stration ' 217_22, 2.8 20lOI,
283�rn8;Secretary of lndigenous
Com­
mun1t1es,196
CROM (Confederación Regional Obr
era
Mexicana),26,28 34' 104- 5
' 119, 120,
167,194,202,218
Cruz, Ezequiel,197,219
Cruz de la Cruz,Juan,130,147_48, 149,
27011113
Cruz de Palo religious seer, r86-87
CTM (Mex1can Federation of Labor),196
'
22 7-2 9
Cuadra,Rafael, rr8,129
cultural festivals/missions,209-n. See
a/so civic rituals
Curimeo,111
Cusi,Dante,56
Cusí,Ezio,55
dances. See village fiestas
Daughters of Mary,163
day laborers (jornaleros). See hacienda
laborers
debe peonage,48,58
Degollado,Jesús,174
Department of Agrarian Reform,202,238,
283112
Department of Public Education. See SEP
Díaz,Porfirio. See Porfiriato,the
Díaz Soto y Gama,Antonio,2511114
Duarte,Catalina "La Pelona," 215-16
Durango,26, 62,168,224
economic conditions, 159,189,190-91,
239; globalization,237-38,240
Ecuandureo,234
education: Church schools,89,90,91,94,
104,161-62;in Constirution of 1917,
4,37,43;as cultural project,209-n;
policies of Calles,36-37,146,189;
policies of Cárdenas,24,133-35,150,
188-89,190,204,205-11,2801156;
policies of Múgica,27,82,85-86,87,
89,90,93-94,103-4,113,I2I,189;
policies of Obregón,36-37,146;policies
of Sánchez Pineda,131;school inspec­
tors,132-33,135,138,203-4,2661159;
secular education,8,17,24,36,89,91,
93-94,103,104,131-38,145,161,213.
See a/so schoolteachers; SEP
educacional inspectors. See school
inspectors
ejidos: administration of,125-26,137,
224,230,238-39,283112,2851125;
formation of,3,16-17,19-20,23,24,
 314 lndex
27-28,41,59,75-77,85,87,90,92-93,
95,96,98,roo,I0l,108,109-10,112-
13,II7, II9, 121,124-25,127,129,
137-38,142, r43, 149-50,173,179-80,
181-82,189, 196,197,198,221,223,
226,229-30,231,240,268n74;occupa­
tion of,95,96-99,100-104,112,148,
201. See a/so agrarismo; agraristas;land
reform
El Asoleadero, 16-17,19,42-43
El Botella hacienda, ro9-ro
Elías Calles,Plutarco. See Calles, Plutarco
Elías
Escobar,José Gonzalo,35,183
Estrada,Enrique, 94, 107,109,110,116,
r18,141
ethnicity, 21,27,99,212
Farm Bureau (Banco Ejidal), 238
federal army, 73,155; Agua Prieta rebel­
lion,31;during Cristero rebellion,14,
173,175,177,178,180,182,185;De
la Huerta rebellion, n6, u7, n8,130,
141,172, 176; during Mexican Revo­
lurion,62,64,91; Escobar rebellion, 35,
183;duringMúgica administration,94,
95,99,102,103,109,rrr; relations
with agraristas,102,III,114,118,
140-41, 143,173,177,182,213,221
Feierman,Steven,29
Figueroa,Eutemio,139
Filippi,Monsignor Ernesto,167
FloresMagón,Ricardo and Enrique, 74,
129,251119
Flores Zamora,Celso,2661159
Foster, George,210
Friedrich, Paul, 142-43,2551128
Fulcheri y Pietra Santa, Manuel (bishop of
Zamora), 140,174
Galván,Rafael,2681174
Galván,Ursulo,26,119-20
gambling, 207
García, Estanislao, I 1r
García,María del Refugio "Cuca," 92,
131,133-34,137,149-50, 206
García Canclini, Néstor, n
García Chávez, Inés. See Chávez García,
Inés
Garrido Canabal,Tomás, 120,191-92
gender roles,5,15,47,77,171-72,207
Gledhill,Tohn,239
globalization, 237-38, 240
González, Gabriel,174
González,Luis,8,174-75
González Cárdenas,Federico,174
Gorostieta, Enrique, 174,180,181
Gould, Jeffrey, 4
Gramsci, Antonio,8-9
Great Agrarista Party,197
Great Depression,33,189,190-91
Guadalupe,Virgin of,53,105
Guanajuato,154-55,167,185
Guaracha hacienda,60-61,239
guardias blancas. See hacienda
paramilitaries
Guerrero, 224,285n25
Guillén,Gregario,186
Guízar,José María,107-8, ro9
Gutiérrez,Jesús,111
Gutiérrez,Juan, 197,199,212,219,233
hacienda laborers,47, 55-61, 79,128,
201-2,230,240,25111119,14;during
Cristero rebellion, 156,176,180-81,
202;as day laborers (jornaleros),22,49,
55-56,57,58,77,96; opposition to
land reform among,61,76,108,157,
201; relations with hacienda owners,
38,48-49,ro8, 2561153; as resident
workers (acasillados),21-22,57-58,
108;unionization of,26,28,33,42,
61,119,120,190,195, 197-99,202,
204-5,217, 226. See a/so haciendas;
sharecroppers
hacienda paramilitaries,41,140,176,
214. See a/so Cuadra,Rafael;Molina,
Ladislao
haciendas, 7,13,46-48,56-61,229-30;
company stores (tiendas de raya) on,58;
definition of hacienda, 255n39;guards
of,41, 140,176,214;during Mexican
Revolution,77-78; owners of,21,27,
29,3o,38,46,47-48,50 -51,55-56,
59,60-61,70,71-72,73-74,77-78,
81,83,84-85,89,99,101-3,107-8,
109-10,113,140,148,151-5� 157,
171,180-82,183,184,200-201,213,
217,222,234,2561153; paternalj¡;m of
owners,38,60-61; caxes on,92-93,
103. See a/so hacienda laborers
Hall,Stewart,5
headmen. See caciques;community
representa tives
Hernández Topete,Diego,205
Hidalgo,41
historiography: ofMexican revolurion,7;
of postrevolutionary decades,7-8, r 5
Hobsbawm, Eric,33
hotlands (tierra caliente),51,56
Huandacareo,273n34
Huerta,Adolfo de la, u7,130,141,172,
176, 200;relationship withMúgica,82,
94,II6
Huerta,Victoriano, 63, 139
Hunt, Lynn, 2591116
lchán,143,144
ideology. See Catholic Church;Catholic
nationalism;class,ideology of class
struggle;liberalism; Social Catholicism
Independence Day celebrations, 207
indigenous people,6,38,46-47, 67,196,
236-38,2511114,284n22; attitudes
toward land reform among,16-17,
19-20, 27,40-41,42-43,59-60,92,
95-98,100-103,140, 147-48,156,
r57;attitudes toward schoolteachers
among,93;attitudes toward secular
education among,136, 211;cabildos
among,54-55,122,128;cargo sy stem
among, 54, 121, 128,139, 142, 143;
in Chiapas, 1, 12, 224, 230,237-38;
communal lands of,22,27,46,47,48,
55,69,70,71-72,78, 100, I0l,128,
140, 191, 200-201,27711104; during
Cristero rebellion, 14,16-17,128,156,
175,202;nonindigenous attitudes
toward,59-60,102-3, 108,r17-18,
139,146,157,188,216,2681182;
Otomís,40-41, 52, 96-98,128; Puré­
pechas, 40-41,49, 52,65, 100 -103,
128, 138-44,156, 157,175,200-205,
215,241;relations with priests,53-54
Industrial Workers of the World, 129
influenza pandemic of 1918,51, 67-68
Institutional Revolutionary Party. See PRI
ltaly,33,192
lturbide,Agustín de, 159
Jacona, 186
Jalisco, r54,155,185
Jiquilpan,2ro
jornaleros. See hacienda laborers,as day
laborers (jornaleros)
Juárez, Primitivo,194
junta Liberal Benito Juárez,126
Knights of Columbus, 165
La Cañada,65,67,128,173,178,196-
97,220,232-33; Prado family cacicazgo
in,122-23,138-44,151,2II,2781121
Laclau, Ernesto, 5,2591116
La Encarnación hacienda,96
Laguna Verde,125,126, 138,2681179
La Huerta agricultural school, 134, 206
landowners,46-47,67,117, u8,139-40,
lndex 315
163,2681182; hacienda owners,21,27,
29,30,38, 46,47-48,50-51,55-56,
1/
59,60-61,70,71-72,73-74,77-78,
81,83,84-85,89,99,101-3,107-8,
109-10,113,140,148,151-52,157,
\
171, 180-82,183,184,200-201,213,
217, 222,234,2561153;liberalism
among,11, 22, 70,89,103,107,113;
rancheros,14,24-25,58-60, 59, 65-66,
102,103,107-8, 111,151,153, 154-
55,156-57,174,176-77,186,201,
240, 27911104;relations with rural
people,21-22,27, 29,37,38,48-49,
50 -51,55-56,60-61, 77-78,82-85,
89,98-99,101-3,109-10,147,151,
179, 181-82,183, 200-202, 213,222,
229-31,234,2561153
land reform,73-77,245;attitudes of
caciques toward,8,24,28-29,77,112,
113, u5,142,144,147,225; actitudes
of rural people tóward,16-17,19-20,
27,40 -41,42-43,59-60,92,95-98,
I00-103,II2-I3,124-25,140,145,
147-48,156-58,171,218;and Consti­
tution of 1917,4,7,24, 27,30,39,43,
73,75-79,8� 148,223,225,229;and
gender roles,77; historiography regard­
ing,7-8,r5;as issue inMexican Revo­
lution,47-51,74,147-49,233,234;
opposed by Catholic Church,38,40,41,
81, 86,88,95,140,151,152-53,157,
163,183,221; opposed by h_acienda
laborers,61,76,108,157, 201; opposed
by rancheros,24-25,59,102,103,
107-8,Ill,151,153,156-57,20I;
policies of Avila Camacho,230-31;
policies of Calles, 32-34,35,36-37,50,
114,118,120, 148-49, 172,182,189,
191,226;policies of Cárdenas,7, 8,15,
17,19,24,35-36,42-43, 76,186,
188-90,191,195-200, 226,229-30,
232,238,239-41;policies of Carranza,
7,50,74-75,86,91,229,253114;poli­
cies ofMúgica,T3-r4,17,27, 82,85-
87,90,91,92-93,95-104,109-10,
111-13,116,120-21, 140,179,189,
191;policies of Obregón,7,14, F,32-
34,36-37,50, n4, 120, 148,201;poli­
cies of Ramírez, n4, u8-19,120;poli­
cies of Salinas,223-24,226,231,283112;
policies of Sánchez Pineda,114,II7-18,
120,151-52, 173. See a/so ejidos
La Piedad, 67,92,roo,183
Lara y Torres, Leopoldo (bishop of
Tacámbaro),37,164, 2721119
La Tareta hacienda, 200-201
316 Index
Law 62,169-70
Law of Yacant Lands,71
Lazcano,Miguel,ro1
League for the National Defense of
Religious Frcedom. See LNDLR
Lemus,Tocuato,92
Lenin,33
Leo xm,158, 164
Ley Calles,167-68
Ley Lerdo,70,74
liberalism: as anticlerical, 89,160, 166-69;
and class, ro-u, 83, 89; clefinition of,
32, 252n27; equality in,69, 70, 85;
freeclom of expression in, 69,70; incli­
viclualism in, 10-II, 46, 69, 70,87;
among lanclowners,11,22,70,89,103,
107,113;market relations in,ro-u,
69, 81,83,89,103;popular liberalism,
22-23; prívate property in,11,22,32,
46,69,70,74-75,81,83,87, 89,92,
103; revolutionary liberalism,22-23,
69-73,74,191
Liga ele Comunidades y Sindicatos Agraris­
tas ele Michoacán. See Tapia,Primo
LNC (Liga Nacional de Campesinos),26,
119-20
LNDLR (Liga Nacional Defensora de la
Libertad Religiosa),155,157, 168,184,
185
Local Agrarian Commission. See CLA
Lombarclía hacienda,117
López Leco,Casimiro,65,130
Madero,Francisco l.,50,62-63,64,65,
69, 7� 91,130,139
Madrigal,Epifanio,186-87
Madrigal,Juan,65
Magaña,Gildardo,26
MaUon, Florencia,9
Manero,Amonio,73
Marcos,1,238
Márquez de la Mora,Antonio,163,164
Marxism, 28,33,192,2591116. See a/so
communisrs, communism
Masaryk, T homas,2591116
massacres: Ciudad Hidalgo (1926),168-
69,170;Morelia (1921), ro4-7;Opopeo
(1921),101-3,104,107; Zirácuaro
(1926),170
Maximato,the,34
mediarion. See brokerage
memories: of Mexican Revolurion, 13, 28,
50-51,78-79;of rhe Porfiriaro, 13,29,
50-51, 78-79
Méndez,Marcos V., 139
Mendoza,Prudencio, 174, 177
Mercadeo, Arisreo, 63-64
Meseta Tarasca, 49,55,108,128,157,
238
mestizos,27, 46,52-54,67,139-40,185,
212,25rn14,2681182,2851122
Mexican Carholic Apostolic Church,167
Mexican Commu11ist Party,120,206
Mexican Federario11 of Labor. See CTM
Mexican Liberal Party,74
Mexican Regional Federarion of Labor.
See CROM
Mexican Revolution,62-69,124;Co11sti­
tutionalists during,2,7,31,50,63,64,
65,73,74,91,147-48,253n4,257 1169,
258n94;federal army during,62,64,91;
historiography of,7; land reform as issue
in, 47-51,73-75, 147-49, 233,234;
memories of,13,28,50 -51,78-79;in
Michoacán,26-27,61,62,63-69;re­
lationship ro campesino iclentity,1-2,
4,19,20,21,25,30,43,127, 147-48,
224-25; Zapatistas during,22-23,48,
63, 64,65,74,91,130,139,204,216,
2581194. See a/so Constitution of 1917
Mexico Ciry,3 1
Meyer,Jean,8
milirary revolts: De la Huerra/Estrada
(1924),116,117, 118,130,141,172,
176;Escobar (1929),35,183;Obregón
(1920),3l,90
milicias. See agraristas, agrarista militias
Mincz,Sidney,4
Miraculous Christ of San Juan
Parangaricutiro,159, 175
Miranda,Elías,205,266n59
Miranda,Juan,283nro8
modernity,127,234
Malina,Ladislao,101-3,107,108,109-
10,176,177,180,201,202
Malina Encíquez, Andrés, 26,74,75,
25111119,14,253114
Mora Tovar,Luis,u6,194-95
Morelia,53,58,70,94,104-7,11J,119,
156,161,175-76,214, 273n34
Nlorelos,22-23,26,31,32,47,62,63,
65,224,229,2851125
Morelos,José María,179
Moreno,José,2681179
Moreno, Lamberto,205
Morones,Luis, 34
Morrow,Dwight,185
Mouffe, Chanta!, 259nr6
Múgica,Francisco J.: anticlerical policies,
83, 88-89,93-94,9 5, 109, IIl; atti-
tudes toward rural pcople,6, 10,13-14,
232;class srruggle ideology of,37,78,
82-90,92,95,98,104-5, n1;early life,
90,91; educarion policies,27,82,85-86,
87, 89,90,93-94,103-4,113,121,189;
elecrion of, 80-82;and federal army,94,
95,99,102,103,109,111;as governor
of Michoacán, 6,13-14,17,27,28,78,
82-90,91-93,95-111,116,119,120-
21,140,149,179,200,262n84;land
reform policies,13-14,17,27,82,85-
87, 90,91,92-93,95-104, 109-10,
111-13,rr6,120-21,140,179,189,
191;legacy of,1u-13;as member of the
1916-1917 Consrirutional Convention,
37, 75,91; during Mexican Revolurion,
37,73,75,91,253114; opposirion ro,82,
83,93-95, ro4-u; relarionship wirh
Aguilar,96-98; relarionship with Cár­
denas,2,80, 144,212,226-27; relation­
ship wirh Estrada,94, ro7,109,uo,
n6; relationship wirh de la Huerta,82,
94, rr6; relarionship with Obregón,14,
82,90,93,94-95,103,107,108-9,
no -II, n6-r7;relarionship with
Tapia,117-18; relarions wirh agraristas,
13-14,95-98,99-ro3,107,IlI,112,
232,278n21;raxarion policies,92-93,
103
Múgica Martinez,Jesús, 203-4,2661159
mule skinners, 199
Muñoz Cota,José,214
Murillo,Agustín, 283nro8
Mussolini,Benito,33
Nahuarzén,128
Nájera,J. Guadalupe,r32-33,267n59
Naranja, 38,roo,111,122,128,142-43,
173,178, r97,216,220,221,2681179
Narional Agrarian Commission, 77,
258nror
Nacional Confederarion of Campesinos.
See CNC
National League of Campesinos . See LNC
Nacional Revolurionary Parry. See PNR
narionalism, 9, 27rn9;Carholic
nationalism,14, 37-38, 157-71
Navarette, Antonio,69-70
Navarro Origel, Ignacio, 154,155,185-86
Navarro Origel,Luis,154
Negrete,Jesús,2651122
newspapers,13, 84-85,109,251119
Novick,Perer,2541112
Nueva Italia hacienda,67,198-99
Nugent,Daniel,24
Oaxaca,48, 168,224
Obregón,Alvaro: anticlerical policies,158,
Index 317
166-67; assassination of,183; educarion
policies, 36-37,146; labor policies, 31,
32-34,36-37; land reforrn policies,7,
14, 31,32-34, 36-37,50,114,120,
148,201;liberalism of,32,94,191;
during Mexican Revolution,63, 130,
2571169;populism of,31-32,33-34,
36-37,42,69; relationship wirh Car­
ranza,3r,90, 94;relarionship wirh
Múgica, 14,82,90, 93,94-95,103,
107,108-9, 110-rr, 116-17;relarion­
ship wirh Sánchez Pineda,117
Office of Indian Affairs,92
Opopeo,100-103,104,107,128,173,
178,180
Orozco,José Clemente,1
Ortega,Melchor,107
Ortiz Lazcano, Luis,102-3
Orriz Rubio,Pascual,92, 94
Othón Núñez y Zárate,José (Bishop of
Zamora),277n-7
Oromís,40 -41,52,96-98,128
Our Farher of Araró,r 59
Palacios, Guillermo,3
Palomares Quiroz,José,205
Palomar y Yizcarra,Miguel,164
Palomino,Anselmo,2671159
Panindícuaro,109-10,129,2731134
Parácuaro,r32
Partido Agrarista Revolucionario. See
Revolurionary Agrarista Party
Partido Liberal Mexicano,25rn17
Party of rhe Mexican Revolurion. See PRM
Párzcuaro,102,107,128,156,180, 200
Paz, Octavio, I,2
Pénjamo,2731134
peons. See hacienda laborers
Pérez Díaz, Virginia,284 1122
Plan of Ay ala,22-23
Plan of Gradalupe,91
PNR (Partido Nacional Revolucionario),
34,35,126,192-93,217,218, 227-28,
277118
polirical supervisors (jefes políticos), 124
politicians: attitudes toward campesino
idenriry,1-2,3,5,6,8,9, ro,23-24;
attirudes rowarcl rural people,r-2,3,6,
8,9, ro,13,14-15,22,23-24,36-37,
38-39,82-87,188-89;educarion back­
ground of, 2661159;relations wirh agra­
ristas,3,5,6,7-8,ro,13-15,27,31,
32-34,36,38-39,41-42,95-98,99-
103,107,IIl,112,125-26,130-31,
171-73,177,182-83,188-94,195-96,
212,227,232-33,238,239-41,2781121;

318 Index
relations wirh caciques,125-26, r 41,
147-49,171-73, 182-83,190, r95-96,
197-200,204-5,212,214,220,226,
227,232-33. See a/so populism
population growth, 49
populism, 23-24,41-43, 90, 119, 120,
229;of Calles,33-34,36-37,42,69;
of Cárdenas,28,42-43,192-93,195-
96,226-27,284115;of Obregón, 31-
32,33-34,36-37,42, 69. See a/so
poliricians
Porfiriato,the: Catholic Church during,
72,73;científicos during, 73,2821178;
eco11omic development during, 70-71,
72-73;loss of village lands duri11g,7,
13,22,29,47-48,49,50-p,64,65,
71-72,78,86,233; memories of,13,
29, 50-51, 78-79;political supervisors
(jefes políticos) duri11g,124
Portes Gil,Emilio,183,185,189
poverty,85,230;of indigenous people,
188,2851122; relationship to campesino
identity,1,23,25,36,78,233, 234,
238,240, 2851122. See a/so wealth,
distribution of
Prado, Alberto, 139, 143
Prado, Elíseo,139
Prado,Ernesto,122-23,130,140-41,
142,151,212,232-33;relationship
with Cárdenas, r41,144,196-97, 214,
2781121
Prado,Isaac, r 39
Prado family cacicazgo, 122-23, 138-44,
151,2n, 2781121. See a/so La Cañada
Presa de Herera, 2731134
priesrs,13, 95,185,208,210, 213, 221,
234;authority of,53-54,60-61,88-89,
106-7, 108,135,181;a11d Calles Law,
167-68;during Cristero rebellion,14,
153,183;relations with rural people,
25,37,53-54, 60-61, roo,152-53,
272nr9. See a/so Catholic Clrnrch
PRI (lnstitutional Revolutio11ary Parry),
228
PRM (Partido de la Revolución Mexicana),
228,230
property,privare,24,76,77,86-87, 93,
95, ro� 112, 157,259n15;deknded
by Carholic Church,14,41,83,87-88,
158, 163,r66; in liberalism, n,22,32,
46,69,70,74-75,81,83,87,89,92,
103
Protesranrism, 54,129,135
Public Education,Department of. See SEP
Public Employees' Unio11,194-95
Puebla (city),68
"""'
Puebla (srate),26
Puig Casasuranc,José Manuel, r31
pulque. See alcohol
Purépechas,40-41,49,52,65,128, 156,
157, 175,215,241;in La Cañada,138-
44;in Opopeo,100-103;in Zurumú­
taro,200-205
Purépero,2731134
Purnell,Je11nie,27rn6
Puruá11diro,273n34
Querétaro (state), 229
Raby,David,2671162
railroads, 49-50
Ramírez,Enrique,141,169-70,17 1 ,177,
182;land reform policies, n4,n8-19,
120
Ramírez,Félix C.,2671159
rancheros,58-60,65-66,27711104;during
Crisrero rebellion,14,153,154-55,156,
r74,176-77,185,186;opposition to
la11d reform among,24-25,59,102,
103,107-8,111,151,153,156-57,201
Rappaport,Joa11ne,79
Regalado,Miguel "de la Trinidad," 28,65,
130,135, 2681174
Rentería Luviano,José,65
representatives. See communiry
representatives
Rernm novarum, 158,164
respect,29,121-24,130-31,2651122
revolts. See military revolts
Revolmionary Agrarista Party, 125,126
Revolutio11ary Labor Co11federation of
Michoacá11. See CRMDT
Reyes Orozco,José,221
Rico,jesús, 219
ritual drinki11g, 209. See a/so alcohol;
tempera11ce
Riva Palacio,Carlos,126
Rivera,Diego, r
Rodríguez,Abelardo,219
Rodríguez,Isabel, r 50
Rodríguez Carbajal,Evangeli11a, 133-34
Romero Flores,Jesús,2571169,2671159
Rouaix,Pastor,75,253114
Ruiz y Flores,Leopoldo (archbishop of
Michoacán),72, 154, 160-61, 168,
169-70,183,185
rural peoe!_e,p-56;attitudes of politicians
roward,1-2,3,6,8,9, ro,13-15,22,
23-24,36-37,38-39,82-87,188-89,
224, 232,239-41,284115;attitudes
toward agrarismo among,8,9-10,11-
12, 15,16-17,19-21,24-25,30-31,
43-45,83,87,95-96,97-98,104,112-
13,11 5,126-27,145-46,157,224-26,
232-38; atticudes roward land reform
amo11g,16-17, 19-20,27,40-41,42-
43,59-60,92,95-98,100-103,112-13,
124-25,140,145, r47-48,156-58,171,
218;attirudes toward liberalism among,
22-23;attirudes toward religion among,
30,36,37,52-54,60 -61,72, roo,145,
166,167,171-73, 231;attirudes toward
secular education among,132, 135-38,
r45, 150-51, 179,181,202,208,210;
belief in malevolent spirits (duendes)
amo11g,52;cabildos among,54-55,122,
128;cargo system among,54,121,128,
139, 142,143;debt peonage among,48,
58;diseases amo11g, 51, 67-68; inter­
village rivalries amo11g,30,55,98,99,
137-38,157,202;during 19th century,
21-22; poverty of, 1,23,25,36,78,85,
188,230,233,234,238,240,2851122;
telations wirh landowners,21-22,27,
29,37, 38,48-49,50-51,55-56,60-
61,77-78,82-85, 89,98-99,101-3,
ro9-10, 147,151,179,181-82, 183,
200-202,213,222,229-31,234,
2561153; relarions with priests,25,37,
53-54, 60-61, roo,152-53,2721119;
relations with schoolreachers, 9, 93,
115-16,123,132,135-38,145,14�
179, 181, 1 88,202,203-4,205-11,
2681179;village fiestas,38,52,54,58,
60,142, 143. See a/so campesino iden­
tity; indige11ous people
rural police (rurales), 64, 73
Russian Revolution,33, 69,192
Sáenz,Moisés,133, 136,141,142, 211,
2821178
Sahuayo,169,174
saint's day celebrations. See village fiestas
Salinas de Gortari, Carlos,223-24,226
San Bartola,2731134
Sánchez, Gertrudis,64
Sánchez Pineda, Sidro11io, 140-41; educa­
rio11 policies, 131; land reform policies,
114, LI7-18,120, 151-52,173
San José de Gracia, 174-75
San Juan Parangaricmiro, 159,175
San Luis Potosí, u9,183, r85
Santa Bárbara, 175-76
Santiago Tangamandapio, 177
Santiaguillo hacienda,149
Sanvicente,Sebastián,2621176
school inspecrors, 132-33,135, 138,
203-4,2661159
fndex 319
schoolteachers, ro,121, IJ 1-38, 141,
149-50,190,234, 2661159, 2671162,
2801156; actitudes toward land reform
among, 24,28-29, 113,115,137-38,
147,225; relarions with caciques,29,
126,137,138,181,203-4,2681179;
relations wirh rural people,9,93, n5-
16,123,132,135-38,145,146, 1 79,
181,188,202, 203-4,205-11, 2681179.
See a/so village revolutionaries
Schryer, Frans,41, 58-59
Seaman,Frank, 2621176
Seaman,Narasha,2621176
SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública),93,
121,131,15� 189,209,211
Serrato, Benigno, 217-22,28211101
Serrato,Juana,122
sharecroppers,4,22,49,58,65-66,°84,
roo,102,234
Silva,Miguel, 64
Silva Herzog,jesús,7
Slade, Santiago,191
Social Carholicism, 10,158-59, 192,236
Socialist Party of Michoacán, 28, 81,92,
131,2591115
Solórza110,José,195,204-5
Sonora (state),47, 62
Sonaran presidents. See Calles, Plmarco
Elías; Obregón, Alvaro
Sorelo, Salvador,52,129, 135,141,145,
208,215
Soto Reyes,Ernesto, 217
Soviet Un ion,33,69,192
sports, r33,207
srrikes, 34,52, 61,120,129, 165,199
Tabasco, 90,120,154, 192
Tacámbaro, 108, 109,117, 164
Talavera,Pedro, 130,200-205,212,214
Tamaulipas,26,90,II9
Tanahuato,2731134
Tanaquillo,130
Tancítaro,155
Tannenbaum, Frank,7
Tapia, Primo,28,114,116,117-18, 120,
122-23,124-25,129,142-43,151-52,
176, 197;death of, II9, 143, 172
Tapia Santamaría,Jesús,38
Tarascans. See Purépechas
Tarejero, 130,147-48
Taretan,cornmunity of, 198,210
Tarera11 hacienda, 204-5
Tejeda, Adalberto,n9,120,191
temperance movemenr, 203,206-7,209,
220-21. See a/so alcohol; ritual drinking
Tepeto11go hacienda, 181
320 Index
Tercero,Manuel,54-55
Thompson,E. P.,25on7
tiendas de raya (company stores),58
tierra caliente. See hotlands
Tingambato,54-55, I28
Tiríndaro, I52,2I6,22I
Tiripetío, I97
Turner,John Kenneth,74
Tzintzún,Felipe,101,I02, 103
Tzintzuntzan,202,210
unions: anarchist unions,39; campesino
unions,20,24, 28,39; Catholic,ro,
I64-65,r66;and Constitution of 19I7,
4, 43; of eleccricians,194, 278m4;of
hacienda laborees,26,28,33, 42, 6I,
II9, 120, 190, 195, 197-99, 202, 204-5,
217,226; labor policies of Calles, 32-
34,35, 36-37,226;labor policies of
Cárdenas,42, 190-91,194-9 5; labor
policies of Obregón, 31, 32-34, 36-37;
of miners, 194;of public employees,
194-95; strikes by,34,52,6r,120, I29,
165, 199;unionizacion by CRMDT,
190-91, 194-95, 197-99, 204-5.See
a/so CROM
United States: Great Depression in,33;
influenza pandemic in,68; during
Mexican Revolution,63
University of Michoacán (Universidad Mi­
choacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo),94
Uruapan, 128,165,169,175,195,198
Vaca Solorio, Rafael, 198,199,204-5,
212,215
Vasconcelos,José,90,13 r
Vásquez,Isidro,283nro8
Vásquez Alcalá,José, 101-2
Vaughn,Mary Kay,9
Veracruz (state),26,31,47,90, 119, 120,
191,229
Villa,Francisco "P ancho," 63, 64, 66,74,
2571169, 258n94,27011113
village fiestas,38,52.,54,58,60, 142,143
1 1111111111111 I I
3 9 O 5 O 7 9 9 O 4 3 Q
village homcguards. See agraristas,
agrarista militias
village lands. See communal lands
village revolutionaries,3, 10, 13,24,28-31,
39-40,78, 114-16,146-53,225;as
cultural brokcrs,29-30, n5; travel to
che United States by,14,29,128,I29,
135. See a/so caciques;schoolteachers
Villa Jiménez,148,273n34
Virgin ofGuadalupe,53,105
wage labor,4,55, 84,237
wealth,discribution of, 9, 41,85,88,I58-
59, I63. See a/so poverty
white guards (guardias blancas). See haci­
enda paramilitaries
Wilson,Henry Lane,63
women,6,207,214,219,220-21,235-
36;Women's Cooperative of Campe­
sinas,235. See a/so temperance
movement
workers, industrial, 6, 26,33,194
Yaquis, 47
Yucatán,48,90, 119,120,191,229
Yurécuaro, 219
Zacapu,58,67,114, 119-20,156,
176-77, 178,215-16,221,2731 134
Zacatescas,I68
Zamora, 38,58, 118, 138, 140, I41,162,
168, 183,197,199,2I9, 233,2571169
Zamora,Gabriel,198-99
Zapata,Emiliano,1, 22-23,48,63,64,
65, 74,91, 130, r9r,204,216,223,
229,25811 94
Zapatistas (neo-Zapatistas in Chiapas),1,
I2,224, 237-38
Zavala Cisneros,José,Io9-10,129
Zinapécuaro,2731134
Zi�cuaro,16-17,92,96, 124,125,126,
128,133,170,178,197,198,2571169
Zurumútaro, 59-60, 109,128,130, 173,
178, 200-205, 220,238,239