The sugar hacienda of the Marqueses del Valle

160 Pages·16.365 MB·English

by  Ward J Barrett

The
SUGAR HACIENDA of the
MARQUESES DEL VALLE
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The
SUGAR HACIENDA of the
MARQUESES DEL VALLE
WARD BARRETT
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, Minneapolis
© Copyright 1970 by the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Printed in the
United States of America at the Lund Press, Minneapolis. Published in Great Britain,
India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press, London, Bombay, and Karachi,
and in Canada by the Copp Clark Publishing Co. Limited, Toronto
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-110146
ISBN 0-8166-0565-3
The three illustrations of eighteenth-century sugar mills which appear between pages
56 and 57 were taken from Diderot's Encyclopedic, Volume 1 (Paris, 1762),
in the holding of the Wilson Library, University of Minnesota.
the results of the collective, cumulative experience and
insight of the persons associated with this plantation
Preface
had been. The records did show, however, that the
Cortes plantation differed markedly from others in re-
spect of the continuity of ownership it experienced,
since for nearly four centuries — from about 1535 until
this century — it remained in the hands of the heirs and
descendents of the Conqueror of New Spain. By con-
trast, other mills exhibited considerable turnover in
MANY years ago, while reading Sandoval's work La ownership, excepting mills owned by religious orders;
industria del azucar en Nueva Espana, it became ap- none of the latter, however, were started so early as the
parent to me that the continuity of his account de- Cortes mill. Furthermore, this plantation was never en-
pended heavily on the records of a single mill estab- cumbered by the mortgages and obligations that bur-
lished by Hernan Cortes about 1535.1 had just finished dened most of the rest of the sugar haciendas of New
a short essay, "Caribbean Sugar-Production Standards Spain, a feature that began to be important in the sev-
in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," and in enteenth century.
the course of doing the research on which it was based Since my major aim, after discovering what kind of
I had been impressed by the lack of published informa- information the Cortes records could be made to yield,
tion concerning Spanish colonial plantations. Not only was to emphasize the technological and managerial as-
were no handbooks available, of the sort published in pects of the plantation, its special qualities did not loom
plenty in France and England, and which describe both very important apart from the fact that they had led
plantation management and the general state of the to the collection of an abundance of accessible records.
industry, but neither were there any summaries of in- I decided early in the course of the investigation to pay
dividual plantations in New Spain. Since Sandoval's little attention in this work to the problems that beset
notes suggested that perhaps the Cortes records were other mills and even the industry itself, leaving these
full enough to yield the kind of information that even- matters to a future work that will deal with the histori-
tually might contribute to a comparative study of sugar cal geography of the industry in Morelos. In addition,
plantations, I decided to investigate. As it turned out, I decided to rely on the fact that Sandoval's work de-
the records are more than adequate in some respects scribed fairly fully the regulations pertaining to the in-
and deficient in others. dustry, if not their effects, leaving these as well to a
As I became familiar with the records of other mills later work. These official regulations were not numer-
in the Cuernavaca region, it also became apparent to ous, in any case; only two, the abolishment of Indian
me that the Cortes mill was anomalous in some impor- repartimientos for sugar plantations about 1600, and
tant senses, but not from the point of view of technolo- the prohibition of the sale of molasses to Indians,
gy and management. The plantations of Morelos dif- seemed important to the Cortes mill, and both of these
fered little in these respects, so I used the records pri- have been dealt with below.
marily to see how these plantations were run, and what In respect of sources, I have largely limited myself
to the documents themselves, with the result that the Minnesota, for accepting my very rough sketches of
bibliography of printed works is short and restricted to maps and graphs and producing clear and pleasing re-
those referred to in the text. Although I have consulted sults. The director, Senor J. I. Rubio Mane, and person-
other works that were helpful in various ways, it did nel of the National Archive of Mexico have been unfail-
not seem to me necessary to list all of them. ingly helpful. Woodrow Borah and Howard Cline were
Part of this research was supported by small grants kind enough to encourage me in the initial stages of this
from the American Philosophical Society and the Grad- work, and I want to thank them for doing so. The care-
uate School of the University of Minnesota, which cov- ful editing of the University of Minnesota Press has
ered some of the costs of microfilm and field study in greatly improved this book.
Morelos. In addition, I am indebted to Mrs. Patricia W.J.B.
Kangel Burwood, of the Cartographic Laboratory of
the Department of Geography at the University of Minneapolis, July 1969
K. INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACCOUNTING
AND OTHER PRACTICES 115
Table of Contents
F. FORM OF PLANTATION ACCOUNTS 116
G. MAYORDOMOS, DISPENSORES, AND
PURGADORES 118
H. DIVERSIFICATION OF PRODUCTION
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 121
i. INTRODUCTION 3
TABLES 127
ii. THE CORTES ESTATE 9
GLOSSARY 136
m. LEASING AND ADMINISTERING
THE PLANTATION 18 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DOCUMENTS AND
PRINTED SOURCES 137
iv. THE ACQUISITION OF LAND AND
WATER 25 INDEX 141
v. FIELD MANAGEMENT AND YIELDS 40
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
vi. SUGARMAKING TECHNIQUES AND
1. The Cortes Estate 8
EQUIPMENT 50
vii. LIVESTOCK AND SUPPLIES 65 2. Population change in Morelos 10
viii. LABOR 74 3. Changes in commodity prices and productivity
at the Cortes plantation 19
ix. COSTS AND PRODUCTIVITY OF
LABOR 93 4. Map of the environs of San Antonio Atlacomulco 27
x. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 103
5. Map of San Antonio Atlacomulco, ca. 1850 33
Appendixes 6. Water need, planting costs, and irrigation costs 41
A. POPULATION CHANGE IN MORELOS 109
7. Plan of irrigation ditches 43
B. LESSEES OF THE PLANTATION 110
8. Planting regime at the hacienda, 1567-1821 46
c. A RENTAL AGREEMENT 113
9. Plan of the mill in 1824 (not to scale) 51
D. FIELD MEASUREMENT, SIZE, AND
SHAPE 113 10. Plan of the mill, ca. 1910 52
Between pages 56 and 57 15. Construction of kettles used at the Cortes mill 63
11. Eighteenth-century animal-driven and water-driven
16.Prices and numbers of iivestock 68
mills
17. Vital statistics of the slave population 80
12. Eighteenth-century boiling-house
18. Value of slaves in relation to age 83
13. Eighteenth-century purgery
19. Inputs of various kinds of fieldwork, 1768-1831 102
14. Reproduction of seventeenth-century sugar
account 20. Weekly account, 1-8 January 1785 117
The
SUGAR HACIENDA of the
MARQUESES DELVALLE