In keeping with the perspective alluded to in its title, this issue of Relaciones:

Transcription

1 PRESENTATION Elites, Caciques and Peasants in regional history Conrado Hernández López 1 In keeping with the perspective alluded to in its title, this issue of Relaciones: Estudios de Historia y Sociedad is concerned with elucidating and disseminating advances in studies related to the topic Elites, Caciques and Peasants in Regional History. What unifies the issue as it follows a chronological sequence from the Classic Period at Teotihuacán up to 20 th -century Mexico, is its focus on the modalities of the expansion of political power and the influence that such power has exercised upon the structuring of social relations, an area in which it makes deep excisions and leads to highly variable forms of interaction. These forms find expression in influences that may be accepted voluntarily or imposed coercively, or through re-accommodations and expressions of resistance that appear in such processes. In other words, the exercise of, and participation in, political power, take on meaning by responding to a concrete consciousness and proposal given that they become constituted as a communitarian institutionalization in the sphere of ends and laws, as a symbolic and ritual affirmation. Thus, the Thematic Section begins with an analysis of symbols and iconographic motifs as manifestations of the ideological sphere of individuals and as vehicles for the legitimization of a political hierarchy. In addition, it documents changes and continuities in the distribution and transmission of the power quotas that appear in studies of traditional institutions such as the cacicazgo associated with the indigenous nobility during its evolution from the 16 th to the 19 th century. Moreover, given that the mantle of political power guarantees stability, the entrepreneur Francisco Martínez Negrete the focus of our second article carefully cultivated and nurtured the link between business and politics, because the latter provided the security, confidence and information necessary for an economic expansion based on networks of family and ritual co-parenthood (compradrazgo). The final article analyzes the historical development of an ejido in the Huasteca potosina that was created in the context of the cardenista agrarian reform and the struggle of ejidatarios against hacendados and rancheros; thus making a contribution to the study of one of the central problems

2 of 20 th -century Mexican political history. As these three articles all focus on welldefined agents (elites, families, groups), a brief overview of their respective contexts is needed. In the article Agency and Intra-elite Relations in the Cuitzeo Basin during the Classic Period, Agapi Filini analyzes the ideological influence of the grand metropolis of Teotihuacán and how it made its presence felt in the Cuitzeo Basin of northern Michoacán. The author understands symbolic structure as the totality of ritual practices, ideas and norms that define the position of individuals in a specific cultural context and determine the number of options for action that they may have. Artifacts have an active role to play, that is, in the absence of the actors of the symbolic structure. In the Classic Period, Teotihuacán whose success was due to its efficacious use of power penetrated the entire regional structure of prestige and thus canalized certain social mechanisms that reinforced or restricted the role of some individuals, although there were contrasts with the hybrid symbolic structures of far-off regions. Evidence from the Cuitzeo Basin shows that imported elements went through a process of acculturation and were only gradually incorporated into the local symbolic industry. Hence, there is some doubt as to whether or not the absence of a complete Teotihuacán language and the large-scale adoption of Teotihuacán motifs correspond to the reception of new ideas or to the coercive imposition of the political ideal of that metropolis. The author, however, emphasizes that The adoption of changes in ceremonies, if not imposed coercively, must accord with the economic and political interests of several ranked groupings; otherwise it will not be successful. The objective is to legitimize established political hierarchies. The hereditary right to participate in the exercise of power is in the center of the juridical dispute analyzed in detail in the essay I Am a Descendant of don Juan Istolinque y Guzmán: The Cacicazgo of Coyoacán in the 18 th Century, by Patricia Cruz Pazos, Francisco M. Gil García and José Luis de Rojas, who present analyses and observations on the contents of an important document (based on tables, genealogies and iconographic descriptions) that they found in the Archives of the Real Cancillería de Valladolid in Spain, and which deals with the colonial indigenous nobility. As the authors indicate, this discovery led to others of no less importance concerning the cacicazgo of Coyoacán, which show that it is necessary to undertake new comparative studies of different situations and places.

3 Such recent documental discoveries in this field constitute a contribution to our knowledge as it relates to the development of the indigenous nobility in colonial times which, far from what was once believed, did not die out but in reality multiplied. Though it is true that certain noble families disappeared, others emerged: There were changes in the quotas of power in several places, and it is necessary to study each case. Disputes over succession indicate the importance of the ranks and positions claimed by the descendants of the pre- Hispanic lords by virtue of lineage, and provide information that uncovers the role of the nobility in the 18 th century, indicating how it exploited its antecedents and identifying what it hoped to achieve. In her essay, Family, Individuals and Social Networks in the Guadalajara Region (Mexico): The Martínez Negrete Family in the 19 th Century, Gladys Lizama Silva sets out from the proposal that studying kinship links can allow us to observe how the integration of family networks in the 19 th century grew into networks of merchants and entrepreneurs, and reveal the changes they went through. The expansion of such networks required capital, partners, information and loyal collaborators in other geographical areas. Here, the author undertakes a historical reconstruction of the social networks of kinship and ritual compradrazgo that Francisco Martínez Negrete father and son created, their economic-juridical support network, the evolution of their economic activities, and their influence in the regional space. This process was designed to build up the trust that is indispensable in the face of the risks that mercantile and entrepreneurial activities run in a tumultuous epoch: [forming] something like the platform of security that allowed business to proceed. According to the author, the system of relationships that the Martínez Negrete family generated in the 19 th century may be representative of those that other local merchants and entrepreneurs of Spanish origin created in the context of regional economic development. Although the reconstruction of other such networks is lacking, it seems clear that this kinship-based network gave rise to another one of an economic nature in which marriage strategies were used as a means of forging relationships that fostered the development of commercial activities. The padrinazgo network reveals another strategy: in the father s case, to procure new relationships and consolidate existing ones with regional political and economic powers; and, in that of the son, to deepen [the relationships] of intra-family kinship.

4 Finally, in Agrarian Conflicts and Land Tenure in the Huasteca: The Case of the Ejido La Morena-Tanchcahcín, Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, , Miguel Aguilar Robledo and Patricia Cruz Pasos make a contribution to a still topical area of knowledge: investigating the agrarian history of ejidos in general and of those in the Huasteca potosina in particular. These authors studied changes in land tenure over a period of six decades in the Ejido La Morena- Tanchcahcín, in Aquismón, taking into account the regional and national contexts in which it was created. Curiously, the fact that the peasants did indeed gain access to land did not suffice to make all of them feel that the revolution had done them justice. The authors claim that the uniqueness of this ejido s geographical and historical context explains such aspects as the tenacious struggle by hacendados and rancheros to protect their properties, which in turn influenced the way in which the fight for regional power affected production units and security in the fields, and generated new problems that derived from the implementation of the postrevolutionary agrarian reform program. This history was a success story for most ejidatarios and reveals the strategies employed by the different actors involved (petitioners, authorities, landlords), to achieve their goals. It was Cardenas agrarianism that opened the way for peasants to take possession of the land, although in many cases those acts had no legal justification. In the Documents Section, we offer an valuable contribution to the biography of Alonso Martínez, whose identity still not entirely clear calls for a deeper inquiry. As Francisco Miranda says in his presentation, there is evidence that links this bachiller and, later, doctor, to vice-regal administrations, from that of Luis de Velasco the elder to Luis de Velasco the younger and, especially, to Martín Enríquez. The documents available describe Viceroy Velasco s commission to supply the Legaspi-Urdaneta expedition, his role in founding Zamora and Celaya and moving the Episcopal seat from Pátzcuaro to Valladolid, and his testimony entitled Description of Pátzcuaro. Here, we publish documents concerning the Hospital del Amor de Dios de la Veracruz, that Martínez founded in 1557, when he held the position of alcalde mayor. This hospital with its simple regulations was an early institution independent of ecclesiastical authority that was maintained primarily through the cooperation of its users, teachers and ships captains, as its purpose was to attend the personnel on ships involved in the race to the Indies. The organization of this social project, based on the solidarity of the interested parties, reveals a society that was searching for a lay

5 structure that would announce, in the author s words, new airs of secularization. An original initiative that our face-to-face encounter with bachiller Martínez invites us to discover. Finally, the General Section presents an article by Juan Gómez-Quiñones entitled Antonio Caso: Paradoxes of a Subversive Modernist, a detailed analysis of the works of the Mexican philosopher Antonio Caso. The author considers that Caso is required reading for the history of knowledge in the first half of the 20 th century, because of his introduction, criticism and synthesis of ideas of modern philosophy. He notes that Caso announced the premises of a more vital relationship between individuals and society and between the national and the universal, and followed this relationship from its earliest references, emphasizing the didactics that he deemed necessary: intellectual criticism and skepticism. Caso began from an ethical perspective the good before turning to agnostic skepticism: criticism. The author emphasizes that he privileged the spiritual conscience above academic study; [as] valuable knowledge relates to, and intertwines with, perceptions of beauty and good. Caso called his philosophy a Christian cosmovision ; that is, a religious and philosophical point of view, especially with respect to the relationship of the individual to the divine; one historically-rooted in certain ways of judging human beings and their relationships with others. Though this modernist advocated personal faith and underlined the value of the individual, in the conclusion to his rigorous analysis the author emphasizes that his defense of sacrifice and altruism and of abnegation and service is certainly a current among Mexicans, though not an academic one but, rather, one with a populist hue and secular and spiritual resonances. In this issue, in addition to responding to the authors call to probe more deeply in our studies, Relaciones also attempts to introduce new elements that will widen the horizons and objectives of the space for dialogue and debate that in the fields of the Social Sciences and Humanities. Thus, without further ado, we place this issue at the consideration and good sense of our reading public. Traducción al inglés de Paul C. Kersey Johnson