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Front dust jacket cover
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The Haciendas of Mexico
The Haciendas of Mexico
An Artist's Record
PAUL ALEXANDER BARTLETT
Foreword by James A. Michener
Introduction by Gisela von Wobeser
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO
Copyright © 1990 by the University Press of Colorado, Niwot, CO 80544
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
First Edition
The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State College, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Mesa State College, Metropolitan State College, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, University of Southern Colorado, and Western State College.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.
ANSI Z39.48-1984
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bartlett, Paul Alexander.
The haciendas of Mexico: an artist's record/Paul Alexander Bartlett; foreword by James A. Michener, Introduction by Gisela von Wobeser.—1st ed. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-807801-205-x (alk. paper)
1. Bartlett, Paul Alexander. 2. Haciendas in art. 3. Haciendas—Mexico—Pictorial works. I. Title.
N6537.B2264A4 1989 728.8'0972—dc20 89-24922
Manufactured in the United States of America
*********
2015 PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITION
The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's Record, a copyrighted work, originally published by the University Press of Colorado, is now out-of-print. The University Press of Colorado has released all rights to the book to the author's literary executor, Steven James Bartlett, who has decided to make the book available as an open access publication, freely available to readers through Project Gutenberg under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the copyright holder's written permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
Dedicated to my son, Steven,
who was my compañero on many hacienda trips.
This book would not exist without his help.
Contents
[Foreword]
by James A. Michener
[Introduction]
by Gisela von Wobeser
II. [Through the Eyes of Hacienda Visitors]
III. [Hacienda Life]
IV. [Fiestas]
V. [Education]
VI. [The Revolution]
VII. [Mexico Since the Revolution]
Illustrations
[ Hacienda de Colonia Campo, Chihuahua: residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Buena Vista, Jalisco: well-preserved residence and patio. ]
[ Hacienda de San Felipe, Oaxaca: 19th-century residence, patio fountain. ]
[ Hacienda de Encero, Veracruz: church, 1799. ]
[ Hacienda de Bledos, San Luis Potosí: map of the hacienda. ]
[ Hacienda de Endo, Sonora: residence, stable below. ]
[ Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: patio fountain. ]
[ Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: figure on 1788 church wall. ]
[ Hacienda de Holactún, Yucatán: chapel and residence. ]
[ Hacienda El Pópulo, Puebla: residence with tiled façade. ]
[ Hacienda de Santana, Hildago: residence and chapel. ]
[ Hacienda de Teya, Yucatán: residence, 1700. ]
[ Hacienda de Leoncito, Guanajuato: 16th-century chapel. ]
[ Hacienda de San José, D.F.: rococo façade of residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Bledos, San Luis Potosí: coat-of-arms. ]
[ Hacienda de Calderón, Guanajuato: bronze bell on residence, 1838. ]
[ Hacienda de Ciénega de Mata, Jalisco: 16th-century church ]
[ Hacienda de Cabezón, Jalisco: chapel Virgin; her elaborate wardrobe valued at $50,000. ]
[ Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: floor plan of residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: handpainted wall fresco in bedroom of ruined residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: mural, one of fourteen panels on veranda wall of residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Xcanatún, Yucatán: one of a series of gold wall motifs around chapel walls. ]
[ Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo, Puebla: florentine armor in residence. ]
[ Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo, Puebla: pistol and brand of hacienda. ]
[ Hacienda de San Francisco, Jalisco: residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: narrow-gauge railway passenger car drawn by mule or horse. ]
[ Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: century-old carriage. ]
[ Hacienda cattle brands, state of Jalisco. ]
[ Hacienda de Cedra, Jalisco: stone cross to one side of hacienda chapel, 8 feet tall. ]
[ Hacienda de Tabi, Yucatán: early 18th-century church. ]
[ Hacienda de Altillo, Coyoacán, D.F.: pastel of St. Andrew. ]
[ Hacienda de Zapotitán, Jalisco: remains of 1750 residence and mirador, white stuccoed masonry. ]
[ Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: polychrome wood statue, 16th century, 5 feet tall. ]
[ Hacienda San Ignacio, Yucatán: 18th century brass sacristy implements—handbell and Bible holder. ]
[ Hacienda San Ignacio, Yucatán: brass ecclesiastical candle holder. ]
[ Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: cepo (stocks), made of mahogany. ]
[ Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: chapel stairway. ]
[ Hacienda de Bellavista, Jalisco: sugar refinery silo. ]
[ Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: bronze weathervane on residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: stone residence and chapel. ]
[ Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: gate. ]
[ Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: church. ]
[ Hacienda de Aurora, Jalisco: commemorative bridge column dated 1750. ]
[ Hacienda de los Morales, D.F.: patio fountain, 1643. ]
[ Hacienda de Xala, Hidalgo: residence and chapel, 1785. ]
[ Hacienda Pixoy, Yucatán: brick-adobe residence and storage rooms. 18th century, eleven rooms. ]
[ Hacienda de los Ricos, Guanajuato: residence. ]
[ Hacienda de los Ricos, Guanajuato: bullring entry door. ]
[ Hacienda de Yaxche, Yucatán: Virgin, 14 inches high, 17th century. ]
[ Hacienda de San Antonio, Colima: 17th-century chapel and terminus of aqueduct. ]
[ Hacienda San Cayetano, Nayarit: one of a pair of pink ceramic lions at entry to residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Guarache, Michoacán: residence and chapel. Now a government school. ]
[ Hacienda de Petaca, Guanajuato: residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Juana Guerra, Amado Nervo, Durango: millstone. ]
[ Hacienda San Cayetano de Valencia, Guanajuato: church, 1788. ]
[ Hacienda de Juana Guerra, Amado Nervo, Durango: baroque church. ]
[ Hacienda la Gavia, Estado de México: wood figure, 5 feet tall. ]
[ Hacienda de Cocoyoc, Morelos: 16th-century chapel. ]
[ Hacienda de Tikuch, Yucatán: rear view, stairway to second floor residential area ]
[ Hacienda de Chinameca, Morelos: residence and chapel. Emiliano Zapata assassinated here, 1919. ]
[ Hacienda de Canutillo, Durango: Pancho Villa buried here July 23, 1923. ]
[ Hacienda de la Erre, Guanajuato: 1673. Father Miguel Hidalgo began his march from this church. ]
[ Hacienda de Pueblilla, Zempoala, Hidalgo: chapel tower, 1860. ]
[ Hacienda de Tepa-Chica, Hidalgo: chapel, 1864. ]
[ Hacienda la Gavia, Estado de México: carved figure on library door. ]
[ Hacienda de Arenillas, Puebla: chapel gateway. ]
[ Hacienda de Esperanza, D.F.: residence. Cattle stalls on ground floor. ]
[ Hacienda de Águilar, Oaxaca: bas relief, 3 feet x 5 feet, front wall of residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: 19th-century residence. ]
[ Hacienda de los Molinos, Tlaxcala: 16th-century chapel. Cholula pyramid in the distance. ]
[ Hacienda de Caleturia, Puebla: silver door knocker. ]
[ Hacienda de Chichén Itza, Yucatán: church. ]
[ Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: residence. ]
Hacienda cattle brands from various states in Mexico appear at the beginning of each chapter.
Photographs
[ Hacienda Castillo, Jalisco: 18th-century landscape view typical of many haciendas. ]
[ Hacienda de Buena Vista, Jalisco: well-preserved residence and patio. ]
[ Hacienda de San Felipe, Oaxaca: 19th-century residence, patio fountain.]
[ Hacienda Uxmal, Yucatán: main gate. ]
[ Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato. ]
[ Hacienda Petaca, Guanajuato: patio side of main residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: 17th-century defense tower. Note bullet holes. ]
[ Hacienda de Barrera, Guanajuato: residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Cañedo, Jalisco: 19th-century church. ]
[ Hacienda Yaxcopoíl, Yucatán: residence. Note narrow-gauge rail-road car. ]
[ Hacienda de los Morales, D.F.: spinning wheel in residence patio. ]
[ Hacienda de Blanca, Oaxaca: patio. ]
[ Hacienda de Xotla, Puebla: residence patio and oven. ]
[ Hacienda Zapotitán, Jalisco: map on veranda of residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Buena Vista, Jalisco: 18th-century aqueduct. ]
[ Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: 18th-century church ]
[ Hacienda de Yocotepec, Hidalgo: church and stone cross. ]
[ Hacienda de Tenache, Oaxaca: twin bells on roof of residence. ]
[ Hacienda la Calera, Jalisco: second residence on the property, 1890. ]
[ Hacienda de San Antonio, Guanajuato: 18th-century chapel ruin. ]
[ Hacienda Aguilera, Oaxaca: former 19th-century hacienda residence, now university building. ]
[ Hacienda de Matanzas, Jalisco: chapel and residence, chapel date 1750. ]
[ Hacienda los Molinos, Puebla: fortified wall and stairway to tower of 16th-century residence. ]
[ Hacienda de Matanzas, Jalisco: 18th-century chapel, residence, ]
[ Hacienda Quinta Carolina, Chihuahua: main residence. ]
[ Hacienda Mendocina, Puebla: 18th-century guest home on island in small man-made lake. ]
Foreword
James A. Michener
Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Miami
I first became aware of the high artistic merit of Paul Bartlett's work on the classic haciendas of Old Mexico when I came upon an exhibition in Texas in 1968. His drawings, sketches, and photographs evoked so effectively the historic buildings I had known when working in Mexico that I wrote to the architect-artist to inform him of my pleasure.
Subsequently, I saw examples of his devotion to the great haciendas with their strong Mexican-Spanish coloration, and always I enjoyed his reminders of what life in colonial Mexico must have been like for the favored classes.
It is rewarding to renew my acquaintance with this remarkable body of work, for it is a reassuring example of what a lifetime of scholarship can accomplish.
Preface
The haciendas of Mexico have a special appeal for me. They represent a way of life that is now gone—some would say fortunately, since it was often a burdensome and cruel way of life for the peasant workers, a way of life that eventually motivated a revolution and the dissolution of the majority of hacienda landholdings.
Many haciendas can be reached only with difficulty by horse or by foot, by boat or motorcycle or jeep. Their isolation from the culture of Europe, three hundred years ago, impresses the mind with its severity. In their isolation, these estates recall the brave attempts of hacienda families to re-establish cultivated patterns of living in the New World, with fine china and crystal, grand pianos and chapel organs, ornate furnishings, paintings, and tapestries.
For my project, I received no financial rewards. Hence, I made repeated trips to Mexico, each funded by the modest savings accumulated in the United States between visits, with the hacienda project ever in mind.
My wife, Elizabeth encouraged my efforts. She was my mainstay, my constant friend and faithful companion. Our son, Steven, was born in Mexico and was raised in a world punctuated by hacienda visits; he was my compañero on many hacienda trips. The three of us usually returned to Mexico to stay for a year or two at a time.
To find out where haciendas were located in a particular area, I turned to local government officials, owners of village stores, the postman, or the peasant who delivered charcoal on his burro. Mostly, I found the haciendas on random trips, when their archways and rooftops appeared in the distance.
In 1941, when I began this project, few studies of the Mexican hacienda had been made. Only a handful of scholars had visited individual haciendas, and had gained first-hand familiarity with a limited number of them. To this day, with the possible exception of my own work, this is still true. And it is certain to remain true, since many of the haciendas I visited no longer exist. My own interest in that heritage was to re-create the special aura that my visits to more than three hundred haciendas had created. As an artist I felt an enduring affinity with a time that is no more, a heritage and tradition that may be recaptured only, I think, through the medium of art.
This, then, is an attempt to survey the story of the haciendas. It is not a treatise about their economic structure, their political influence, or their historical importance in the establishment of New Spain. Despite the meager records relating to the many individual haciendas, there are excellent studies of regional haciendas in Mexico. The reader will find references to them in the Bibliography.
The text was written to accompany a selection of my hacienda illustrations, including descriptions of hacienda life based on information received from personal contacts with hacienda families and caretakers who could still recall the old days. My impressions and commentary are offered to enable the reader to leave the twentieth century for a while and return to a period when the freshly colonized American continent witnessed the birth, the spread, and eventually the death of a unique way of life.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge my thanks to the many who helped my hacienda project to develop and grow through its many stages; among them: historians Frank Tannenbaum of Columbia University and Silvio Zavala of Mexico City; authors Ralph Roeder, Stuart Chase, and Russell Kirk; artist Roberto Montenegro; art directors Reginald Poland of the Atlanta Art Association, Herbert Friedmann of the Los Angeles County Museum, Donald Goodall of the University of Texas Art Gallery in Austin, the Reverend J. Pociask, S.J. of the DeSaisset Gallery at the University of Santa Clara, and Stella Benson of the Latin American library collections at the University of Texas in Austin; and art patron Huntington Hartford. I am especially grateful to my son, Steven, without whose help this book would have remained an unfinished project. I am also indebted to Dr. Fae Batten for her magnanimous effort, patience, and skill in preparing my photos for this book, and to Lowell Waxman, head librarian of the Claremont Branch of the San Diego Libraries for his tireless assistance in the department of references. In addition, I am thankful for the good friends and associates it has been my fortune to come across on the long journey over the years.
This book contains reproductions of a selected number of illustrations and photographs, drawn from a collection of more than 300 original pen-and-ink illustrations and several hundred photographs, which now form part of the Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas in Austin. A collection of hacienda photographs, illustrations, and other materials is also maintained by the Western History Research Center of the University of Wyoming in Laramie.
Introduction
Gisela von Wobeser
Professor of History, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D.F.
Translated from the Spanish by
Steven J. Bartlett
Senior Research Professor, Oregon State University
The lifework of artist Paul Alexander Bartlett to retrieve the past of the Mexican hacienda has made this book possible. This volume contains a selection of his original pen-and-ink illustrations and photographs, realized over a period of some forty years, of more than three hundred haciendas.
Bartlett began his record during the 1940s. He made a series of visits to Mexico to sketch and photograph the hacienda buildings that had survived the Agrarian Reform. Many haciendas were inaccessibly located, at considerable distances from population centers. He traveled hundreds of miles on foot, on muleback, by train and by boat, climbed hills, and descended into canyons to find them.
The record that Bartlett has made represents an important chapter in Mexican history. Because the majority of hacienda structures have been subjected to severe and progressive deterioration, his study, in many cases, is the only trace that remains of the physical appearance of individual haciendas. His collection of illustrations and photographs is now in the custody of two institutions, the University of Texas at Austin, in the Benson Latin American Collection, and the University of Wyoming in Laramie, in the Western History Research Center [Now the American Heritage Center]. These two archives will be useful to scholars interested in the physical structure of the haciendas, their evolution and history, their economy, as well as in comparative studies. At the same time, this collection of materials makes it possible to study the characteristics of different types of haciendas. Above all, the contents of the two archives form an extremely valuable resource for the history of art and architecture.
When Bartlett began his travels through the Mexican backcountry, the producing haciendas had largely disappeared. What he found were often remnants of an earlier existence during the Porfiriato, the period between 1877 and 1911. Many of the buildings he saw dated from this epoch, along with their interior decorations, water and irrigation systems, machinery, and farming tools. In addition to these haciendas, he also found vestiges of the first half of the nineteenth century and of the colonial era. These were mainly hacienda buildings, some of which had been rebuilt during the Porfiriato.
The disintegration of the haciendas began as a result of the Mexican Revolution, and it ended with the redistribution of their land during the Agrarian Reform. During the 1930s and 1940s, huge rural estates were fragmented and converted into ejidos or minifundios. Ejidos are tracts of land that are granted as communal property to rural towns. They are worked by members of the community, who benefit from the land's yield. Ejidal properties cannot be sold or transferred. The minifundios are small private pieces of property, amounting on the average to 100 hectares but varying according to the region of the country and type of soil. Between 1934 and 1940, approximately 17,900,000 hectares (44,230,900 acres) were redistributed, representing close to half of all tillable land. This repartitioning of the land has continued into the present, though its pace has been much slower.
As hacienda property was broken up, the hacienda owners, the hacendados, were left in possession of the hacienda buildings and the immediate land around them, the size of which was restricted by the limits that were set for these small properties. This meant that immense haciendas were reduced to very tiny ranches. Along with their land, the hacendados lost access to water, they lost their means of irrigation, machinery, and livestock.
Because of these measures, the hacienda system was annihilated. For the majority of the hacendados, the few acres left them turned out to be unproductive land, and their hardships were magnified by the instability and the violence that prevailed in the country. As a result, many hacienda buildings were abandoned or were destined for new purposes.
Only a few of the ex-haciendas remained in production. Some landowners took advantage of the limited property left to them to plant lucrative, high-yielding crops, while others augmented the size of their cultivated land by leasing adjoining land or by purchasing it under assumed names.
When Bartlett began his hacienda visits in the 1940s, he found many of the hacienda buildings in ruins, exposed to the ravages of time and vandalism. Buildings had been converted into chicken coops, pigsties, public apartments, and machine shops. Others served as sources for construction materials, from which were scavenged rocks, bricks, beams, and tiles for the habitations of the local population. In some cases the destruction was total: All the hacienda's structures were removed, and only the name of the place alluded to the fact that an hacienda had ever existed there.
At other haciendas, buildings were adapted to new uses. They were transformed into hotels, resorts, government buildings, barracks, hospitals, restaurants, and schools. The exterior of the buildings were generally left intact; interiors were completely changed.
The best-preserved hacienda buildings were those that continued to function as country properties or vacation homes. In these, Bartlett often found furnishings and utensils from the epoch of Don Porfirio, surrounded by the old traditions of Mexican country life.
As an artist, Bartlett's attention was drawn foremost to the hacienda buildings themselves and to the works of art that they housed. The majority of his illustrations and photographs therefore depict the main group of hacienda buildings or certain buildings—for example, the main residence, the church, the patios, and work buildings. However, among his rich materials, one can also find a testimony to hacienda work and life: machinery, irrigation devices and structures, farm implements, mining equipment, warehouses, barns, corrals, and carriages, among others.
The history of the hacienda spans three centuries. The first haciendas appeared in New Spain toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, when demand for agricultural products increased and the prehispanic supply system crumbled. Farming received an impetus at the hands of Spaniards, and the small farms and livestock ranches, which dated from the sixteenth century, expanded their landholdings. Many new sources of water were tapped, and a resident labor force was developed. These steps encouraged production and supplied the regional as well as the continually growing metropolitan markets.
The increase in hacienda production and in the number of hacienda workers made it necessary to expand the sixteenth-century facilities, which, with the exception of those of the sugar plantations, had been very modest. In this way, a large number of buildings were constructed, buildings that were to be preserved as the core of many haciendas until the Porfiriato.
There were three principal types of haciendas. Grain haciendas were the most important because they were dedicated to the cultivation of the subsistence crops corn and wheat. In addition, beans, barley, lima beans, chiles, and other crops were planted. Grain haciendas were established mainly in the vicinity of the urban centers, which they supplied. The important areas of grain cultivation were Puebla, Atlixco, Toluca, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, and Michoacán. Livestock haciendas occupied a second level of importance. They raised cattle and horses, as well as goats and sheep. This type of hacienda tended to be located in more remote areas, in an attempt to prevent the livestock from invading cultivated fields. Sugar haciendas were located in tropical regions, where they could count on sufficient water for the cultivation of sugarcane. The most important sugar regions were Veracruz, Cuernavaca, Cuautla, and Michoacán.
Throughout the seventeenth century the haciendas grew in significance. They held much of the land and water resources, expanded their labor force, intensified their control over the market, and consolidated their territorial rights in accordance with composiciones de tierras. (The phrase composiciones de tierras belongs to the legal terminology of the time. It relates to a legal mechanism that was instituted by the Spanish Crown during the first half of the sixteenth century but which was applied mainly during the seventeenth century. It made it possible to legalize properties whose titles were not in order.) They sought to make improvements by constructing, for example, buildings, irrigation systems, roads, granaries, and shelters for livestock. Together, these made it possible to increase agricultural yields substantially. It was not an easy process, often involving transfers of hacienda property, severe indebtedness of their owners, and great difficulties in production.
Hacienda expansion proceeded throughout the following two centuries. Huge tracts of uncultivated land were transformed into farmland and impressive water distribution systems opened up new areas to irrigation. The population, constantly growing, demanded an ever greater quantity of food. Much land that had been devoted to the raising of livestock was turned over to cultivation, and the stock were gradually displaced until livestock haciendas came to be located mainly in the north of the country. However, this was not a period of unimpeded progress: there were severe periods of crisis, sharp fluctuations in production, a lack of continuity in the transmission of property, and frequent bankruptcies. Hacienda properties tended to be deeply mortgaged to ecclesiastical institutions and to individual lenders.
When dictator Porfirio Díaz assumed power in 1877, a boom period for the hacienda began. Historical circumstances were favorable, and the government offered all manner of facilities to the livestock and farm impresarios. The substantial increase in the country's population, as well as the strengthening international economy, created a great demand for farm and livestock products. The consumption of goods from the tropics, such as coffee, cacao, sugar, tobacco, and vanilla, grew considerably during this time both in Europe and in the United States. The same thing happened with certain basic materials, among them henequén, rubber, chicle, and ixtle. (Ixtle or istle is the name given to the hard fibers that are extracted from different plants of the genus agave, of which the most important are the maguey and the lechuguilla. They are raised mainly in northern Mexico.)
As a result of laws that secularized communal land and set aside fallow land, huge areas of cultivation and land suitable for farming were placed at the disposition of commercial agriculture. Supporting capital for the most part came from foreign sources—from the United States, France, and England. Labor came from the impoverished peasants, from town workers, and from indigenous groups, among them the Mayas and the Tarahumaras.
Large landed estates appeared and a powerful class of hacienda owners arose. It was during this period that it was possible to overcome some of the endemic problems that had beset the hacienda since its birth: instability, indebtedness, lack of capital, and scarce revenues. During the Porfiriato, the majority of the haciendas were highly productive and provided their owners with plentiful earnings. Yet, at the same time there were haciendas that had to face financial problems and fluctuations in production.
Frequently, hacendados participated in other areas of business, such as finance, commerce, and mining. Their privileged economic position permitted them to furnish their rural properties with great luxury and to sustain a life of affluence. Bartlett found hacienda residences with twenty bedrooms, salons for dancing, Japanese gardens, billiard rooms and music rooms, swimming pools, bullrings, and palisades. Bearing witness to the interior splendor of these mansions, there was fine furniture from Europe, carpeting from Persia, velvet draperies, chandeliers of cut crystal, and valuable oil paintings. There were haciendas that possessed chapels that rivaled the provincial churches in size, architecture, and decor. Of course not all haciendas were this elegant: most had much more rustic appointments; many were in decline, poorly maintained, furnished with the very barest minimum.
Bartlett captured and transmits to us today through his art the grand cultural richness that enfolds the hacienda, its diversity according to its moment in time, its location, and its type of production, and he accompanies these with a portrayal of hacienda life, customs, and its inherent style of thought. He is one of the pioneers in his field of study.
Sonora
1. Hacienda de Endo
Chihuahua
2. Hacienda de Colonia Campo
3. Hacienda Corralitos
4. Hacienda Quinta Carolina
Durango
5. Hacienda de Juana Guerra
6. Hacienda de Canutillo
Nayarit
7. Hacienda San Cayetano
San Luis Potosí
8. Hacienda de Castamay
Guanajuato
9. Hacienda de Valenciana
10. Hacienda de Leoncito
11. Hacienda de Calderón
12. Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto
13. Hacienda de los Ricos
14. Hacienda San Cayetano de Valencia
15. Hacienda de Petaca
16. Hacienda de la Erre
Jalisco
17. Hacienda de Medinero
18. Hacienda de Cedra
19. Hacienda de Ciénega de Mata
20. Hacienda de Cabezón
21. Hacienda de Cuisillos
22. Hacienda de Zapotitán
23. Hacienda de Bellavista
24. Hacienda de Aurora
25. Hacienda de la Venta del Astillero
Hidalgo
26. Hacienda de Santana
27. Hacienda de Xala
28. Hacienda de Pueblilla
29. Hacienda de Tepa-Chica
Michoacán
30. Hacienda de Guarache
Colima
31. Hacienda de San Antonio
State of México
32. Hacienda de San José
33. Hacienda de Altillo
34. Hacienda de los Morales
35. Hacienda de Jajalpa
36. Hacienda la Gavia
37. Hacienda de Esperanza
Morelos
38. Hacienda de Cocoyoc
39. Hacienda de Chinameca
Tlaxcala
40. Hacienda de los Molinos
Puebla
41. Hacienda de Pópulo
42. Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo
43. Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco
44. Hacienda de Arenillas
45. Hacienda de Caleturia
Veracruz
46. Hacienda de Encero
47. Hacienda Manga de Clavo
Oaxaca
48. Hacienda de Águilar
Campeche
49. Hacienda de Castamay
Yucatán
50. Hacienda de Holactún
51. Hacienda de Teya
52. Hacienda de Xcanatun
53. Hacienda de Sodzil
54. Hacienda de Tabi
55. Hacienda San Ignacio
56. Hacienda Pixoy
57. Hacienda Yaxche
58. Hacienda de Tikuch
59. Hacienda de Chichén Itza
I. The Hacienda System
Hacienda cattle brand
Forty years ago, traveling by train in Mexico, I saw, in remote areas, what appeared to be miniature villages. I made sketches of them from the train and later visited some of the sites and learned they were ancient haciendas. Over the years since then, I have visited 330 haciendas and made the first art record of these estates. I traveled on horseback, on foot, by bus, train, car, truck, motorbike, and mule-drawn, narrow-gauge railway. I saw that haciendas had become mere place-names as they disintegrated or were bulldozed.
Walk into a handsome mansion and you find twenty or thirty empty rooms. To escape the revolution, the owner fled years earlier. Earthquakes, weather, and abandonment have riddled walls and floors. The residence stands roofless, windowless, doorless—constructed of stone, brick and adobe, or a combination of these. Church and chapel exist at every hacienda and they are still used by neighbors and peasants who may occupy the manor house. There are dates on bell skirts, on walls or beams of a storage bodega, on escutcheons, on archways; often they are carved in the mesquite floor of a chapel or church.
In the tropics, flame trees, bougainvillea, red-orange galeanas, lavender jacaranda, and yellow primavera flower among ruins. In northern areas, pine, tall eucalypti, mesquite, cedar, pepper, and chinaberry remain.
I sketched under the tropic sun, in corrals, in a bullring, under an Indian laurel; I poked through empty rooms.
As I sketched, burro trains passed, their sacks loaded with charcoal or corn; goat bells tapped as a herd grazed; ox teams hauled carts with wooden wheels; blackbirds crowded a treetop; a cowboy tipped his hat.
There was always courtesy. I drank pulque from a communal gourd; I shared pineapple grown in Tecomán; I was entertained at town houses of hacendados. On the estates there was silence from the days of the viceroys, the silence of padres, the silence of abandonment.
Hacienda cattle brand
In the sixteenth century, following the Spanish invasion of Mexico between the years 1519 and 1521, the Spanish Crown granted enormous land areas to the conquerors and adventurers who came to the New World. Since this property belonged to the natives, the grants amounted to usurpation. Scattered throughout Mexico, from Yucatán to Sonora, the extensive holdings frequently included towns and villages. These grants of land were the origin of the haciendas, the rural estates.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spanish immigrants sometimes passed themselves off as noblemen—camouflaging criminal or poverty-stricken backgrounds. Others, with a sack of cash or a pair of brawny shoulders, used the invasion as an opportunity to bluff their way and claim land and lives through the power of the sword. They remembered that dropping quicksilver into a mule's ear made the animal trot faster. Wealthy immigrants were able to purchase titles, and this arrangement was encouraged by the Crown since it benefited the treasury.
The hacendado (or his representative) employed or coerced native workers to build a residence, church or chapel, storage buildings, mills, dams, aqueducts, fences, and roads. He paid lip service to the Crown and whenever possible circumvented legalities. It was advantageous to sidestep the Crown since a letter or document took half a year to reach Spain. The employer was unable to communicate with the people who spoke Otomi, Coro, or Chichiméc. He was thwarted by new diseases, strange customs, tropical climate, and crop problems. Unlike the countries of Europe, Mexico was a corn culture, not a wheat culture. During his first years he learned that grain did better when planted in the most primitive manner, by stick and foot.
As rapidly as possible, the landowner, the hacendado, added to his holdings, buying or usurping acreage. An hacienda might consist of several thousand or several million acres. The terrain might be mountainous, semi-desert, coastal strips, forest or jungle, or a combination of topographical zones. There were cattle haciendas, sheep haciendas, mining haciendas, pulque/tequila haciendas; others produced henequén, grew coffee, sugarcane, corn, wheat. A few bred bulls for the bullring.
During the first century of the occupation, Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, friend of the Indians, objected to the atrocities committed by the Spanish. Alfonso de Zorita, writing his "Brevíssima Relación," exposed Indian mistreatment. Burnouf, French agronomist, wrote Emperor Maximilian that the whip of the mayordomo (the hacendado's administrator) was destroying many lives. Regardless of objections through the years, the hacienda system prospered.
Counts, countesses, dukes and duchesses, crude invasionists, wealthy men, and religious orders owned estates. Some of the famous hacendados were Hernán Cortéz, Porfirio Díaz, Martín Ruiz de Zavala, General Santa Anna, and Pancho Villa (who was given his hacienda as a political bribe). Famous families owned estates: Terrazas, Rosa, Amor, Jaral, Ibarra, Echeverría, and Regla.
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, hacienda architecture varied: Where generation after generation owned the hacienda, in families of great wealth, façades were gothic, churrigueresque, plateresque, Islamic, baroque, rococo. The most widespread architectural style derived from the Roman. Most residences had their living quarters around an atrium, or patio. Grilled windows and massive wooden doors and shutters were common. Thousands of work-hours went into the carvings and embellishments—in gray, pink, or yellowish limestone. Hornacinas (niches) peppered a church or chapel façade.
Each niche contained a saint or religious figure: It was tapestry in stone.
In the states of Puebla and Oaxaca, tiled façades ornamented the hacienda residences and lofty walls surrounded them. Church and chapel domes were also tiled. In the Sierras, haciendas were often built of logs and planed wood—rustic, two-story buildings with outside stairways. In the tropics, the usual residence was one story with ample verandas and deep-set doors and windows. Most buildings were roofed in cone-shaped, interlocking, or flat tiles.
The majority of hacienda structures were skillfully mortared in stone block cantera (limestone) by rule-of-thumb. Professional architects like Francisco Eduardo de Tresguerras were seldom available. Instead, artisans were employed who used various styles learned from early ecclesiastical buildings.
Bitter rivalries between estates were part of the scene. Owners were on the alert for a bankrupt hacienda that could be purchased at a very low price. If extending landholdings meant violating the rights of a village or of an individual farmer or rancher, those rights were brushed aside, or contested legally.
