281Box 7.4 Tepoztlán, Mexico, and the Liberal ReformsThe anthropologist Oscar Lewis’s classic account of Tepoztlán, Mexico, Life in a Mexican Village
(1963), provides a brief but insightful social history of that community during a liberal phase of
the neocolonial period.
In pre-Hispanic times, Tepoztlán had been a city state within one of the Aztec provinces, pay-
ing tributes largely in the form of paper, lime, cotton cloth, and turkeys. During the Colonial pe-
riod, Tepoztlán was subjected to Spanish governors residing in Cuernavaca. Tributes were paid
in maize and money, as well as in the form of onerous labor in the mines of Taxco and nearby sugar
haciendas. A large number of local officials, including caciqueswho were descended from the
pre-Hispanic ruling class, were also supported by tribute payments.
Conditions for the common people worsened following independence. The caciques,
Church, and haciendas all increased their monopoly hold on the land properties of the area, and
the “tithes” now demanded by the Church surpassed in amount what the Tepoztecans had paid
as tributes during the Colonial period. The local caciqueIndians collaborated with the ruling
creoles, enhancing the former’s wealth and power over the local population. Most Tepoztecans
became poor peasants, forced to labor part-time on plantations as peons for pitifully low wages.
The liberal reforms of Benito Juárez divided the community, most of the inhabitants siding with
the conservative Church, which had lost properties. A few, however, sided with the liberal gov-
ernment and formed a military unit that fought bravely in the war to drive Maximilian and the
French out of Mexico.
Nevertheless, under continued liberal rule the caciquesgrew ever more powerful while the
Tepoztlán Indian peasants became poorer. Rebellious actions by the Indians was common, but
most rebels would be quickly rounded up, imprisoned, and either banished from the community
or forced to serve in the army. By the time of the Porfirio Díaz period, the vast majority of the
Tepoztlán Indians had become landless. They were not permitted to use the communal lands, and
thus had no alternative but to labor on the nearby sugar plantations, mainly as indebted peons.
These native peons were positioned at the bottom of a highly stratified society, exploited not only
by the upper-class mestizos and creoles of the region but also by the local cacique rulers. The
old custom of collecting religious taxes was reinstituted, as was obligatory participation in an
elaborate calendar of religious ceremonies and fiestas. As a result, many of the poorer
Tepoztecans became increasingly critical of the Church, a clear prelude to the strong anti-Church
ideas that erupted later in connection with the Mexican revolution.
An account of what life was like for the Indians during the Díaz period was recited to Lewis
by a small landholder who still remembered those years. The account provides a graphic view of
Tepoztlán during the liberal periods (Lewis 1963:95):
The thing that was truly scarce was work. And so during the difficult times from January to
May and from August to September the stronger among us went to work on the sugar plan-
tations... in the state of Morelos. The owners of the plantations were gachupines
(Spaniards), and they mistreated the Indians, kicking and insulting them. These plantations
also robbed the nearby villages of their lands. This is what happened to Tepoztlán. We lost
some of our best lands. The rich here had their lands and produced good crops, but the poor
had no lands. The poor ate chile and salt and some beans. Meat was had once a month at
best.... The local government was in the hands of caciques.[Cacique] Vicente Ortega held
power for many years, with the support of the state authorities among whom he had ties of
compadrazgo[ritual kinship relations]. There were no political parties or opposition groups
allowed.... Anyone who opposed his rule might be sent to prison in Quintana Roo.As this description makes clear, the Indians of Tepoztlán were profoundly exploited by the
Mexican liberal regimes, and in the process they were becoming secularized and losing many of
their Mesoamerican cultural ideas and practices.