CHAPTER 8 NATIVE MESOAMERICANS IN THE MODERN ERA 303cated the oil fields being exploited by foreign companies (especially U.S. compa-
nies); and centralized the authority of the presidency. His most radical change, how-
ever, was to carry out an aggressive agrarian reform, redistributing lands to the
peasants and rural proletariats. Lands were turned over to the villages in the form of
“ejidos,” state properties to which use rights were legally granted to the landless. By
the end of Cárdenas’s term in l940, approximately two million people in l5,000 vil-
lages had received lands and now controlled production on some 50 percent of Mex-
ico’s croplands. The peasants seemingly had gained the lands for which they had
fought so long and hard, and among them were many thousands of Indian families.
(See Box 8.1 for an account of Lázaro Cárdenas’s attitude and actions toward the
Indians of Mexico.)
The Zapatista Revolutionaries of Morelos. Followers of Zapata were scattered
throughout Mexico, but the core area of the movement was the state of Morelos.
Morelos society on the eve of the revolution was still deeply divided between the
“civilized people” and the “macehuales,” that is to say, the mestizos and the Indians.
Most of the Indians by then spoke Spanish, but Nahuatl was the language of the
elders, and in some communities it continued to be the everyday language (in 1910
about 9 percent of the population in the state spoke a native tongue). Dress was an
important social marker, the Indian men wearing breeches and coarse cotton shirts,
the Indian women wraparound skirts and huipils (blouses). The Indian villages had
their own traditional ways, expressed in elaborate ceremonies in honor of the saints,
and accompanied by food, drink, and music. Large families—in reality, lineages—
provided the essential internal relations for the Indians, as did innumerable
compadrazgo(fictive kinship) ties actuated during ceremonial occasions.
New economic barriers between the mestizos and Indians were being erected
that were less rigid than the traditional ones, but effective just the same. The estate
owners, government administrators, merchants, and professionals were all considered
to be civilized, whereas the milpafarmers and part-time peons on the plantations
were thought to be uncivilized Indians. Permanent peons residing on the planta-
tions were distinguished from the Indians, dubbed “little creoles.” Most of the middle-
level farmers and moneylenders were mestizos, but a few Indians also engaged in
these economic pursuits. Through social climbing, Indians could in theory become
“civilized.” In fact, it was not uncommon for well-to-do Indians to wear trousers rather
than breeches and to move from the rural villages to the town centers, although they
were subject to ridicule by the poorer Indians.
The Zapatista movement in Morelos was led by mestizos from the middle level
who had close connections with the Indian communities. The Zapata family was
made up of merchants and horse breakers, whereas other revolutionary chiefs worked
as ranchers, artisans, storekeepers, and one as a Protestant preacher. Their followers,
who swelled to well over 40,000 soldiers at one point, were Indian peasants who tilled
communal lands and worked part-time as peons on the large sugar plantations
(Figure 8.5). In most cases, entire communities of young Indian men (and some
women) would join one of the revolutionary bands as a group, although later