MEXICO 197
Nonetheless, the great hacienda continued
to dominate the countryside in many areas. Al-
though indigenous villages managed to retain sub-
stantial community lands until after mid-century
and even improved their economic and political
position somewhat with the passing of Spanish
centralized authority, the trend toward usurpa-
tion of indigenous lands grew stronger as a result
of the lapse of Spanish protective legislation. Peons
and tenants on the haciendas often suffered from
debt servitude, miserable wages, oppressive rents,
and excessive religious fees. At the constitutional
convention of 1856–1857, the liberal Ponciano
Arriaga declared:
With some honorable exceptions, the rich
landowners of Mexico... resemble the feudal
lords of the Middle Ages. On his seigneurial
lands, with more or less formalities, the land-
owner makes and executes laws, administers
justice and exercises civil power, imposes taxes
and fi nes, has his own jails and irons, metes
out punishments and tortures, monopolizes
commerce, and forbids the conduct without
his permission of any business but that of
the estate.
An anonymous contemporary writer similarly
refl ected the disillusion of the lower classes with
the fruits of independence: “Independence is only
a name. Previously they ruled us from Spain, now
from here. It is always the same priest on a different
mule. But as for work, food, and clothing, there is
no difference.”
THE MEXICAN ECONOMY
The ravages of war had left mineshafts fl ooded, ha-
ciendas deserted, and the economy stagnant. The
end of the Spanish commercial monopoly, how-
ever, brought a large increase in the volume of for-
eign trade; the number of ships entering Mexican
ports jumped from 148 in 1823 to 639 in 1826.
But exports did not keep pace with imports, leav-
ing a trade defi cit that had to be covered by export-
ing precious metals. The drain of gold and silver
aggravated the problems of the new government,
which had inherited a bankrupt treasury and had
to support a swollen bureaucracy and an offi cer
class ready to revolt against any government that
suggested a cut in their numbers or pay. The exo-
dus of Spanish merchants and their capital added
to the economic problems of the new state. Compli-
cating those problems was the disorder that was a
legacy of the war; bands of robbers made travel on
the roads so unsafe that “whether coming or going
from Puebla or Veracruz, the Mexico City traveler
expected to be robbed.”
Foreign loans appeared to be the only way out
of the crisis. In 1824–1825, English bankers made
loans to Mexico amounting to 32 million pesos,
guaranteed by Mexican customs revenues. Of this
amount the Mexicans received only a little more
than 11 million pesos, as the bankers went bank-
rupt before all the money due to Mexico from the
loan proceeds was paid. By 1843 unpaid interest
and principal had raised the nation’s foreign debt
to more than 54 million pesos. This mounting for-
eign debt not only created crushing interest bur-
dens, but it also threatened Mexico’s independence
and territorial integrity, for behind foreign capital-
ists stood governments that might threaten inter-
vention in case of default.
Foreign investments, however, mainly from
Britain, made possible a partial recovery of the de-
cisive mining sector. Old mines, abandoned and
fl ooded during the wars, were reopened, but the
available capital proved inadequate, the technical
problems of reconstruction were greater than an-
ticipated, and production remained on a relatively
low level.
An ambitious effort to revive and modernize
Mexican industry also got under way, spurred by
the founding in 1830 of the Banco de Avío, which
provided governmental assistance to industry.
Manufacturing, paced by textiles, made some lim-
ited progress in the three decades after indepen-
dence. Leading industrial centers included Mexico
City, Puebla, Guadalajara, Durango, and Veracruz.
But shortages of capital, lack of a consistent policy
of protection for domestic industry, and a socioeco-
nomic structure that sharply limited the internal
market hampered the growth of Mexican factory