Mexican Agriculture 1521-1630: Transformation of the Mode of Production

by Andre Gunder Frank

Overview

‘The conquerors wanted Indian labour, the crown Indian subjects, the friars Indian souls.' Thus the importance of the natives of Mexico to their Spanish conquerors has been described. In this book Andre Gunder Frank examines the dramatic impact of Spanish rule on Mexican society and agriculture, in terms of the demands of world capitalist development. Mr Frank traces the rapid transformation of the dominant institutions of Mexican labour organization which occurred after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521: from a form of slavery, which lasted until 1533, through various forms of forced labour (the encomienda and the catequil or mica), to the establishment, after 1575, of the hacienda, with large-scale latifundia lands worked by serf-like ganan labour.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521085687
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/14/2008
Series:	Studies in Modern Capitalism
Pages:	108
Product dimensions:	5.94(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.24(d)

Table of Contents

Part I. The impossibility of the dual economy: 1. Introduction: the economic genesis of social institutions; 2. 1521–1548: the encomienda; 3. 1548–1575: the repartimiento; Part II. The development of the hacienda: 4. 1575–1580: demographic and economic crisis; 5. Growth of the latifundium: alternative theses; 6. 1580–1630: profit-generated latifundium growth; 7. Commercial crop and livestock production; 8. The monopolization of land; 9. The organization of labour; 10. Some characteristics of the hacienda.