The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's Record
Part 1
The Haciendas of Mexico
[Frontispiece: Hacienda de Mediñero. Jalisco: residence. One-room school was located in right wing of residence.]
+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+
List of Illustrations
List of Photographs
Foreword
_by James A. Michener_
Preface
Introduction
_by Gisela von Wobeser_
Map
I. The Hacienda System
II. Through the Eyes of Hacienda Visitors
III. Hacienda Life
IV. Fiestas
V. Education
VI. The Revolution
VII. Mexico Since the Revolution
Bibliography
+Illustrations+
Hacienda de Mediñero, Jalisco: residence. One-room school was located in right wing of residence.
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 Cedra, Jalisco: ornamental entry to 18th-century chapel; door and gate of mesquite. Orange trees shade patio.
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 de San José, D.F.: churrigueresque-style residence and chapel with blue and white tiled dome.
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 Cabezón, Jalisco: capital, front of residence, 1800; building designed by architect Eduardo Tresguerras.
Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: late 17th-century church in rose stucco. A famous Jesuit hacienda.
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 José Huejotzingo, Puebla: 16th-century stone bas relief, 3 feet x 5 feet, unearthed in garden.
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 Corralitos, Corralitos, Chihuahua: one-million-acre cattle and mining hacienda, 1750. Adobe residence, 1886, surrounded by cottonwoods.
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 de Jajalpa, D.F.: pink stucco sixteen-room, red-tiled 19th-century residence and chapel.
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 de la Venta del Astillero, Jalisco: 18th-century stone and brick residence and chapel, 220 feet long.
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 Manga de Clavo, Veracruz: owned by Santa Anna. Rendering from an 1868 bank bond; hacienda destroyed.
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 Quinta Carolina, Chihuahua: residence of more than fifty rooms, 1892. Abandoned as of 1981.
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 Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: saddle belonging to former President Ávila Camacho decorated with silver.
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 Tamanche, Yucatán: 17th-century colonial residence and remains of sugar refinery chimney.
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.