Latin America and the Caribbean
exaggerates the role of the church's "banking" function when in fact, as she shows, a large part of church
"investment" involved no lending at all but rather the
receipt of annuities, which drained off capital from the
property-owning classes. Perhaps we need a new vocabulary or a different understanding of the cultural
meaning of "investment" or "credit" in an epoch when
the primary aim of the colonial church was not to lend
money at interest but, rather, to channel the revenue
of a vast ecclesiastical economy into clerical and
spiritual pursuits. Von Wobeser has given us an indefatigably researched, deeply informed, and thoughtfully presented work that addresses an important part
of that larger question.
A. J. BAUER
University of California,
Davis
SILKE HENSEL. Die Entstehung des Foderalismus in
Mexiko: Die politische Elite Oaxacas zwischen Stadt,
Region und Staat, 1786-1835. (Studien zur modernen
Geschichte, number 49.) Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
1997. Pp. 493. DM 168.
Silke Hensel's book is yet another contribution to our
understanding of regional history in Mexico. It provides a detailed and thorough illustration of the many
federalist strands in the province of Oaxaca in the
crucial transition period between 1736 and 1835, the
year in which a centralist constitution was implanted.
The period chosen is the "long" independence period,
that is, it begins before and goes beyond the actual
years of the wars of independence. This choice allows
Hensel to demonstrate that federalist tendencies in
Oaxaca were built in the final decades of the eighteenth century and were not a consequence of the
military struggles following the Hidalgo rebellion; they
resulted from the economic, social, and political development in Antequera, in which the big merchants in
Oaxaca were key players.
To demonstrate the long-term construction of federalist tendencies, Hensel first presents us with a
picture of the region (chapter one); describes the
political evolution in Oaxaca, especially in the crucial
years between 1808 and 1835 (chapter two); and then
moves on to reveal the institutional changes and role
of Oaxaca's elite in these processes between 1812 and
1825 (chapters three and four). Building on the detailed information provided in the first four chapters,
she then describes and interprets how a regional
consciousness and assertiveness developed (chapter
five). This final chapter synthesizes previous developments and provides an interpretation of the peculiarities of the political process in Oaxaca.
The book contributes to regional studies in Mexico,
but it is also a contribution to a particular kind of
regional studies. Hensel chose to view the regional
history of Oaxaca through the development and changing composition of institutions, especially the ayuntamientos (cabildos) and the diputaciones pro vin ciales.
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
1363
This perspective, Hensel argues, comes from a rereading of a Germany-based Verfassungsgeschichte, which
in addition to prosopography helps her illustrate the
changing texture and structure of these institutions. A
series of dissertations based on this outlook are coming to fruition now in Germany. Jochen Meissner's
Eine ELite im Umbruch: Der Stadtrad von Mexiko
zwischen koLoniaLer Ordnung und unabhiinighem Stadt
(1993) presents us with a similar outlook for Mexico
City. This line of research follows an already "classic"
tradition of colonial Latin American history in Germany.
The region of Oaxaca is a territorially defined region
equivalent to its colonial administrative boundaries, in
contrast to an economic-network defined region. The
state of Oaxaca was ninety percent Indian, and the
provincial elites-Spaniards and creoles-lived in
Oaxaca's capital city. Since Indians had been able to
assert their rights to the land, accumulation among the
elite was based on commerce, the export of cochineal
to Spain and the selling of cheap cloth in Mexico's
northern provinces. Both items were produced in
Oaxaca, and cochineal was almost exclusively produced in this region. Production and export of cloth
and cochineal supported Oaxaca's economic boom
toward the end of the eighteenth century. The mercantile transactions were nucleated in Antequera, with
its approximately 19,000 inhabitants, and merchants
gained access to cochineal production in Indian hands
through the repartimiento system, based on an alliance
between merchants and local low-level colonial state
bureaucrats. Thus, the elite's interests were tightly knit
into the region.
Beginning in 1786, the Bourbon reforms attacked
entrenched mercantile interests: repartimientos were
forbidden, and secularization of church property diminished available capital; superimposing the intendente on lower-level bureaucrats meant a disruption of
the earlier merchants-bureaucrats alliance, both in
terms of political hierarchies and because the intendente replaced many of the former bureaucrats with
Spaniards.
As the powerful Oaxacan merchants saw their earnings and prerogatives dwindle, they reacted through
political and institutional channels. This struggle was
driven and reinforced by developments since 1808.
Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the subsequent
establishment of the Cortes de Cadiz triggered discussions on sovereignty and legitimacy. Nucleated in the
ayuntamiento, Oaxaca's elite debated and forwarded
its antagonisms with Mexico City and Madrid while
simultaneously building up support networks in other
regions, coordinating actions and decisions with other
regions, intensifying its grip on Oaxaca's rural hinterland, and creating a discourse of conflict and diversity
denial. In 1810, Oaxaca requested the establishment of
its own consulado. It was a capital city-based move that
sought autonomy to control the internal affairs of the
region. The presence of the intendente in Antequera
reinforced the centrality of the capital city. To docu-
OCTOBER
1998
1364
Reviews of Books
ment its centrality Antequera was renamed Oaxaca.
The ultimate expression of the elite's desire for autonomy from Mexico City and Madrid was its request to
abolish the intendant system rather than reinstall the
repartimiento .
In the course of time, Hensel argues, Oaxaca's elite
moved from opposing Madrid's reformist program to
an assertion of autonomy. The ayuntamiento had become the institutional framework to express regional
interests. This process, she argues (with not much
evidence), went hand-in-hand with the gradual dissolution of a race/caste-based social stratification, which
gave way to a more economic-oriented stratification
based on the social mobility made possible by trade.
At the end, Hensel takes a stand with three major
issues developed in the historiography on Mexico.
First, she argues that, based on her findings in Oaxaca,
particularly between 1808 and 1810, Creole-Spaniard
antagonism is not a valid explanation of the independence movement in Oaxaca. In the ayuntamiento elections in 1814, Spaniards and creoles were equally
represented, and there is no record of disruptive
confrontations between the two groups. To the contrary, creoles and Spaniards closed ranks and proved
to be very lukewarm about taking sides. Oaxaca's
incorporation into the independence movement was a
military, not an ideological decision. Second, the
three-generational model of notable family networks is
only partially applicable to Oaxaca. In the second
generation, Oaxaca's elite already was unable to control (which in Hensel's definition means "to be there")
local politics/institutions. Oaxaca's ayuntamiento retained much of its power and constituents (the merchants) after independence; it was the prime promoter
of a federalist system of government after Augustin de
Iturbide's resignation in 1823 and had more power
than the superordained diputacion provincial (composed of the lower clergy, bureaucrats, and "free
professionals" and based on an Indian electorate). But
the composition of the ayuntamiento changed in the
1820s. More people from non-notable families were
elected to the ayuntamiento, the diputacion, and even
the congress. All this points toward the emergence of
a political elite that was not concomitant with the
provincial economic elite. Last but not least, Hensel
argues that the federalism-centralism issue does not
overlap with class interests. In contrast to other interpretations and other regions, in Oaxaca it was not the
lower clergy and the intellectuals who proposed federalism (and Hensel warns about conflating federalism
with liberalism) but big merchants, land and mine
owners, no matter what their regional roots.
This is a very readable and thoroughly researched
contribution to our understanding of the independence period through the lens of regional elites. It is a
little slow in the first chapters but then moves to a
dramatic interpretation of the meaning of local elite
politics. Although not the main objective of the book,
what seems to be a necessary extension of Hensel's
interpretation of the workings of local power relations
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
and politics is an examination of how mercantile
interests were structured in the region itself and
between regions. Perhaps it is necessary to reevaluate
the definition of what a region is (in rhetoric and
reality) and to reinsert the region into "supraregional"
economic and political processes. Doing so might open
the boundaries of the "positionsanalytische Ansatz" and
make it possible to follow up on "informal powers"
(mentioned in the introduction but left aside thereafter).
CHRISTINE HUNEFELDT
University of California,
San Diego
ENRIQUE KRAUZE. Mexico: Biography of Power; A History ofModern Mexico, 1810-1996. Translated by HANK
HEIFETZ. New York: HarperCollins. 1997. Pp. xix, 872.
$35.00.
Whatever else may be said of this huge volume,
chock-full of the insider's knowledge, engaging anecdotes, and personal opinion, it is not a history of the
Republic of Mexico but, on the contrary, of Mexico
City; it is the inspiration of a well-placed chilango.
Rarely does Enrique Krauze cast his eyes on provincial
Mexicans, a proclivity that leads to sundry distortions.
No one doubts that the student protest of 1968 in
Mexico City had ramifications, but why devote nearly
forty pages to it but less than half that number to the
years from 1982 to 1994, when cohorts Krauze admires
plunged the country into bankruptcy?
The focus, for all that, is narrow. This is political
history; economic and social dimensions, though
touched upon, receive cursory treatment. This starts
early, when the colonial era of three centuries receives
short shrift. Yet the foundations of the republic rest on
them, for a decaying Spain imposed its language,
religion, and laws on a hybrid people, whose preColumbian ancestors antedate by centuries the conquest of 1521. The results of mestizaje, the racial fusion
of Spaniard and Indian, require probing that transcends simply taking it for granted. As Guillermo
Bonfil Batalla, the eclectic anthropologist wrote, national culture, despite the much acclaimed mestizaje,
judged by language, religion, and laws, is basically
criollo; pre-Columbians never sat at the banquet table.
The result, as the Chiapas uprising of 1994 testifies,
is a bifurcated Mexico, a country where Euro-mestizos
control politics, enjoy the economic bounty, and set
cultural norms since the latter half of the last century.
Today's bottom-heavy social pyramid mirrors the consequences of a colonial caste system largely based on
race and skin color that almost always relegated
outsiders to the trash heap. That divide, which Krauze
makes light of, survived independence and the advent
of the Reforma of the 1860s, even though Benito
Juarez, its symbol, was born in an Indian village. With
an exception or two, Euro-Mexicans-and, before
them, Spaniards-have run Mexican affairs, with dire
OCTOBER 1998