M. E. Murphy - Irrigation in the Bajio Region of Colonial Mexico

Irrigation in the Bajo Region of Colonial Mexico

Irrigation in the Bajo Region of Colonial Mexico

Michael E. Murphy

This book provides detailed histories of colonial water systems in four localities in the Mexican BajoCelaya, Salvatierra, Valle de Santiago, and Quertaro. It includes studies of irrigated agriculture, hydraulic technology, and water law in the region.

The local histories richly illustrate, through the patterns of irrigation, the interactions between the social and economic power of the landowning elite and the interventions of the authoritarian colonial bureaucracy. The study of hydraulic technology reveals colonial Mexico as being in only partial contact with the centere of innovation in Europe but possessing a local tradition of excellent architecture and some competence in surveying that found occasional expression in water works. An analysis of water law shows a system of engrafted rules regarding possession, easements, and natural water courses taken from Castillian law.

Michael E. Murphy has a Ph.D. in geography from the University of California at Berkeley and is currently a free lance writer.

PUBLISHED IN COOPERATION WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

EDITOR

David J. Robinson
Syracuse University

EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

William M. Denevan
University of Wisconsin

John H. Galloway
University of Toronto

John Lynch
University of London

Robert McCaa
University of Minnesota

Linda Newson
University of London

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Kay Steinmetz

Michael E. Murphy

Dellplain Latin American Studies, No. 19

First published 1986 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright 1986 by the Department of Geography, Syracuse University

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 86-50947
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-01127-7 (hbk)

I began this project after ten years in the practice of law with a record of legal scholarship but with no previous experience in Mexican archives. Under these circumstances, I did not tire in my search for advice and assistance. I owe my first debt to Professors James Parsons and Bernard Nietschmann of the geography faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, for their encouragement of my research, and to Professor Woodrow Borah, who wrote a number of personal letters of introduction to Mexican scholars. I was privileged to have productive discussions with Wigberto Jimnez Moreno, Alejandra Moreno Toscano, Antonio Pompa y Pompa, Jan Bazant, Andres Lira, Fr. Jos de Jesus Orozco, and Fr. Lino Gmez Canedo. I owe a special debt to Roberto Moreno, who wrote an eloquent letter of introduction that greatly facilitated my work in Guanajuato and Quertaro. Two other norteamericanos with similar research interests worked at the AGN for periods during my stay. Michael Meyer stimulated my thinking on water law, and John Super guided me to new archival sources on Quertaro. I preserve a warm memory of many Mexicans whom I met in my search for materials in the Bajo: Sr. Enrique Jimnez Jaime, the chronicler of Celaya; Fr. Jesus Guzmn, who spent many hours in the Franciscan archive to assist me in my work; Ing. Francisco Parra Acosta, who put me in contact with two elderly ejidatarios ; Dr. Mariano Gonzlez Leal, who first suggested that I research the records of capellanas in Morelia; Dr. Benjamin Lara, who introduced me to the remarkable farmer-scholar, Basilio Rojas; and Sr. Rojas, who allowed me to copy some useful documents in his private archive. But I owe my most profound debt to the chronicler of Salvatierra, Vicente Ruiz Arias, who generously shared with me his precise and encyclopedic knowledge of the colonial history of Guanajuato. Sr. Ruiz referred me to vital sources that I could not otherwise have found and pointed out unsuspected relationships that enabled me to assemble the scrambled mosaic of sources on Salvatierra and the Valle de Santiago into a coherent pattern. If I had not received the benefit of his detailed mastery of archival materials, I could not have successfully completed the chapters on these two areas.

In his Political Essays on New Spain, Alexander von Humboldt called attention to the importance of irrigation in the wheat production of colonial Mexico. He cited, in particular, the irrigation systems in the plains that form the western part of an area known as the Bajo, a region of interconnected valleys in the present states of Guanajuato and Quertaro (). The practice of irrigation in the region had a long history that began with the first agricultural haciendas and communities of Spanish and Indian settlers. Extensive systems of irrigation existed not only in the western Bajo described by Humboldt, but along the River Laja and certain smaller streams toward the east. In the environs of Quertaro, an elaborate system of water distribution supplied a large urban population as well as a complex of gardens and wheat-growing haciendas.