In this chapter I examine how the people of the Southwest were affected by the racial legislation passed in Mexico following the Mexican War of Independence. After independence Spain’s racial order was dismantled, and socioeconomic policies were adopted to redress the effects of the casta system. Racial distinctions became increasingly blurred during the Mexican period, and people in the Southwest were often referred to in government and church documents in cultural rather than racial terms. The label gente de razón replaced the hierarchical racial categories used to distinguish the people of the Southwest.
During the Mexican period, the racial legislation ended de jure discrimination in theory, but in practice it did not dismantle all forms of racial stratification, in particular in the area of land policy. The question of who became a Mexican citizen in the Southwest is a central issue in understanding the trajectory of Mexican American racial history. My narrative opens with a brief glimpse of the racial legislation passed by the federal government following Mexican independence.
The Spanish crown lost control of Mexico in 1821, after the Mexican War for Independence, and a new republic was born (Weber 1982:16). The transfer of power resulted in immediate political and territorial changes throughout Mexico, including the Southwest. The victorious rebels issued the Plan de Iguala, a provisional constitution to govern the people, and reaffirmed the liberal racial philosophy of the 1812 Law of Cádiz. Under the Plan de Iguala race could no longer be legally used to prevent Indians, mestizos, and free afromestizos from exercising the citizenship rights enjoyed by Whites. Though the plan did not eradicate slavery, it set the foundation for the removal of all forms of legal racial discrimination. The drafting of additional racial legislation was temporarily interrupted, however, because within months of independence economic and political conflicts arose that had to be addressed immediately. Most importantly, the debate about whether Mexico should become a federal republic or a constitutional monarchy took center stage (Meyer and Sherman 1995).
Sadly, this was not the worst problem faced by the Mexican people. The war of independence had disastrous effects on the national economy. During the war, fields were destroyed and agricultural production declined, leaving the country in a crisis. There was insufficient food to feed the masses. In the mining industry production practically came to a halt, as many workers had left the mines to join the war and machinery had been damaged. This produced a financial strain, because the mining industry had been one of Mexico’s strongest assets, generating employment for a large segment of the population (Haring 1963). In 1821 the mining industry reported a loss of over 20 million pesos (Meyer and Sherman 1995:304). Mexico also experienced an economic drain when Spanish elites left the country, taking their assets; worst of all, the Spanish crown left the Mexican government bankrupt, with a debt of over 76 million pesos (Meyer and Sherman 1995:307, 319).
In spite of these enormous problems, on 27 November 1823 the Mexican people elected congressional representatives and began the process of ratifying a constitution as well as settling their differences on the political structure of the country (Meyer and Sherman 1995: 313). On 4 October 1824 the Constitution of 1824 was adopted, and congress reorganized Mexico into a federal republic composed of nineteen states and four territories (Meyer and Sherman 1995:314). Texas was declared to be part of the state of Coahuila y Tejas, California and New Mexico remained territories, and Arizona became a province of the state of Sonora (Officer 1987).1 In addition, two regions which are part of Texas today went through territorial boundary shifts. El Paso Valley was separated from New Mexico and incorporated as part of the state of Chihuahua (Metz 1994:21), and Laredo as well as the rest of Nuevo Santander became part of the newly organized state of Tamaulipas (Hinojosa 1983:38).
In the area of racial legislation, the spirit of the Law of Cádiz was reaffirmed and all people in Mexico excluding slaves became citizens (Weber 1982:22). Though many congressmen favored emancipating slaves immediately, others argued that if the 10,000 slaves left in bondage were set free this would cause an economic crisis in Veracruz and Acapulco, where most slaves were concentrated (see Bugbee 1898).2 Instead of abolishing slavery, a more liberal slave code was issued to improve their lives and to give slave owners time to prepare for emancipation. Under the constitution all forms of the slave trade, including purchasing and selling slaves in Mexico, were prohibited. The constitution also decreed that any slave introduced into Mexico by way of purchase or trade would immediately be emancipated. The most important change was the proclamation that slave children born in Mexico would be set free at age fourteen. After serving ten additional years, adults in bondage would likewise be set free (see Bugbee 1898:394–398, 401).
Racial legislation affecting the missions was also drafted.3 Congressmen overwhelmingly voted in favor of dismantling the mission system, concurring that it obstructed the conversion of the Indians into citizens (Weber 1982). Missions more than ten years old were to be immediately converted into parishes, while other missions were given until 1842 or whenever the federal government deemed it appropriate (Kessell 1976:301–304). Exemptions were given to recently established missions and to those with a large number of first-generation neophytes, who were in danger of returning to their previous lifestyle if secularized. The Indians already prepared for secularization were to be converted into farmers or ranchers, and their profits would be taxed (Engelhardt 1913:108, 124–185).4 Each secularized family was to receive a plot of mission property. The federal government envisioned that Indians would favor becoming commercial farmers and in this way would become integrated within Mexico’s monetary economy (Menchaca 1993; Padilla 1979). Federal officers assumed in theory that if Indians were granted full political rights they would choose to acculturate and thus would become tax-paying Mexican citizens. Each territory or state was allowed to develop the particular procedures to secularize the Indians as long as the constitution was upheld.
Northern Mexico, including the Southwest, experienced the same legislative changes after independence as the interior did. Indians, mestizos, free afromestizos, and Whites were given citizenship and were accorded full political rights.5 The slave code reforms, however, had little effect in the Southwest because enslaving Blacks was uncommon there. Most afromestizos had migrated to the Southwest as free people (Schwartz 1975). Furthermore, the new racial laws had limited effects on the majority of the non-Christian Indians because they were unaware of or unconcerned with the national political changes. The new government therefore had to address this problem and somehow convince the non-Christian Indians to become members of the new republic. This transformation had to be accomplished without incurring new debts, because the federal government was bankrupt (Lafaye 1974).
A military invasion to force non-Christian Indians to conform was also out of the question because it could not be financed. The Mexican government’s finances were in such disrepair that immediately after independence the missions were ordered to support the military at no cost (Engelhardt 1913:186). With the exception of Santa Fe and San Elizario, most presidios were left with few soldiers or were converted to centers under civilian military control (Hendricks and Timmons 1998:52–60). Mexican citizens were required to take full responsibility for their military defense and were expected to form civilian militia units. Many citizens were issued military titles and authorized to command the civilian militia. The townspeople were also responsible for suppressing Indian raids. The federal government was aware that this restructuring placed the civilians at a disadvantage and that it had to offer them some type of assistance in controlling hostile Indians. The government chose to liberalize its immigration policies and for the first time allow immigrants from the United States to settle in the Southwest, with the rationale that more settlers were needed to pacify the unconquered Indians. The first immigration policies were drafted under the provisional government set up after the Plan de Iguala. The Azcárate Commission, which was authorized to address the military problems in the area, recommended that citizens from the United States be recruited to settle in the Southwest (Weber 1982:161–162). The commission’s immigration reforms were later reaffirmed under the Constitution of 1824.
The immigration reforms were well received in Texas because Mexicans needed assistance to fight the Comanches and Apaches who dominated nearly half of the area. With dwindling military support from the government, Mexican Tejanos welcomed any help. In 1822 Anglo Americans began migrating to the Southwest, and most chose Texas as their destination (Weber 1982:164). The price of attracting them, however, posed a moral dilemma for Mexico, as many Anglo Americans settling in Texas owned slaves (Schwartz 1975). Many of the congressmen detested the federal government’s actions; once the Constitution of 1824 had been passed, they drafted a series of congressional bills to enforce the emancipation clauses and thereby restrict the growth of slavery in the Southwest. Texas was the particular target of the congressional bills. Abolitionist congressmen argued that allowing Anglo Americans to introduce slaves into Texas was illegal and went against the spirit of the Constitution of 1824. Congressional opponents, however, successfully argued that the constitution was not violated, since slaves in Texas had been purchased on United States soil and most had been transported before the constitution was ratified (Bugbee 1898:394, 407). Though proslavery congressmen won their case, they knew it was a temporary victory, because bringing slaves into any part of Mexico did violate the spirit of the constitution. Nevertheless, the victory of the proslavery activists gave Texas enough time to allow slavery to flourish.
Mexican abolitionists were angered and shifted to state-level politics. In 1827 they won a major battle when the legislators of the state of Coahuila and Texas enacted a state slave code that nearly dismantled slavery (Bugbee 1898:407). Anglo Americans had little say in this matter since abolitionists dominated state government. Under Article 13 of the 1827 state constitution, all persons born in Texas were declared free people and any slave brought into Texas was to be emancipated after six months (ibid.). While most slave owners ignored the law, others found ways of complying without releasing their slaves. In particular, slave owners who held positions within the state or local governments were pressured to comply or at least appear to do so. In general, public officials alleged that they had emancipated their slaves but had been forced to place them under a lifelong peonage contract because they did not have the ability to support themselves financially (Bugbee 1898:409–412). Emancipated slaves were obliged to work without wages in return for food and shelter. The peonage argument was developed by James Brown Austin and successfully used in false compliance with the law. James was one of the political leaders of the immigrants and the younger brother of the first Anglo American contracted by the Mexican government to bring immigrants, Stephen F. Austin (see Chapter 7).
In 1829 proslavery advocates were finally defeated when President Vicente Guerrero, a person of African descent, issued Mexico’s Emancipation Proclamation (Appiah and Gates 1999:882–883; Meyer and Sherman 1995:320; Weber 1982:176).6 There was to be no exception to the law, and all former slaves were declared Mexican citizens. The following year Texas was given a direct order to comply or expect federal military intervention. Slave owners resisted and instead actively became engaged in secession movements. Before discussing this chapter in history, however, I must examine the unfolding of other federal racial legislation.
Throughout Mexico changing attitudes toward race were exemplified in the federal government’s demographic record-keeping. After independence the government suspended the collection of statistical racial enumerations in government documents on the grounds that this practice had been used to distinguish the races and hence used for discriminatory purposes. Allegedly such records were no longer necessary because most people, with the exception of slaves, had been declared citizens with equal rights and obligations. Though this practice certainly exemplified the nation’s liberalism, in the Southwest it obscured a close record of how race relations evolved; when land reforms were later implemented, it made it nearly impossible to determine whether afromestizos were treated in the same manner as the rest of the citizenry. The policies instituted by the Mexican government were influenced by record-keeping projects during the last years of the Spanish period.
By the early 1800s church, government, and census reports frequently used cultural labels to refer to the inhabitants of Mexico rather than identifying people of color by their stigmatized racial categories, the most popular term being gente de razón (Bautista Pino 1812; Engstrand 1992; Gutiérrez 1991; Haas 1995; Ríos-Bustamante 1986; Weber 1982, 1992). The regional practice of enumerating Mexico’s population solely on the basis of cultural characteristics rather than race began in Guadalajara in 1760 and appears to have been a liberal measure (Cook and Borah 1974:183). The archbishop of Guadalajara allowed parish priests, who were responsible for conducting the regional censuses, to omit racial categories. This practice then spread to other parts of the northern frontier and to Oaxaca and Puebla (Cook and Borah 1974:187–207). Many parish priests, however, continued to maintain racial records in baptismal and marriage registries, but did not give this information to the national census enumerators. Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah (1974) conclude in their widely acclaimed historical demographic study Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean that the Catholic Church encouraged the omission of most racial categories from census records for two primary purposes: (1) most of the population was so thoroughly mixed that the racial classifications were no longer appropriate, and (2) the parish priests took a political stance against the government’s discriminatory use of the data.
By 1810, during Mexico’s preindependent revolutionary period, regional censuses omitting most racial distinctions had become common (Cook and Borah 1974:188). Gente de razón became the most frequently used term to count people who were White, racially mixed people, and also Indians who were detribalized. Cook and Borah propose that the category gente de razón was not restrictive and allowed many cultural indices to accommodate the heterogeneity of the colonial population. Individuals were counted as part of the gente de razón because they practiced Spanish-Mexican traditions, they were Catholics, and they recognized only the sovereignty of the government of Spain.
Though gente de razón became a widely used and inclusive label, the Indian category did not completely fall out of use. This category was restrictive and fundamentally focused on politics and culture. Cook and Borah (1974:188) found that to be enumerated as an Indian an individual must (1) be of homogeneous descent, (2) retain the aboriginal culture, (3) speak the aboriginal language, and (4) be a member of a tribe or an Indian corporate community who recognized two sovereignties, the tribe and the royal government. This enumeration, of course, applied only to the peaceful Indians of Mexico. Nomadic Indians were not included as part of the national nineteenth-century censuses.
This form of enumeration was replicated throughout the Southwest (Ríos-Bustamante 1986; Weber 1992). Historian Ramón Gutiérrez comments on how it was practiced in New Mexico during the early 1800s:
Beginning in 1800 the proportion of racial status labels declined both in absolute terms and in relation to civic status, nationality, and “no mentions.” … The intermediate hues of race, so important between 1760 and 1799, had begun to disappear from the records by 1800. (Gutiérrez 1991:193)
Though Gutiérrez found in a review of government and church records that cultural labels were used to identify the colonists, the Indian category remained operative, as it did in other parts of Mexico. Cultural labels were used in reference to the colonists and their descendants, while the Indian racial category continued to be used for those people who practiced Indian traditions and lived in Indian communities.
Historian Iris Engstrand (1992:159–161) found a similar method of enumerating the population in a review of early 1800s Arizona censuses. The priests who conducted the regional censuses continued to count the mission and Christian ranchería Indians apart from the settlers, yet refused to identify the race of the settlers. This was done to hide the fact that many of the settlers were actually detribalized second-generation Arizona Indians. The most common terms used by the priests were vecinos and gente de razón. Engstrand comments on this practice:
… the entire system of racial classification was quite arbitrary, and it became more arbitrary toward the closure of the Spanish period. The father of the mission of Tubutuma, Francisco Iturralde, did not even try to leave any information on the origin of the inhabitants in his region, as he classified them by the term “gente de razón,” arguing that he had no other information. The census of Tumacácori [1796] prepared by Father Gutiérrez offers similar vague data as that of the anterior. He includes 29 “vecinos,” the majority of them being peones and ranch hands. (Engstrand 1992:254; my translation)7
Though most racial classifications at the regional level were out of use during the last years of Spanish rule, the royal crown continued to demand a national racial count. It commissioned professional enumerators to maintain a close record of race. After the Mexican War of Independence, however, the federal government ordered the recording of race to cease in all government documents (Cook and Borah 1974:187; Gutiérrez 1991:194). Distinguishing people as Indian and non-Indian was also prohibited in most cases. Exceptions, however, were granted in areas where the Catholic Church served a large number of recently Christianized Indians, such as in the northern and southern border areas of Mexico. This was done to determine the size of the Indian population residing in the missions and to determine if the Catholic Church was converting new populations.8
After independence, maintaining a count of the Christian Indian population in the Southwest continued to serve an important function and became a political vehicle to justify delaying the closure of the missions. Under the Mexican Constitution of 1824, missions more than ten years old had been issued secularization orders, and only recently established missions were given exemptions (Engelhardt 1913:108, Kessell 1976:301–304). Thus, it was important for the Catholic Church to demonstrate the utility of the missions in preparing neophytes to become Mexican citizens. With this intent, many missions maintained a record of their neophyte populations, in particular in California and Arizona. Both territories also counted the number of Indians living in Christian rancherías since this demonstrated the important role missionaries played in acculturating Indians. Although this practice of distinguishing neophytes and Christian ranchería Indians from others continued in some areas, however, similar identification of the afromestizo population ceased. Afromestizos were counted as part of the gente de razón.
In some regions the practice of lumping together the racially mixed populations, Whites, and the acculturated Indians obscured a close accounting of the impact the racial reforms had in the Southwest. The demographic data that we have primarily describe the location of the settlements and their numerical sizes. This accounting practice also made it nearly impossible to determine the racial background of those colonists who settled in the Southwest after independence. A case in point: in 1834 the federal government organized a colony of settlers to migrate to California. Only information on their occupations and skills was noted, and their racial backgrounds were omitted. Apparently 239 settlers arrived from Mexico, many of them with professional skills (Weber 1982: 185–186). Among them were teachers, lawyers, doctors, carpenters, distillers, tailors, and shoemakers. Only 20 percent of the colonists were farmers (Hutchinson 1969). Though the omission of race after independence obscures matters, demographic data on the Indian population of Arizona and Alta California are available, indicating that in these two territories the majority of the citizens were acculturated Indians. The available data also indicate that the colonial settlements continued to grow.
In Alta California the people categorized as gente de razón are estimated to have totaled 3,200 in 1821 (Chapman 1930:385; cf. Weber 1992: 265),9 dispersed in the towns, presidios, and ranches. They were a notably smaller population than the 21,000 neophyte Indians (Bowman 1958:146; Costello and Hornbeck 1989:313). The neophyte Indians resided in the missions but on occasion were given permission to return to their rancherías to visit relatives (Engelhardt 1930:285). Mission records indicate that in 1834 there were 64,500 Christian ranchería Indians (Cook 1976:42–43). Most of these Indians lived along Alta California’s coast in villages and colonial towns. The last census distinguishing the afromestizo population from other people was the census of 1793, which indicates that at least 22 percent of the population was afromestizo (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:230). After independence, however, we are uncertain whether more afromestizos migrated to California or whether the blood quantum of the afromestizo population was further diluted through intermarriage.
A genealogical study of prominent afromestizo families of nineteenth-century California by Jack Forbes (1966) sheds light on this issue. Forbes found that by the Mexican period several prominent afromestizo families were only one-eighth to one-fourth Black. The original pioneers of Alta California had been mulattos (one-half Black), but over time their descendants married people of other races and the Black blood quantum was further reduced. For example, many members of the distinguished Pico extended family were afromestizos. They were dispersed in what today are the counties of Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo and were part of the wealthiest ranching families of Alta California. The best-known member of the Pico family was Pío Pico, who served as governor of California (Forbes 1968:13–15; Rush 1965:116). Pío Pico’s grandparents migrated to California during the late 1700s (Forbes 1966:244; see also Chapter 7). His grandmother was a mulatta married to a mestizo or criollo. Pico’s grandparents’ children married criollos, Indians, afromestizos, and mestizos. Thus, the Pico family was racially mixed, and their Black blood quantums differed. Pico was one-eighth Black. Other well-known Mexican afromestizos with similar backgrounds were Tiburcio Tapia, a mayor and judge of Los Angeles, and Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Victoria, one-term governor of California and distinguished military officer (Bancroft 1964:R-Z 762; Forbes 1966:66; Pitt 1970).
In Arizona, as in California, the neophyte and Christian ranchería Indians outnumbered the gente de razón. In 1820 there were 2,291 gente de razón, concentrated in Tucson and Tubac and also scattered throughout the ranches and mission settlements (Kessell 1976:246). Although the neophyte population in 1820 was also relatively small, numbering only 1,127, the Christian ranchería Indians constituted a sizable population (Kessell 1976:246). A federal census in 1825 found that 9,200 Indians lived near Tucson and were politically organized under the command of ten justices of the peace, the term used for an Indian political leader (Kessell 1976:264). Most of the Indians were Upper Pimas, with a few Papagos and Cocomaricopas scattered among them.10 Unfortunately, a similar census of other Christian ranchería Indians living near the missions was not conducted, so we do not know the population sizes of these groups. In 1843, however, missionaries reported that Christian rancherías were located near Missions Tumacácori and San Xavier del Bac (Engstrand 1992:273). It is uncertain how many afromestizos lived in Arizona during the Spanish and Mexican periods because a comprehensive record of their population size was not kept. Engstrand (1992:215, 216) found that only in Tucson did government reports identify afromestizos.
In New Mexico the regional censuses did not distinguish the population by race (see Carroll and Haggard 1942). After independence, the first regional census was taken in 1827 by Colonel Don Antonio Narvona, military commandant of New Mexico (Carroll and Haggard 1942:88, 89). He reported that 43,433 citizens were dispersed in the capital of Santa Fe, villas, ranches, colonial towns, and Indian pueblos. By this time Ysleta, Socorro, and the presidio at San Elizario were no longer counted as part of New Mexico; in 1823 they had become part of Chihuahua (Bowden 1971:157). Though neither Narvona nor other census enumerators distinguished people on the basis of race, an estimate of the size of the Christian Indian population is available, based on a census count of the people who lived in the Indian pueblos.11 For example, Carroll and Haggard (1942:89) estimate on the basis of New Mexico’s census of 1840 that out of a total of 55,403 New Mexican citizens there were 10,566 Christian Indians living apart from the colonists. Though these authors recognize that their estimate may be low because many Indians lived in the colonial settlements and were counted as part of the gente de razón, the available data at least indicate the size of the Indian population residing in the Indian pueblos.
Ramón Gutiérrez (1991:198) proposes that in New Mexico by the early 1800s the descendants of afromestizos had interbred with the Indian and European-origin population so that their former distinctiveness was no longer apparent. This view is supported by Don Pedro Bautista Pino, New Mexico’s representative to the 1812 Cortes at Cádiz and author of various reports on New Mexico. Bautista Pino alleged that in 1812 New Mexico no longer had Black residents (Bautista Pino 1812:243). Historian Adrian Bustamante disagrees with Bautista Pino and Gutiérrez, arguing that although there were few Black people, the 1790 census of New Mexico and Mexican documents clearly indicate that there were people of Black descent living in New Mexico toward the end of the Spanish period. For example, the 1790 census indicates that afromestizos were dispersed in seventy-six settlements, with most residing in Santa Fe (Bustamante 1991:156). Seventy-nine families had a head of household who was identified as afromestizo (mulatto or coyote) (ibid., 150–153). Gutiérrez (1991:196) acknowledges that Spanish documents in New Mexico often used the word mulatto or pardo, but he argues that these terms simply meant that an individual was of mixed Spanish-Indian ancestry. Bustamante (1991:161) disagrees and asks why the words would be used differently than in the interior of Mexico, where they clearly referred to a person who was Black or of partially Black ancestry. Gutiérrez and Bustamante agree, however, that during the Mexican period the terms pardo and mulatto were gradually replaced by the national ethnic identifier mexicano and that cultural rather than racial terms were used in reference to the non-Indian population.
After independence the population of Texas was enumerated without using racial distinctions (Alonzo 1998).12 By the 1820s most mission Indians had been secularized and were part of the gente de razón (Hinojosa 1991:72–73). Only the Indians at Missions Espíritu Santo and Rosario had not been secularized. By 1830, however, the last mission Indians had been secularized, and most of them moved to other settlements in Texas (Weber 1982:56). Five years later, the Mexican population of Texas is estimated to have grown to 7,800 (Meyer and Sherman 1995:336).13 This estimate does not include the populations from El Paso Valley and Laredo, which at that time were both part of other territories.14 It also does not include the Christian Indians living outside of the colonial settlements or the Anglo-American immigrants, who were enumerated separately. Government reports estimate that by 1834 the Anglo-American population had outgrown the Mexican population and reached over 30,000 (Meyer and Sherman 1995:336; Schwartz 1975:27). There is no estimate of the Christian Indians living in rancherías. Because racial classifications were not used during the Mexican period, we do not know the actual size of the afromestizo population in Texas. An estimate of the size of the Black slave population brought by Anglo-American immigrants is available, however. By 1836 over 5,000 Black slaves had been transported to Texas from the United States (Richardson, Wallace, and Anderson 1970:160).
Throughout the Spanish and Mexican periods the Catholic Church and colonial governments attempted to Christianize the Indians of the Southwest and incorporate them as part of the state. After independence, Indian allies were granted Mexican citizenship and expected to acculturate (Menchaca 1993). Indians were expected to change their lifestyle by adopting new traditions and practices and shedding old ones; in cases where the culture of the Indians was practical, they were encouraged to recombine the old and the new to produce bicultural innovations. Essentially acculturation was a process through which Indians became functional in the language of their conquerors, replicated many of their daily life practices, and were knowledgeable about their norms. My analysis of Indian acculturation during the Mexican period in the areas of political structure, material culture, religion, language, and education is based on a synthesis of the writings of historians and anthropologists. The goal of this discussion is to outline the group behavioral changes that occurred among the Indians who became incorporated as Mexican citizens. I am not implying that they all followed a common acculturation pattern. It has been well documented by scholars that individuals in any acculturation process do not follow the same degree of cultural change, because some individuals accommodate while others choose to resist.
I concur with Pierre Bourdieu (1992) that acculturation is dependent upon how one internalizes externality. Individuals form different types of relations with people and are affected by formal institutions in diverse ways (e.g., government, school, church). The experiences people undergo with representatives of such institutions in turn influence how they internalize their views of life, government, religion, and school. These experiences also have an effect on individuals’ sentiments about their cultural group as well as their opinions of the way of life of the dominant cultural group in power. Overall, acculturation is a highly individual process that is internalized based upon one’s life experiences. As part of this individual process, however, the role of the family is significant. As Milton Gordon (1964) notes, the family unit has a strong impact on how the individual internalizes externality. Gordon posits that family members generally only acquire basic cultural knowledge when they first come into contact with the ethnic group that dominates them. Not until the second generation do family members acquire the correct social comportment expected of them by the dominant cultural group. It is also important to note that the community in which a family and individual reside influences familial and individual acculturation.
Pierre Bourdieu (1992) and Ronald Cohen (1978) assert that when individuals live among people who share their same ancestry group pressures are placed upon the family and individual to interpret externality in a similar manner, thus maintaining a parallel progression in the level of their community’s acculturation. Although the community plays a significant role, Bourdieu asserts that in the end it is the social relations that the individual forms which exert the strongest force in determining whether a person accommodates, resists, or passively accepts the social pressures to change. Although I concur with Bourdieu, I must add that those who are socially dominated acknowledge that it is necessary to be operational in the culture of the dominant group if one is to pursue a life of happiness or succeed economically (Barth 1969; Despres 1975). I must also note that when individuals acculturate this does not mean that they shed their ancestral culture (Keefe and Padilla 1987; Menchaca 1989). Individuals can acculturate and at the same time retain the knowledge and practices of their ancestors. This process has been called biculturalism and ethnic retention and is not considered to be in conflict with acculturation. Thus, my analysis of the Indians’ acculturation is based upon writings that record group behavior and not necessarily the private lives or political views of individuals.
The same groups who were colonized by Spain remained allies of the Mexican state, and their acculturation continued to occur at an individual, family, or village level. Only in El Paso Valley and in La Junta in Texas were a large number of Apaches converted during the Mexican period (Beers 1979; Castañeda 1938; Hendricks and Timmons 1998). In New Mexico the genizaro population also increased during the Mexican period (Archibald 1978:211; Bustamante 1991:148). Because members of this population were clearly bicultural, they were ostracized by the Indians and the colonists alike. The Pueblo Indians did not give genizaros tribal membership, and the colonists treated them as outsiders and troublemakers. By independence these marginalized indigenous people had formed their own towns and were concentrated in the five pueblos of Belén, Santa Rosa de Abiquiú, Ojo Caliente, Tomé, and San Miguel del Vado (Gutiérrez 1991:305).
Political perception was one of the main cultural areas in which Indian allies underwent change, as they had to pledge allegiance to Spain or to the Republic of Mexico. As part of this political enfranchisement they were expected to modify their tribal government by adopting a political structure handed down from Spain (Carroll and Haggard 1942; Doyle 1989; Engstrand 1992; Officer 1987; Polzer 1976). Under the town assembly structure the chief became the alcalde (who functioned as mayor or justice of the peace) and selected at least two regiadores (town assembly members) (Ezzell 1974). The duties of these officials ranged from organizing social activities to ensuring that the orders of the colonial government and church were enforced. Indians from Christian rancherías as well as the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico had greater flexibility to choose to follow this form of government or ignore it altogether. Because they were not under daily military supervision, it was up to them to modify their tribal structure.15
In contrast to the political flexibility enjoyed by the Pueblo and Christian ranchería Indians, the mission Indians were closely supervised and had to organize town assemblies (Engelhardt 1986; Grant 1978b). In their case it was common to merge indigenous political forms of government with the one imposed upon them. Essentially, a bicultural political structure emerged. In missions that were inhabited by one tribe or ranchería, their chief was appointed to the position of alcalde (Engelhardt 1930). The regiadores were appointed from among the neophytes. In missions where the neophytes came from different tribes and their chiefs also lived among them, the alcalde and regiadores were elected or appointed by the fathers.
After Mexican independence, the political structures of Christian Indians living in rancherías and the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico were not affected. If they had organized town assemblies, that form of government continued. When the missions were secularized, however, the Indian political structures were dismantled. Because Christian Indians were given citizenship, they were to participate in the town assemblies organized by the colonists. In theory, no political distinctions were to be made between them and the colonists. In practice, as the next chapter illustrates, the colonists overwhelmingly controlled the Indians by monopolizing all governmental committees.
Indians also experienced cultural changes in their daily lives, including the way they dressed, the tools they used, and how they cooked their food (Monroy 1990). Women and men were expected to be fully clothed (Bolton 1921; Engelhardt 1929; Monroy 1990). Indians who did not practice farming were also encouraged to plant beans, peas, lentils, and cereals rather than to depend upon roots (Hoover 1989). They obtained spades, hoes, and other tools from the colonists (Ezzell 1974). After the introduction of cattle by Spain, Indians were encouraged to raise cattle as a source of protein. Cooking utensils made from metal were also a welcome innovation. Indians were encouraged to modify the shape of the ceramics and baskets they manufactured, however, rather than to abandon this technology. On the contrary, the colonists adopted the Indians’ ceramic technology and modified it by using Spanish glazes and firing techniques. Guns, lances, and horses were also introduced, not only by the Spanish, but through trade with the English, French, or Americans (Powell 1952). This gave Indians rapid mobility and overall made warfare more dangerous.
The tenets of Catholicism were also introduced to the Christian Indians. Neophytes and first-generation Christian Indians often practiced nepantlism, a form of religious syncretism, merging indigenous and Catholic ontological views (Anzaldúa 1986; Engelhardt 1929). Although indigenous religious tenets were replaced by Christian doctrines in succeeding generations, they were not completely abandoned. Jacques Lafaye (1974) argues that the analysis of indigenous religion must be understood through a private vs. public dichotomy. In public Indians accommodated in an effort to please the fathers, yet in private veneration of indigenous deities persisted. This analysis is supported by the fact that indigenous religions survive to this date (Horcasitas 1992). Through catechism the fathers taught Indians the basic tenets of Christianity and concurrently attacked the validity of their indigenous religious beliefs. Though the missionaries’ ministering styles varied and some refused to allow religious syncretism, it was common for liberal missionaries to ease the transition from one belief system to another by teaching the Indians to associate their deities with the Catholic saints, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary (Gutiérrez 1991).
Religion also influenced Indians linguistically and frequently became the vehicle for bilingualism. To facilitate interethnic communication the Catholic Church instructed missionaries to learn the Indians’ languages (Engelhardt 1929). Although interpreters were often used, it was necessary for the friars to become bilingual if they were to evangelize the Indians successfully (Polzer 1976; Spicer 1981). When the friars were not bilingual, catechism lessons were interpreted. The eventual goal of the friars, however, was to convert the Indians to become Spanish speakers (Monroy 1990).
The length of time that Indians needed to internalize Catholic beliefs and learn Spanish was highly dependent upon their place of residence. Mission Indians were under daily supervision; from Monday to Saturday they were required to attend mass in the morning before beginning their work and to study their catechism lessons before eating supper (Bannon 1970; Engelhardt 1929). On Sundays and during religious holidays they also attended mass. In contrast to this daily routine the Indians from the Christian rancherías and the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico did not experience similar pressures and had greater freedom to internalize or reject the teachings. The frequency of the missionaries’ visits also varied, depending on the proximity of the rancherías to the missions. In California, Texas, and New Mexico it was common for the rancherías and Indian pueblos to be adjacent to the missions or to be within a few hours’ ride (Merriam 1955; Poyo and Hinojosa 1991; Prince 1915). In contrast, the Yuma rancherías in the area of the Gila and the Santa Cruz rivers in Arizona were far from the missions, and the fathers were only able to visit the Indians three to four times a year (Kessell 1976).
Formal schooling in the Southwest was uncommon; yet in places where schools were available Indians were allowed to attend, and schooling was used as a vehicle of acculturation (Menchaca 1999).16 Schooling policies during the Mexican period were inherited from Spain and were applied to Indians and colonists alike. Usually the children of the colonists and Indians only learned to read and write if their parents were literate or if they were taught by missionaries (Sánchez 1976). High-level Spanish officers were the only ones able to educate their children in the interior of Mexico, a form of private education unavailable to the commoners or most Indians.
Texas was the first territory in the Southwest to establish a formal school that employed a professional teacher to develop a curriculum and to instruct students on a regular basis. Founded in San Antonio in 1746, the first formal school was a private Catholic school limited to children whose parents were able to pay tuition (Berger 1947:41). It primarily served the needs of the peninsular elite. After 1782 the church ordered the missionaries throughout the Southwest to increase the secular education of the Indians in the fields of agriculture, horticulture, mechanical arts, and stock raising (Engelhardt 1930:401). In essence the function of the missions was not to be solely religious, but rather to prepare the Indians to become ranchers and to enter occupations needed to improve the stability of the colonies. Every mission was to offer classes in agriculture and in other industrial occupations.
In 1793 a royal decree ordered local governments in the Southwest to establish public schools (Engelhardt 1930:490). This was part of the crown’s liberal philosophy of improving the cultural lifestyle of the colonies by schooling the children of the settlers and the Christianized Indians. Under this decree, school attendance was to be compulsory and the schools were to be funded through taxes levied by local government and through private donations. Indian children were allowed to attend public schools but were not allowed to speak their native languages. If Indian students could not speak Spanish, they had to be taught to speak it, because all instruction was to be in that language. The royal decree was ambitious for its time and difficult to implement. Only Texas and California enforced the decree and began formal education.
After 1793 a few schools were established in Texas in the garrisons and missions as well as one additional private school in San Antonio (Berger 1947:42).17 The application of the royal decree of 1793 was especially successful in California, as Governor Diego de Borica enthusiastically prepared plans to establish schools in all major settlements (Berger 1947). Although professional teachers were not hired, officers who were literate and willing to act as teachers were relieved from military duties. Within two years of the decree the government in California had established five public schools—four schools in the presidial towns of Santa Bárbara, San Diego, Monterey, and San Francisco and one in the civilian township of San José. In 1817 a sixth school was opened in Los Angeles (Weiss 1978:117).
Public education got underway in New Mexico after 1813 and was made available to the colonists, Indians, and genizaros (Barreiro 1832: 291). Unlike the situation in California and Texas, however, where students were allowed to attend public schools irrespective of their parents’ ability to pay teachers’ salaries, only the children whose parents contributed to the teacher’s stipend were allowed to attend school. The royal decree of 1793 was apparently ignored by the local government until a direct order was issued. On 26 January 1813 the royal government ordered that public education must be made available in New Mexico (Barreiro 1832:290–292). New Mexico’s governor was also ordered to establish plans for offering some form of higher education in Santa Fe, the capital.
Following this decree, New Mexico established six schools (see Menchaca 1999). The date of their founding is uncertain; however, an 1832 report by government inspector Antonio Barreiro entitled Ojeada sobre Nuevo México, que da una idea (A Glimpse of New Mexico, Which Gives Us an Idea) tells us that the schools were established during the Spanish period and that they remained in operation during the Mexican period (Barreiro 1832). According to Barreiro, the schools were founded after 1813 in the towns of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Cañada and in the Indian-genizaro towns of Belén, San Miguel del Vado, and Taos.
Public schools were not available in Arizona during the Spanish and Mexican periods, and few children were schooled by missionaries. The missionaries, who traditionally played important roles in the schooling of children in other regions, were preoccupied with their multiple duties as farmers, medical aides, and religious representatives. Their missionary work required that they travel hundreds of miles to reach their Christian rancherías, which left little time to teach children. Arizona settlers contemplated opening two public schools in Tucson, however, after the visit of friar Juan Baptista de Cevallos. In 1814 the crown assigned Cevallos, the commissionary prefect, to inspect Arizona settlements (Dobyns 1976:48–49). He found no schools in Arizona and immediately ordered the settlers to hire two teachers to establish schools in Tucson and in Mission San Xavier del Bac. Neither Cevallos nor the settlers acquired the necessary funds to establish the schools.
After Mexican independence, under the Constitution of 1824, Mexico’s Congress ruled that the federal government would promote public education by assisting the states and territories in developing educational policies (see Larroyo 1946).18 In California the public schools established during the Spanish period continued to function during the Mexican period. The missions also continued to school children. After secularization orders were issued in 1834, to assist the badly funded yet energetic educational system in California the Mexican government commissioned twenty teachers to open schools (Hutchinson 1969:266). They arrived at San Diego as part of the Padres-Hijares Colony, which brought 239 colonists. Upon their arrival the teachers replaced the lay instructors in the schools at Monterey, Los Angeles, and Santa Bárbara and in several of the secularized mission settlements. The educational system in New Mexico did not expand during the Mexican period; the only improvement was in the availability of textbooks (Tyler 1974). Father Martínez, the teacher at Taos, obtained a printing press and wrote, printed, and distributed textbooks throughout New Mexico (ibid.). After independence, most schools in Texas temporarily closed, but were reinstated in 1828 (Berger 1947). Only one private school in San Antonio remained open during this period. When public schools were reopened, they were established in San Antonio, La Bahía, and Nacogdoches.
Though schooling in the Southwest was badly financed and limited to those students who resided in a few areas, schooling was not restricted solely to the colonists. Furthermore, education served an important acculturation function: Indians were instructed in Spanish and were forced to become bilingual if they chose to be educated.
In sum, by the Mexican period Christian Indians and their ancestors had experienced diverse forms of acculturation. They had not all experienced the same degrees of acculturation, however. Some had more contact with the colonists, and these relationships served to familiarize them with the culture of those in power. In particular, those children who attended formal schools became highly acculturated. Pablo Tac, a Luiseño, serves as an example (see Haas 1995). Tac was schooled by missionaries at San Luis Rey, California. At age eleven he was taken to Rome to begin his studies in Latin, rhetoric, humanities, and philosophy. While in Rome Tac wrote a manuscript on his native language, leaving a treatise on Luiseño grammar. Unfortunately, he died at age twenty and was not able to write other books. Though his case was uncommon, thousands of Christian Indians did acculturate and became citizens of Mexico after independence. Most non-Christian Indians, however, remained outside the Mexican government’s political domain, as the new government was unable to conquer the vast majority of the nomadic and ranchería Indians (Weber 1982). In particular, vanquishing the largest tribes in the Southwest became nearly impossible; most Apaches, Navajos, Comanches, and Shoshones remained independent (John 1975; Kessell 1976; Kutsche 1979).
In 1824 the federal government instituted laws to reorganize the land grant system in the Southwest and to privatize mission lands (Engstrand 1978:329). The goals were to redistribute land among the colonists and to transform Indians into land-owning farmers (Mason 1986; Ríos-Bustamante 1986). This was part of the federal government’s social policies to eradicate the effects of the casta system. Ironically, the liberalism of the new government was accompanied by cruel and unrealistic policies toward the Indians of the Southwest (Menchaca 1995). Under the 1824 General Law of Colonization, Mexican citizens, including Christian Indians, were to be given patent to the land they inhabited, cultivated, and used for pasture (see Hall and Weber 1984). In addition, all vacant lands were eligible for distribution (Articles 2 and 9 in the 1824 General Colonization Law, cited in Laws of Texas, Vol. 1, p. 99). Indians and other people planning to found a new town were also given four additional leagues (17,752 acres) to erect its public buildings (Engstrand 1991; Robinson 1948).19 Although the colonization law was designed to help Christian Indians acquire the lifestyle of Mexicans by making them property owners like the rest of the citizens of the Southwest, it unfortunately resulted in distributing a large part of the property belonging to the Christian Indians among the colonists (Engelhardt 1929, 1930).
The Colonization Law of 1824 was fundamentally flawed with respect to the rights of the Christian Indians because the federal government reinstated the Property Law of 1813, which declared that all vacant lands were to be made available for redistribution (Hall and Weber 1984:9). The 1813 law legally dispossessed the nomadic Indians of their hunting grounds, for unless they were allies of the state their land could be declared vacant and sold or granted (Sánchez 1986). It also made the unused land of the Christian Indians available for redistribution, unless it was clearly demarcated for a township or was privatized into family parcels (Kessell 1976). Likewise the Property Law of 1813 targeted the uninhabited Spanish land grants for redistribution. In general, a major aim of the federal government’s land policy in the Southwest was to redistribute property among all Mexican citizens and not to privilege any racial group, as Spain had done for centuries (Leonard 1943). The Spanish crown had previously given massive land grants to its favorite subjects, who were mostly peninsulares, and reserved land for mission Indians and the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. After independence, since all people were declared equal citizens, no one was to have greater rights to land. The colonists welcomed the reforms, yet many Indians did not share their sentiments. In particular, a large number of Pueblo communities of New Mexico protested the land reforms. They knew they had to be exempt from federal policy if they were to retain their ancestral lands.
Furthermore, under Article 2 of the 1824 General Colonization Law the federal government created a new economic incentive to attract immigrants and citizens from the interior of Mexico to the Southwest (Engstrand 1978:329). Heads of households would be allowed to claim a maximum of eleven square leagues (48,818 acres). This included one square league of irrigable land, four of nonirrigable land, and six for grazing. Only empresarios (individuals commissioned to bring colonists or immigrants) would be allowed to exceed the eleven-square-league limit. In essence, these generous land grants offered to the new settlers were a federal strategy to increase the population size of the Southwest (Weber 1982). In this way, the colonial population would grow and there would be more people to pacify and conquer the Apache, Navajo, Comanche, and Shoshone.
Under the 1824 General Colonization Law, the federal government decreed that residents in the Southwest were the owners of the land they possessed as long as there was no overlapping claim and the occupant was not an enemy of Mexico (Haas 1995; Hall 1989; Ross 1974; Rush 1965). The federal government ordered each state and territory of the Southwest to develop the particular procedures to be followed to issue titles to Mexican citizens. It appointed administrators to investigate, survey, settle land disputes, and confirm land grant titles. Missionaries were included in the validation process: they were to notify the Christian Indians of the land reforms and assist them to do an appropriate survey of their lands and complete the claim process (Menchaca 1995; see McMullen v. Hodge and Others, 1849; Ross 1974). The federal government also gave governors the right to organize and preside over the land commissions which would review the claims (Hall and Weber 1984).
Tragically, in its haste to privatize land the federal government committed a mistake of enormous proportions by allowing governors to issue patents (Engstrand 1991:39, 1978:329). Though most governors were honest, in California a few became land speculators and primarily granted land to their relatives and friends. Corrupt governors did not discriminate against the Indians or colonists: they seized the property of anyone who was in their way. By 1836 the federal government had realized that this policy was flawed and rescinded it (Mattison 1946:287). After that date only appointed federal officials had the power to issue final patents. Unfortunately, in Arizona and California the reform came too late, as a considerable amount of land had been seized by the governors.
Other problems soon developed. Most colonists and Indians failed to survey their land properly and to complete the application process as recommended by the federal government. Under the Spanish land tenure system, not possessing a patent had not been a problem; and as long as a person’s claim remained unchallenged there was little incentive to obtain a patent during the Mexican period because the process was time consuming and expensive. To file a claim it was common for people to have to travel hundreds of miles to meet the appropriate officials. The applicants then had to pay fees, prove that Christian Indians did not own the land, and pay for a survey; after this exhausting process was completed, they could finally obtain a patent.
A case in point is the experience of José Joaquín Ortega, one of the first land-grant owners of what today constitutes Santa Paula (Menchaca 1995). He was the grandson of José Francisco Ortega, one of the officers in the Portolá and Serra expedition.20 In 1834 José Joaquín Ortega obtained title to more than half of Santa Paula, in Ventura County (California Land Case No. 550, 1853:44). To receive patent he had his grant properly surveyed and improved the land by establishing Potrero de Santa Paula (a ranch). After unsuccessful attempts to cultivate crops, Ortega moved to San Diego and received a second grant. Between 1834 and 1839 several Mexican and Chumash families migrated to Santa Paula and settled on Ortega’s property (see Menchaca 1995). Ortega allowed them to become his tenants since a large part of his land remained uncultivated. In 1839 Manuel Jimeno Casarin became aware of Ortega’s situation (ibid., 6). He was California’s secretary of state and the federal official commissioned to certify and compile a registry of all valid land claims in California. Jimeno Casarin subsequently filed a petition to dissolve Ortega’s title over the potrero on the basis that the land was abandoned. Ortega attempted to retain title, but when it became clear that he was about to lose the grant he requested that the families living on his property be issued patent. This ordeal led Ortega to travel from San Diego to Santa Bárbara twice, to meet with Jimeno Casarin, the governor, and the land commission officials and to offer testimony to a court reporter. Furthermore, since Ortega asked that the claim be transferred to his tenants, they also had to accompany Ortega and offer testimony.
Photograph 31. Lopez Adobe, near Ojai, California, Built circa 1830. Courtesy of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art.
Photograph 32. Rancho Camulos Adobe, Piru, California, Built circa 1839. Courtesy of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art.
Photograph 33. Rancho Camulos Chapel, Piru, California, 1839. Courtesy of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art.
In the end, Ortega and the families lost the claim and needlessly spent time and money, as Jimeno Casarin chose to apply for the grant himself. The point of this account is that colonists and Christian ranchería Indians in the Southwest often lived great distances from the places where they had to file their claims. Thus, as long as a claim remained unchallenged there was little incentive to travel hundreds of miles and lose time from ranching and farming activities (see Photographs 31 to 33).
Unfortunately for the colonists and Christian Indians alike, they were unaware that the federal government’s land reforms were indeed prudent, since radical changes were soon to take place. The Mexican government’s effort to recruit United States citizens was successful. In 1822 the mass arrival of Anglo-American immigrants began (Weber 1982:164), first in Texas and then in California.
In the beginning the federal government considered its immigration policy to be a brilliant strategy, as the increased number of settlers facilitated the pacification of the hostile Indians (Smith 1962a, 1962b). By the mid-1830s, however, the Mexican government regretted its immigration policy, because it proved to be disastrous (Menchaca 1993; Weber 1982). It became the gateway for the arrival of a population who did not share the new republic’s ideals or racial philosophy.
