Early 1600s- Development of the system. Focus on private ownership.
Labor secured through debt peonage. Laws prohibiting land ownership by the Church are abolished. (By the mid 1800, the Church owns half of the arable land and controls 75% of the money in circulation.)
1700s- Spanish demand for land catches up with rural populations. Spanish force Indians to live in concentrated areas. Expropriate Indian land through illegal means.
1810- Revolution against Spain. Morelos seeks to abolish haciendas. Iturbide gains power and Morelos flees country.
1856- Ley Lerdo is aimed at breaking up the massive holdings of the Church, but impacts Indian communal lands knows as ejidos. Reforms result in redistribution of land into hands of new class of wealthy Mestizo and foreigners-mainly Americans.
1894- Porfirio Diaz abolishes limit on amount of land an individual can own.
1902- Diaz demands enforcement of Ley Lerdo. This results in huge areas of land being owned by very few people.
1910- The Mexican Revolution ravages the haciendas. Many wealthy owners are killed, and their haciendas burned to the ground. The era of the haciendas, once colorful and charming in its own way, is now forever "gone with the wind."....
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