Coercion, Culture and Debt Contracts: The Henequen Industry in Yucatan, Mexico, 1870-1915

While most contemporary historians agree that the use of debt peonage as a coercive labor contract in Mexico was not widespread, scholars still concur that it was important and pervasive in Yucatan state during the henequen boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The henequen boom concurred with the long rule of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1910), under whose watch property rights were reallocated through land laws, and Mexico’s economy became much more closely tied to the United States. In the Yucatan, the accumulation of debts by peons rose as hacendados sought to attract and bond workers to match the rising U.S. demand for twine. We examine the institutional setting in which debt operated and analyze the specific functions of debt: who got it, what form it took, and why it varied across workers. We stress the formal and informal institutional contexts within which hacendados and workers negotiated contracts.

Indigenous Resistance to Criminal Governance: Why Regional Ethnic Autonomy Institutions Protect Communities from Narco Rule in Mexico

This article explains why some indigenous communities in Mexico have been able to resist drug cartels’ attempts to take over their local governments, populations, and territories while others have not. While indigenous customary laws and traditions provide communal accountability mechanisms that make it harder for narcos to take control, they are insufficient. Using a paired comparison of two indigenous regions in the highlands of Guerrero and Chihuahua—both ideal zones for drug cultivation and traffic—we show that the communities most able to resist narco conquest are those that have a history of social mobilization, expanding village-level indigenous customary traditions into regional ethnic autonomy regimes. By scaling up local accountability practices regionally and developing translocal networks of cooperation, indigenous movements have been able to construct mechanisms of internal control and external protection that enable communities to deter the narcos from corrupting local authorities, recruiting young men, and establishing criminal governance regimes through force.   Resumen Este artículo explica por qué algunas comunidades indígenas en México han podido resistir los intentos de los cárteles de la droga de conquistar sus gobiernos locales, poblaciones y territorios y otras no. Aunque los sistemas normativos indígenas dotan a las comunidades de mecanismos internos de 'accountability' que le dificultan al narco tomar el control, estas instituciones resultan insuficientes para contener al narco. A partir de una comparación de dos regiones indígenas de las sierras de Guerrero y Chihuahua –dos zonas ideales para el cultivo y tráfico de drogas– mostramos que las comunidades más capaces de resistir la conquista del narco son las que han sido parte de una larga historia de movilización social, mediante la cual han logrado expandir los sistemas normativos locales para construir regímenes de autonomía étnica regionales. Al escalar las prácticas locales de 'accountability' a nivel regional y desarrollar redes trans-locales de cooperación, los movimientos indígenas han desarrollado los mecanismos de control interno y de protección externa que les permiten a las comunidades evitar que los narcos corrompan a sus autoridades locales, recluten a sus jóvenes y establezcan regímenes de gobernanza criminal a través de la fuerza