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Making fortunes on the frontier of enemies: The agrarian economy of San Felipe el Real de Chihuahua, 1709--1831

This dissertation is a price history of agricultural commodities, specifically, live cattle, live sheep, beef, mutton, wheat, and maize during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the Villa de San Felipe el Real de Chihuahua, Mexico. Using data drawn from the institutions of food distribution, the meat monopoly, el abasto de carne, the grains warehouse, la alhondiga and the maize fund, el posito , this study explores the relationship between the countryside and the urban center and explains other social phenomena. Patterns of grains prices were the reverse of those found in Central Mexico. Falling maize prices, in particular, reflected the declining silver economy and declining population levels found in San Felipe during the last decades of the eighteenth century. Cattle, sheep, beef and mutton prices more closely followed the mild inflation rate found in the rest of Colonial Mexico. Frontier warfare, frequent droughts and declining silver production were the causes of this long-term economic slide. As the Chihuahuan economy did not share in the eighteenth-century economic boom experienced in Central Mexico, neither did Chihuahuan society experience the late-colonial social distortions found in the regions to the south. It is not surprising, therefore, that the residents of the northern frontier of New Spain did not participate in the Hidalgo Revolt of 1810 / acase@tulane.edu

  1. tulane:27375
Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_27375
Date January 2000
ContributorsPalladini, Eric Louis, Jr (Author), MacLachlan, Colin (Thesis advisor)
PublisherTulane University
Source SetsTulane University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
RightsAccess requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law

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