Libraries

This pioneering book written by our colleague Gisela von Wobeser studies the transformation of the Mexican landscape with the introduction of European agriculture. To do this, she explains the control of two fundamental components: land and water. As usual, von Wobeser works with a large and well-chosen selection of archival materials to demonstrate how new economic systems were created in the process of making new American societies.

The texts consulted are diverse and represent a model to follow for those who approach the history of the viceroyalty agroindustries:

This research was based on a set of maps, graphs and plans of the colonial period, belonging to the graphic archive of the Archivo General de la Nación. Approximately 600 maps were studied, which provided information on the occupation of the land and the gradual disappearance of the wastelands, the physical configuration of the labors and the cattle ranchs and their location near the Indians, the use of water during the sixteenth century and the appearance of the first hydraulic works, the rise of the hacienda, the territorial expansion of the haciendas, the loss of lands of indigenous communities, the physical configuration of the haciendas and the hydraulic works carried out on the haciendas, among other aspects.