In Mexico the term ejido is applied to agricultural lands held collectively by agrarian communities. In this book, the ejido becomes a point of departure for a detailed examination of the whole gamut of problems in rural Mexico--land distribution and tenure, education, agricultural credit, and political organization and social control. Finally, the ejido is evaluated in relation to land reform and the future economic and social organization of Mexico. Originally published in 1937. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

This volume explores how reforms to Mexico's agrarian legislation changed the ejido's traditional role as the principal economic and political agent in the countryside.

Radical change in the land reform program is not in order in Mexico, but certain institutional changes would improve agricultural growth on farmlands governed by land reform.

After the fall of the Porfirio Díaz regime, pueblo representatives sent hundreds of petitions to Pres. Francisco I. Madero, demanding that the executive branch of government assume the judiciary's control over their unresolved lawsuits against landowners, local bosses, and other villages. The Madero administration tried to use existing laws to settle land conflicts but always stopped short of invading judicial authority. In contrast, the two main agrarian reform programs undertaken in revolutionary Mexico--those implemented by Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza--subordinated the judiciary to the executive branch and thereby reshaped the postrevolutionary state with the support of villagers, who actively sided with one branch of government over another. In Matters of Justice Helga Baitenmann offers the first detailed account of the Zapatista and Carrancista agrarian reform programs as they were implemented in practice at the local level and then reconfigured in response to unanticipated inter- and intravillage conflicts. Ultimately, the Zapatista land reform, which sought to redistribute land throughout the country, remained an unfulfilled utopia. In contrast, Carrancista laws, intended to resolve quickly an urgent problem in a time of war, had lasting effects on the legal rights of millions of land beneficiaries and accidentally became the pillar of a program that redistributed about half the national territory.