Resumen

GARCIA RUIZ, Luis Juventino. The Division of Community Lands in Orizaba During the 19th Century. Social Actors and Individual Ownership. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2025, vol.46, n.182, pp.182-206.  Epub 03-Jun-2025. ISSN 2448-7554.  https://doi.org/10.24901/rehs.v46i182.1125.

This article analyzes the transition from corporate property to individual ownership based on the case of the indigenous community of Orizaba during the 19th century. It takes as a background the conditions that made it possible for social groups to gain access to the useful domain of the land and later to full ownership. Since colonial times, emphyteutic censuses, leases and other varieties of usufruct allowed Indians, Spaniards and mestizos to establish themselves on mayorazgo and community lands. These property rights were affirmed and promoted during the operation of the royal tobacco monopoly. With the arrival of liberalism, the mobilization of the Indians made it possible to agree with the local town council on the criteria for carrying out the distributions, thus preventing the community properties from being transformed into municipal patrimony. This experience served as an input for the design of the first disentailment ordinance in Veracruz, in 1826. Its application required constant dialogue, agreements and consensus to dissuade conflicts that complicated the privatization of corporate assets. By the middle of the century, a large part of the lands had already been transformed to private ownership, using the Veracruz legislation as a support, and in some cases maintaining the emphyteusis and leases. Even while the Lerdo Law was still in force, the indigenous and local authorities continued to rely on the state decrees, since they assured them wide margins of consensus, greater popular interference in decision making, and a more equitable distribution of property.

Palabras llave : communities; property rights; local actors; liberal legislation; popular participation.

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