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Description

An Important Hacienda in the State of Michoacan

Finely executed manuscript map of the hacienda of San Bartolo, on the south shore of Lake Cuitzeo, north of Morelia in Mexico.

The main house of the hacienda is today located in the town of Álvaro Obregón, Michoacán. The hacienda dates from the late-seventeenth century and the town built up around it as a result of the agrarian reforms at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The plan shows pastures (potreros), corrals, a reservoir for washing laundry (atarjea de lavadero, here atargea), and many fields that make up the hacienda’s holdings. Hills dot the landscape, and the hacienda borders other haciendas and Singuio, a small town, as well as the lake.

The main house and its outbuildings, along with gardens and a pasera, or place for grape dehydration, are marked in red and black in the south of the plan. Below the plan are two scales and an altitude table.

Hacienda de San Bartolo

This entire area of Mexico was covered by large haciendas, or landed estates. These rural holdings were focused on agriculture and mining, among other activities. Although they began in the sixteenth century, many more were granted and developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. San Bartolo is one of these later haciendas.

Haciendas were established in places with favorable natural conditions, as they were mainly devoted for agricultural and livestock production. The Lerma River basin is one of the most fertile regions in Mexico. Lake Cuitzeo is a standout in this area; it constitutes a sub-basin of the Lerma.

It is here that the hacienda de San Bartolo arose, in the center of the present state of Michoacán, near the city of Valladolid. The hacienda de San Bartolo appears as an agricultural and livestock producer in the records of the bishopric of Michoacán. These records date from the tenure of Bishop Francisco de Aguiar y Seixas, in the final decades of the seventeenth century. 

Whenever and wherever they began, haciendas created and reinforced a social and economic hierarchy in rural areas. Their main houses were some of the most significant local architectural elements and often served as meeting places and administrative hubs. The main house of San Bartolo, indicated on this plan with a series of structures outlined in red, was a two-story neoclassical hall set atop a hill. The chapel, built in 1836, was located just in front of the main house.

The hacienda was described by Frances Erskine Inglis, Madame Calderón de la Barca, who traveled through Michoacán in late 1839. Madame Calderón de la Barca describes San Bartolo as, "an extensive and magnificent hacienda belonging to Don Joaquín Gómez. of Valladolid." She states, “the house is one of the most beautiful and welcoming that I have ever seen: but we saw on the way a large stone building that the owner of San Bartolo is building for someone in his family, which if he fulfills his plan, when it is finished it will be a palace.”  

She adds that the main products of the fields seen here were then sweet pepper and spicy pepper (chili). She continues, "We spent the morning touring the hacienda, watching how they made cheese, visiting the chapel, the splendid barns, the large mills..." Her entries reveal an important architectural and productive complex near the city of Morelia, from which it was only "six leagues on horseback." In addition, she describes it as a "fertile and forested territory" with a very good road. 

This plan was completed in 1905, after the hacienda had been in operation for two centuries. However, change was on the horizon. After the Mexican Revolution, agrarian reforms transformed rural Mexico. In Michoacán, these reforms were led by Lázaro Cárdenas when he was governor in the late 1920s. Francisco José Múgica, in his contemporary report on agriculture, stated that:

The agrarian problem is one of those to which the current administration has devoted the greatest activity, as a consequence of the fact that agrarianism is surrounded by an indestructible wall formed by the clergy and landowners with the support of the military. The large property [San Bartolo] in Michoacán resisted Cárdenas the governor, but not Cárdenas as president of Mexico a few years later, starting in 1934. The hacienda suffered the impact of Cárdenas’ actions: the buildings and productive areas were abandoned, looted and occupied by groups of ejidatarios. As a result of the disintegration, new settlements were formed, in most cases taking over the structures of the old hacienda.  

One of these settlements was Álvaro Obregón. The former hacienda main house still stands and functions as the offices of the Municipal Presidency.

Production of the chart and rarity

The plan was drawn by Luis G. Iturbide and signed by him with a date of October 25, 1905. Iturbide was a Teniente de Ingenieros (Lieutenant of the Engineers) at the Colegio Militar, Castillo de Chapultapec. It was likely he made this document for the owner of the estate or for a local official.

The plan was based on a previous survey by José Ramón de Ibarrola and Ingacio de la Hidalga. Ibarrola was a civil engineer best known for his work around the state of Michoacán and his position as the railroad inspector on the Mexico City-Toluca line. He also designed the Kiosco Marisco, which was originally for the World Cotton Centennial in New Orleans in 1884. It was then moved to Santa María la Ribera in Mexico City.

Ignacio de la Hidalga was also a civil engineer. Both men were trained at the Academia de San Carlos in the 1860s. Along with his brother Eusebio, Ignacio was educated as a topographer. He worked in Uruguay and Mexico.

Manuscript plans, especially ones executed with such skill and style, are rarely seen on the market.

Condition Description
Minor soiling and dampstaining.
Reference
Eugenia María Azevedo Salomao, “Refuncionalizacion de espacios productivos: San Bartolo, Michoacan,” Estudios Jaliscienses 66 (2006): 37-52.