Landscape and the Impact of Late Colonial Industrial Agriculture on Indigenous Communities in the Tehuantepec Region of Mexico.

Author(s): Judith Zeitlin; Aileen Balasalle

Year: 2015

Summary

During the late colonial period, the political economy of the Oaxaca Isthmus of Tehuantepec, like many areas of rural New Spain, witnessed dramatic changes in response to Bourbon political reforms and as a consequence of increased engagement with global capitalism. These changes are particularly apparent in the sheltered piedmont zone of the Rio de los Perros, where Zapotec elites had managed to control productive agricultural lands into the early 18th century. New creole landowners emerge in the documentary record through their multiple petitions to engage in sugar cane production and to establish sugar refineries. In this paper we examine the archaeological foot print of these endeavors and explore changes in the landscape of power and the impact these changes had on indigenous communities.

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Cite this Record

Landscape and the Impact of Late Colonial Industrial Agriculture on Indigenous Communities in the Tehuantepec Region of Mexico.. Aileen Balasalle, Judith Zeitlin. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 395181)

Keywords

Geographic Keywords
Mesoamerica

Spatial Coverage

min long: -107.271; min lat: 12.383 ; max long: -86.353; max lat: 23.08 ;