Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp.

534–553, 2008

Survival Strategies Among the

Mexican Rural Elite
KEITH BREWSTER
Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

This article focuses on a sector of society that has received compara-

tively little attention in the recent historiography of post-revolutionary
Mexican rural society: the local elite. Using the district of Zacapoaxtla
in the Sierra Norte de Puebla as a case study, it explores the ways in
which external agents of change challenged pre-existing relationships
between communities, classes, and ethnic groups. It shows how, in try-
ing to retain their positions of local dominance, the elite displayed re-
markable degrees of pragmatism and willingness to compromise on
long-standing prejudices. Above all, the article offers a detailed example
of how political patronage at national and regional levels enabled local
factions to overcome formidable opposition.

Keywords: caciquismo, the elite, ethnicity, factionalism, patronage,

rural politics, Zacapoaxtla.

On 30 June 1919, armed forces under the command of Salvador Vega Bernal swept
into the main square of the small town of Cuetzalan in the Sierra Norte de Puebla. At
gunpoint, they demanded that the community’s wealthy families and traders should
produce a sum of 1,000 pesos within four hours or be considered as enemies of the
villista cause and treated accordingly.1 For the inhabitants of Cuetzalan, this was an
unwelcome reminder that the Revolution was far from over; it was merely the latest
phase in a vicious skirmish between federal and villista troops that had plagued this
corner of the republic in recent months. Although the incident does not seem excep-
tional within the context of revolutionary violence, most cuetzaltecos would have been
aware of the subtext. Vega Bernal was no impoverished peasant seeking social justice
or retribution; nor was he a stranger pillaging rural communities to keep his campaign
going. As the family had lived in Cuetzalan for several years, locals knew it to be
wealthy with aspirations to assume control of the elite circle it now attacked. Under
the cover of revolutionary action lay a deadly struggle for local domination that, at
one level, supports the view that much revolutionary violence was personal and lacked
ideological or class content. More interesting, however, is the fact that Vega Bernal’s

1 Archivo Municipal de Cuetzalan (AMC), Caja 140A. Presidencia, exp. 2, 33. See local
authority report dated 30 June 1919.
© 2008 The Author
Journal compilation © 2008 Society for Latin American Studies. Published by Blackwell Publishing,
534 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
 Survival Strategies

engagement forced a response from an elite sector of local society that would
have preferred to keep out of the Revolution. The imperative to react required such
people to demonstrate a degree of improvisation rarely attributed to their class by
historians.
In calling for a re-appraisal of the nature of rural elitism in the post-revolutionary
period, this article seeks to encourage a process that has already occurred for other
major actors in rural politics: the peasant and the cacique. With its imperative to find
peasant political agency on every dusty street corner, a wave of subaltern studies has
placed considerable emphasis on the capacity of peasant communities to influence state
discourse that affect their everyday lives. Many of these negotiating skills were devel-
oped during the nineteenth century and, it has been argued, helped to inform the pro-
cess of post-revolutionary state building in the twentieth century (Mallon, 1995: 15,
18–19). Crucially, such studies conclude that the capacity to negotiate came from
within the peasant communities themselves and took place in spite of the local elite
and/or cacique. While justifiably arguing that peasants were never as malleable as pre-
viously portrayed, less time is spent questioning the nature of the relationship between
local elites and caciques. The previous assumption that such relationships were con-
sensual and mutually beneficial has not been seriously challenged (for Zacapoaxtla, see
Paré, 1982).
Concurrent with this renewed interest in the peasant has been a re-appraisal of that
ubiquitous and much maligned character, the cacique. Several case studies modify re-
visionist portrayals of these power brokers, while the essays in Caciquismo in Twentieth-
Century Mexico encapsulate a broader trend that emphasises the diversity and longevity
of the institution (Knight and Pansters, 2005). While criticising the previously dichoto-
mous portrayal of caciques as either ‘traditional and charismatic’ or ‘modern and im-
personal’, the studies place increasing emphasis on caciques’ already-recognised
capacity to ‘wheel and deal’, to display pragmatism in their political allegiances and
resourcefulness in their cultural awareness.2 Although a rising number of studies place
caciquismo in modern, urban settings, others offer sufficient evidence to suggest that
the reconstructed rural cacique was able to co-exist with the politically savvy peasant
(Brewster, 2003).
The one significant actor in rural politics that has yet to be fully revisited is the local
elite. My intention is not the ultimate redemption of a much misunderstood group of
people. There can be no doubt that the preservation of elite privileges depended upon
the continuation of exploitative practices. What I hope to encourage, however, is
greater consideration of the diverse skills and tactics that the elite deployed to maintain
their influence. The tendency to view a significant sector of the local elite as inflexible
and naturally conservative remains, yet the argument for redeeming the figure of the
cacique or peasant can be equally applied to the local elite. Rarely did members of
these groups act autonomously; they could not help but be influenced by the words
and deeds of each other. A better understanding of the local elite, the group commonly

2 This dichotomy underlies the analysis of many studies of caciquismo published in the
1980s, but is most succinctly encapsulated in the range of essays found in Brading
(1980).

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Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4 535
 Keith Brewster

assumed to be the most manipulative, enhances our understanding of those with whom
they had regular contact.
In focusing on the rural elite, I recognise the problem of definition. A range of
awkward dichotomies can be mounted: indigenous elite versus white elite; socio-cultural
versus politico-economic; traditional versus modern; Liberal versus Conservative; con-
servative versus progressive. To deny the presence of such divisions would be negli-
gent, but to suggest that they carried the same weight in each and every rural community
would be equally misleading. Whereas economic and political developments in one re-
gion may have strengthened the existing elite, elsewhere these developments may have
swept them aside. In some regions, elitism may have been a question of class; in others,
ethnicity may have had more influence. In some localities, such divisions were irrele-
vant as a self-perpetuating cycle developed over centuries in which those with political
power used this to maximise economic opportunities. The desire to display such wealth
found form in the range of social and cultural rituals that distinguished the rich from
the poor. From this position of strength, the elite took measures to ensure that such
prerogatives remained intact for future generations. It might be tempting to view such
groups as fundamentally ‘conservative’, ready to defend their positions against any
agents of change that threatened them. Yet this assumes that the purveyors of external
influences were, by default, agents of ‘progress’ determined to wrest a locality from its
slothful insularity. Indeed, Salvador Vega Bernal might be assumed to have been such
an agent in 1919: a relative newcomer in town who challenged the pre-existing pattern
of political and economic exploitation. Yet, as we shall see, far from desiring to
destroy such a system, he sought to take control of it. In this respect, ‘conservative’
members of the local elite had to assume a more ‘progressive’ posture in order to
counter his ambitions.
In many senses, this goes to the heart of my argument concerning local elite
groups. In the past, anthropologists interpreted the desire for rural autonomy as a
sign of cultural and social stagnation: closed corporate communities were doomed
to ultimate destruction because of their inability to adapt. Yet just as more recent
studies have shown that resistance to external influences has constantly evolved, so
we need to recognise that local elite groups may have been equally adept at changing
their means of survival by, for example, engaging actively in new economic initia-
tives from beyond with the hope of controlling them.3 This adaptability provides a
clue to the longevity of elite society. Given the many twists and turns in Mexican
politics since Independence, remaining on top of the local pile was an extremely
difficult task. Of course, many failed and were superseded by other groups with new
ideas, new outlooks and new connections. Yet some were able to retain a large
measure of influence within their communities. Given that political conditions have
periodically combined to eclipse their power, we need to ask how local elite groups
were able to adjust their posture to survive. How, for instance, did they protect their
interests during periods when they could not count on government favour? Did

3 This ability is not limited to one period or location. Such a quality can be found, for
example, among the Liberal elite in porfirian Oaxaca (see Chassen-López, 2004: 546).

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 Survival Strategies

unwarranted pressure placed on them at such times act as a unifying agent, or did
it expose underlying familial or factional divisions? To what extent did local elite
groups have to compromise their socio-cultural values in order to co-operate with
temporary power holders? In short, how do we explain the mechanisms by which
some members of the local elite groups survived phases of adversity and emerged
triumphant on the other side?
In order to address these questions, this article returns to June 1919 and Salvador
Vega Bernal’s struggle for control in the rural district of Zacapoaxtla in the Sierra
Norte de Puebla. Recent historical attention to the district gives us a wealth of
information on how regional caciques and indigenous peasant communities in
Zacapoaxtla confronted the volatile, often violent, decades of the Porfiriato and
Revolution (Mallon, 1995; Vaughan, 1997; Thomson with LaFrance, 1999; Brewster,
2003; Acevedo Rodrigo, 2004). This pool of knowledge provides the context within
which elite survival strategies can be placed. Fundamental to this analysis is the issue
of class and ethnicity. A colonial legacy of ethnic superiority fashioned the ways in
which the district’s white society engaged with the initiatives of those they deemed
‘inferior’, both within Zacapoaxtla and beyond. So, too, economic changes in the
district during this period disturbed the previous equilibrium between elite groups,
and between the cabecera and its dependencies. How the elite managed such chal-
lenges demonstrates several facets of local politics: a willingness to compromise on
long-standing prejudices; the shallowness of revolutionary allegiances; the reluc-
tance of the district’s indigenous communities to engage in political or military
disputes; a tendency towards factionalism among the elite. Moreover, focusing on
this one district offers an appreciation of the intricacies of patronage networks that
forged ties of loyalty and indebtedness and that linked the humble town clerk to the
national president. These networks represented the vital means by which elite
factions attempted to circumvent periodic local setbacks and sought to retain or
regain local influence during times of adversity.

Zacapoaxtla, its People and Historical Precedents

The starting point for any analysis of local political dynamics is recognition of how
earlier demographic, ethnic and economic developments fed into the equation. In the
case of Zacapoaxtla, recent changes in the relationships between the cabecera town
of Zacapoaxtla and its subordinate municipalities, between indigenous and non-
indigenous sectors, and between elite factions, would all affect the ways in which
society reacted to the revolutionary violence and its aftermath.
Covering an area of 900 square kilometres, Zacapoaxtla is divided into the munici-
palities of Zacapoaxtla, Xochitlán, Nauzontla and Cuetzalan del Progreso. Through-
out the colonial period the area was largely populated by indigenous communities,
predominantly Nahuas, Totonacs and Otomis. White settlement began as early as the
sixteenth century with the Spanish families Alcántara, Molina and Macip holding land
in the region. Although colonial presence remained patchy, by the eighteenth century
documentary evidence confirms that the Alcántara and Molina families possessed title

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 Keith Brewster

to land (Sosa, n.d.: 77).4 With difficult terrain hampering communications, interaction
between the cabecera and its subordinate municipalities was always tenuous and lim-
ited to specific aspects of everyday life that were controlled by the elite: religion, mar-
kets, labour, and the production and sale of aguardiente. While Mary Kay Vaughan
describes the local elite’s relationship with the indigenous as one of ‘protectors’ from
external interference, such a role did not lead to any significant degree of affinity be-
tween ethnic groups (Vaughan, 1997: 113). From its foundation, the cabecera of
Zacapoaxtla saw itself as an island of white racial purity within a sea of indigenous
niños con barbas.
In the mid-nineteenth century, mestizo migration to Zacapoaxtla noticeably in-
creased. This would bring irrevocable changes to society and would crystallise tensions
between ethnic groups and elite factions. The incomers brought their politics with
them and, somewhat incongruously for the conservative elite of Zacapoaxtla, by the
1860s the district was portrayed, albeit inaccurately, as the stalwart of liberal patrio-
tism (Thomson, 1989).5 Mestizo migration also added a new factor to the local eco-
nomic equation, as newcomers competed for the influence that had previously been
enjoyed by the established elite. It also represented a direct challenge to the relative
autonomy enjoyed by the predominantly indigenous subordinate communities. The
most obvious example is in the municipality of Cuetzalan where Jesús Flores, a mestizo
coffee grower from Veracruz, was the first to introduce the crop in the 1870s. Within
a decade, modest harvests were being registered (Barrios Bonilla, 1991: 38).6 The
growing importance of coffee production led to changes in relations between ethnic
groups and between Zacapoaxtla and Cuetzalan. While early mestizo demands for
land were satisfied by renting indigenous community property, desamortización [dis-
entailment] gradually eroded the customary economic and political autonomy of
indigenous communities in the coffee zone (for details of indigenous resistance to such
developments see Thomson, 1991). By the turn of the century, the Flores, together
with other mestizo families, Huidobro and Calderón, had broken indigenous resis-
tance. As the price of coffee rose, indigenous communities substituted the cultivation
of staple foods for coffee. Lured ever deeper into the mestizo world, their economic
independence disappeared and their political influence was curtailed (for details of
aguardiente production see Barrios Bonilla, 1991: 44). Indigenous families were forced
either to accept the changed situation or to seek seclusion in more remote reaches of
the district (this gradual marginalisation of the Nahua community of Cuetzalan is
described in Arizpe, 1973: 43). Miguel Vega Bernal moved to Cuetzalan at the turn of
the century.7 Late-comers onto the scene, the political ambitions of Vega Bernal and

4 For the sake of clarity, this article focuses on families who featured predominantly
during the Revolution and immediate post-revolutionary period.
5 I would argue that this depiction is inaccurate because much of the indigenous mo-
bilisation that earned the district its patriotic credentials did not involve the elite and
occurred either on the peripheries of the district or beyond.
6 The colder climate of the cabecera meant that the Zacapoaxtla elite had no major role
in the development of this new cash crop.
7 Interview with Baudelio Rivera, 16 December 1993. Rivera was a servant in the Vega
Bernal household. He states that Miguel Vega was the school teacher in Cuetzalan.

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his family were viewed as a threat to the recently acquired prominence of the Flores
faction. The ensuing division within Cuetzalan’s elite groups was yet another symptom
of a district in transition. Coffee-produced wealth acted as the basis for changes that
challenged existing relationships, not only between communities and ethnic groups but
also between the leading families and factions within individual settlements. Future
political alliances would reflect these fault-lines within the district’s elite society.
As the Revolution approached, it would be wrong to depict Zacapoaxtla as a back-
water ready to react against external encroachment. Even though developments during
the Porfiriato would seem to follow a familiar pattern of an established elite being
challenged by newcomers, the economic and political positions of the Zacapoaxtla
elite remained fundamentally intact. While Liberalism was embraced in some districts
of the Sierra, this did not pervade cabecera politics in Zacapoaxtla. Similarly, the eco-
nomic initiatives of coffee producers in Cuetzalan did not, at this stage, threaten to
eclipse the authority of the cabecera. Indeed, forcing them to honour their fiscal re-
sponsibilities through local taxation encouraged Zacapoaxtla’s elite to view the coffee
entrepreneurs as an opportunity rather than a threat. So the district offers an example
of local elite groups adapting to changes happening within their midst. The absence of
any significant rejection of such influences might well have been because (a) such
changes were happening predominantly in subordinate municipalities; (b) the previ-
ously loose cabecera jurisdiction over these municipalities had meant that the perceived
threat to authority from such changes appeared minimal; (c) the Zacapoaxtla elite had
remained confident of controlling and capitalising on such changes. In such circum-
stances, not only could ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ tendencies co-exist, but, as we
shall see, they joined forces in the face of unwelcome developments.
What the Revolution did do, however, was introduce a challenge to the district’s
politics that allows us to re-examine the assumed relationship between the elite and
caciques: this was the rising influence of the federal military commander of the region,
Gabriel Barrios, from the nearby district of Zacatlán. Such was the widespread nature
of unrest in the whole region, and such was the federal government’s dependency on
Barrios and his indigenous troops to keep the area loyal, that the white elite of
Zacapoaxtla district were unable to prevent the rise of this indigenous cacicazgo that
would soon be vying for political and economic control. Throughout the 1920s, Bar-
rios’s military control of the Sierra and his initiatives to improve communications pre-
sented new threats to the elite’s previous monopoly of trade, markets and labour. In
Barrios, therefore, we have a variant of the usual link between cacique and local elite.
Importantly, he did not emerge at the instigation of the local elite, or even with their
collusion; his authority came from federal government patronage. As such, the
Zacapoaxtla elite were forced to engage with him: Barrios could not simply be ignored.
Acting against such contact were two significant factors: he was a stranger to the dis-
trict of Zacapoaxtla and held no previous connections with the district’s elite groups;
more importantly, perhaps, Barrios was viewed by them as an ‘Indian’ and, hence,
their social inferior. The ways in which emerging tensions within elite factions became
enmeshed within differing ploys to accommodate Barrios exemplify the extent to
which so-called ‘conservative’ elite groups could overcome deep-seated prejudices.

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 Keith Brewster

Revolutionary Sympathies in the District of Zacapoaxtla

For the majority of the district’s indigenous communities, participation in the Revolu-
tion was reactive and aimed at protecting themselves from the arbitrary violence of
marauding revolutionary groups. For some at least, the revolutionary struggle was a
mestizo affair of which they had little understanding and less interest in joining (Relatos
revolucionarios (n.d.); Arizpe, 1973: 60). Indeed, even within the non-indigenous
population of the cabecera, revolutionary engagement was limited. The elite families’
main concern was to counteract nascent land reform that threatened to erode their
considerable assets (Vaughan, 1997: 117). Such a stance was not without its difficul-
ties. In 1914, for example, Miguel Macip felt compelled to dispel rumours that he was
a huertista by informing occupying carrancista forces that although some sectors of
his family supported the new president, he and his sons remained politically neutral.8
His comments suggest that, although local political rivalries continued against a back-
drop of national military conflict, they had not reached the point at which any one
faction would embark on a journey that might lead to their collective destruction.
While elite groups in other rural regions, such as Highland Chiapas, were tempted into
mobilising indigenous forces to continue factional rivalries, the long-standing inability
of the Zacapoaxtla elite to do likewise made such an option unviable. Like the major-
ity of their neighbouring indigenous communities, they kept their heads down, hoping
that the revolutionary violence would leave them relatively unscathed.
Yet the same can not be said for the town of Cuetzalan. By the time of the Revolu-
tion, José María Flores had become a prominent leader of a group that incorporated
the Flores, Huidobro and Calderón families.9 Flores, like the land-owning elite in
Zacapoaxtla, had little to gain from revolution. Reflecting the liberal pedigree of his
family, he desired progress of a type that fostered a favourable climate for his entre-
preneurial initiatives. By 1910, so effectively had the Flores faction eclipsed indigenous
influence in local politics that the main revolutionary threat to its continued promi-
nence came not from ‘below’ but from Miguel Vega Bernal’s sons, Salvador, Victor,
Gustavo, Medardo and Rogelio. Facing an established clique that was unwilling to re-
linquish its prominence, the Vega Bernal family perhaps judged that they had little to
lose from taking up arms and fighting for change.10 While they rarely gained the upper
hand in Cuetzalan during the Revolution, their main strength lay in the sense of inse-
curity that their activities created among the dominant families in the area. It is within
this context that Salvador Vega Bernal’s occupation of the town and demand for

8 Archivo Privado de Abraham Lucas (APAL). 1914. Letter dated 27 July 1914 ad-
dressed to General Antonio Medina. This stance did not save Macip from suffering a
campesino invasion on his land in San Miguel Tenextatiloyan; Archivo Municipal de
Libres (AML), Fomento, exp. 4, January 1921. Letter dated 28 March 1921 from the
state government to the municipal president of Libres.
9 Interview with José Flores Huidobro, 13 December 1993.
10 Archivo de la Defensa Nacional (ADN), C, 2-754, tomo 1, Vega Bernal, Salvador. See
archive note of report by Colonel Dinórin dated 16 February. 1918; Interview with
Salvador Vega Rodríguez, 14 December 1993.

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 Survival Strategies

money in June 1919 should be analysed.11 That Vega Bernal limited his demands to
the wealthier members of Cuetzalan society could, as former soldier Baudelio Rivera
testifies, be seen as an act of social justice; an attempt to redistribute wealth within an
unequal society.12 Official reports, invariably written by their opponents, portrayed the
brothers as common bandits who used revolutionary slogans to legitimate cri-
minal activity. Yet the demand can also be viewed as the latest chapter of an ongoing
factional battle. Almost by definition, the targets of Vega Bernal’s ultimatum were his
family’s political enemies within the Flores faction. Decisive military action by Vega
Bernal had brought him, albeit temporarily, domination over Flores.
The most significant local consequence of Vega Bernal’s revolutionary actions was
that it paved the way for the deployment of federal troops from the neighbouring dis-
trict of Zacatlán. In the light of later developments, it is important to stress that none
of the local elite groups greeted the arrival of Barrios’s Nahua forces to the district in
1919 with enthusiasm. They had little reason to support any side in a guerrilla war
that would seriously affect their commercial activities; that a Nahua should be charged
with the responsibility of restoring law and order was even less palatable. As Cuetza-
lan’s municipal president wrote to Governor Alfonso Cabrera, ‘rebel actions were
made worse still by the conduct of government troops led by ignorant Indians who
were using their military might solely to terrorise gente de razón’.13 Yet the Vega Bernal
family’s rebel stance automatically pushed the Flores family towards the carrancista
camp and forced them to accept that at least one indigenous leader could offer them
something that few others could – security of tenure. Such a concession may have been
made easier by the thought that an accommodation might not last long; as had hap-
pened with indigenous mobilisation in the nineteenth century, once hostilities had
subsided, Barrios and his indigenous troops would surely be ordered back to their
mountain villages. An alliance with Barrios, therefore, would probably have been
viewed by Flores as an expedient, short-term, measure that could be discarded when
the local situation became more stable.
Revolutionary actions in Cuetzalan acted to expose fault-lines among the district’s
elite and drag the cabecera elite into the mire of factional violence. The Vega Bernal
family enjoyed personal connections with one section of the extended Macip family in
Zacapoaxtla. Although not strong, this bond was sufficient for Ignacio Macip to fight
alongside Salvador Vega Bernal as one of his senior officers.14 In doing so, a significant
faction within Zacapoaxtla politics, led by Ignacio and his brother Wenceslao Macip,
had declared themselves in opposition to the dominant faction in Cuetzalan. Mean-
while, the other significant faction in Zacapoaxtla could no longer remain ambivalent
in its support for any revolutionary group. Like José María Flores, individuals such as
Carlos and Moisés Macip judged the carrancista option to be the least damaging to

11 AMC, Caja 140A. Presidencia, exp. 2, 33. See local authority report dated 30 June
1919.
12 Interview with Baudelio Rivera, 16 December, 1993.
13 AMC, Caja 140A, Presidencia, exp. 2, 33. See letter dated 17 July 1919.
14 Archivo Municipal de Zacapoaxtla (AMZ’x), Gobernación, 27, 58/9. See correspon-
dence dated 29 July 1920 and 3 August 1920.

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 Keith Brewster

their considerable interests. They too had to accept the uncomfortable fact that the
survival of white elitism in Zacapoaxtla lay in the hands of ‘ignorant Indians’ from
Zacatlán. The battle lines of pragmatic politics in the post-revolutionary period were
already being drawn up (see Figure 1).
Zacapoaxtla’s experience of revolution illustrates the continuing need for local
studies. It has long been accepted that local rivalries often manifested themselves as
armed factionalism under the disguise of revolutionary banners. Yet events in
Zacapoaxtla do not suggest widespread enthusiasm for adding an armed edge to long-
standing ethnic or class tensions. With few exceptions, mobilisation based on ethnicity,
land tenure or loss of community autonomy failed to materialise.15 Similarly, in an
area that would seem to be a prime candidate for Knight’s notion of serrano resistance,
there was no orchestrated mobilisation to resist state incursion (Knight, 1986). Nor
do developments in Zacapoaxtla quite fit Jennie Purnell’s modification of the serrano
model in which factional conflict used popular mobilisation to establish political alli-
ances at state and national levels (Purnell, 2005). What we see instead is an attempt
by the white elite to keep the lid on widespread disruption. Any manoeuvres made to
secure political links with higher authorities took place within the context of their in-
ability to muster a popular mobilisation of their own. Yet the revolutionary struggle
had swept aside any notion of district autonomy and ushered in federal military au-
thority to an unprecedented level. Worse still, from the elite’s point of view, was the
fact that such authority was in the hands of an ‘Indian’ beyond their control. Their
natural impulse to reject such authority had to be tempered by the need not to be seen
as anti-revolutionary and by the imperative to quell the Vega Bernal threat. It is worth
reiterating that a superficial glance at such an arrangement would appear to substanti-
ate the notion that, in Barrios, local elite groups had found a compliant cacique to
facilitate their continued political and economic ascendancy over their factional rivals.
Yet a more detailed analysis of the sort that can only be derived from case studies
reveals that any mutually beneficial relationship between the elite and cacique only
resulted from considerable compromise on deep-seated social and racial prejudices.

Sierra Zacapoaxtla Cuetzalan

Barrios (carrancista) Carlos Macip José María Flores faction

Moisés Macip

Anti-carrancistas Ignacio Macip Vega Bernal faction

Wenceslao Macip
Figure 1. Political Allegiances circa. 1917

15 One such clash over land took place between Xochiapulco’s indigenous peasants and
elite land-owning families. (Vaughan, 1997: 117).

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 Survival Strategies

In effect, the elite were forced to make the best of a bad situation. Only by understand-
ing the specific political, social and ethnic dynamics of a given locality can we fully
appreciate the demands that such compromises made, and the tenuous nature of such
arrangements.

Factionalism from Revolution to Rebellion

The presence of ‘ignorant Indians’ in Zacapoaxtla proved to be much more enduring

than some might have hoped: despite vehement protests from the Vega Bernal family,
Obregón’s post-revolutionary government confirmed Gabriel Barrios’s position as fed-
eral military commander of the entire Sierra Norte. Given the fragile nature of federal
jurisdiction over the region, to have done anything else was considered to have been
too much of a risk. In an attempt to reinforce (and prolong) his utility to the national
government, Barrios became a conduit through which flowed federal government
funding aimed at regional development during the 1920s. In Zacapoaxtla, his major
initiative was to direct federal materials and local voluntary labour towards a road
construction project that would traverse the district connecting Puebla City with
Zacapoaxtla, Cuetzalan, and the Veracruz coast. In doing so, Barrios not only chal-
lenged the elite’s right to control indigenous voluntary labour, but also threatened to
eclipse the cabecera’s economic importance by facilitating faster connections between
Cuetzalan’s coffee-rich economy and new markets. This changing economic landscape
and ongoing threats to public security provided the context for the district’s post-
revolutionary political actions. These actions, in turn, show the inextricable link be-
tween local elite fortunes and the balance of political power at higher levels. Specifically,
the conflict of interests between state and federal jurisdictions during periods of political
and military flux often threw the dynamics of local politics into disarray with
factions left scrambling desperately to shore up their position.
By confirming his military tenure of the Sierra, President Obregón gave Gabriel
Barrios a degree of political influence that could only be challenged by individuals
and/or groups with equally formidable patronage. It is somewhat strange, then, that
the person who actually led this challenge, Claudio Nabor Tirado, hardly figures in
poblano historiography. The few biographical details of the future state governor offer
little about his early life other than that he was born in Zacapoaxtla (Hernández
Enríquez, 1986: 17). The absence of his name from the annals of Zacapoaxtla’s colonial
history suggests that Tirado was not from the established landed elite. Yet by 1920,
Tirado had obtained sufficient prestige within Zacapoaxtla society and beyond to at-
tain the position of federal deputy for the district. For most of the ensuing decade he
tried to expand his influence by combating the political machinations of the region’s
federal army commander. Tirado represented a faction within the elite that realised
that they could only obtain any degree of control over the district by challenging
Barrios. Lacking a coercive force of his own, Tirado’s means of doing so was to counter
Barrios’s attempts to install his men as political representatives in the various districts
of the Sierra (as a serving military officer Barrios could not become directly involved
in politics himself). Tirado’s main strategy, therefore, was to demonstrate that Barrios

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Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4 543
 Keith Brewster

was guilty of corruption, abuse of power, and of meddling in political matters. Others
within the Zacapoaxtla elite took a different approach: they recognised the large de-
gree of support that Barrios enjoyed with his military commanders and various federal
government departments. Rather than resist a powerful foe, they sought to further
their own interests by establishing an accommodation with the military leader. The
ways in which the white elite reacted to this struggle exemplify the complicated web
of loyalties and rivalries that existed between the more influential families. Quite
quickly, Wenceslao and Ignacio Macip sought a political alliance with Tirado while
Carlos and Moisés Macip, and later Constantino Molina, continued their marriage of
convenience with Barrios. In Cuetzalan, the Flores faction assumed control of the town
safe in the knowledge that Barrios’s forces would defend them. Meanwhile, the federal
government forced Salvador Vega Bernal to disband his forces although he was al-
lowed an armed escort ‘to protect my family and interests … from my political enemies
and to help conserve law and order within the municipality of Cuetzalan’.16
It was at this point in the Sierra’s post-revolutionary development that new patterns
of political patronage began to reveal their potential. In 1922, Wenceslao Macip, as a
state congress politician, proposed Froylán Manjarrez (a Tirado supporter) as provi-
sional governor (Hernández Enríquez, 1986: 73). That he was successful underlined
the rising strength of the pro-Tirado bloc at state level, and local supporters such as
the Vega Bernal family began to feel the benefits. Backed by Governor Manjarrez,
Victor Vega Bernal became municipal president of Cuetzalan and, together with other
members of the family, assumed control of local politics. According to Vega Bernal,
his period in office was dogged by harassment from Barrios’s troops who were garri-
soned in the town for ‘the sole purpose of protecting Flores, Calderón, Huidobro and
others of the Flores faction’.17 A measure of the hegemony that Tirado, by then a sena-
tor, enjoyed is clearly demonstrated in a report written by the federal commander for
Puebla, General Juan A. Almazán, in 1923.18 Almazán observed that Wenceslao Macip
had now become federal deputy; his brother, Ignacio, the tax collector; Victor Vega
Bernal remained municipal president of Cuetzalan; and Arnulfo Ortega, nephew of the
Macips, was the local judge in Cuetzalan. Salvador Vega Bernal, the report warned,
remained a significant military threat to the region. These individuals, through family
or political ties, represented a continuous chain of patronage that flowed from the state
government to the municipal judge (see Figure 2).
It is clear from the report that relations between federal military and state civilian
authorities were often strained. This would become a common theme in Puebla
throughout the 1920s, with tension between Almazán and Manjarrez becoming pub-
lic when they assumed opposing positions in the delahuertista uprising. In December
1923, Manjarrez declared his state government to be in support of the rebellion.
Patronage demanded loyalty and, shortly afterward, the Vega Bernal family rallied

16 ADN, C, 2-754, tomo 1, ff. 51 and 55.

17 AMC, Caja 152, Gobernación, 144. See letter dated 22 April 1923 from Victor Bernal
to the state government and municipal president in Zacapoaxtla.
18 Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), O-C, 816-P-45.

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544 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4
 Survival Strategies

State Sierra Zacapoaxtla Cuetzalan

Almazán Barrios Carlos Macip José Flores

(federal Moisés Macip faction

commander)

Manjarrez Tirado Ignacio Macip Vega Bernal

(delahuertista) Wenceslao Macip faction

Figure 2. Political Allegiances circa. 1923

to the delahuertista cause. Personal tragedy and the search for retribution may also
have swayed them: two months earlier Rogelio Vega Bernal’s bullet-ridden body had
been found lying in a ditch.19 His murderers were never found, but it seems likely
that he had been the victim of the local feud that had pitched his family against
federal troops. Only in April 1924, when the delahuertista cause was all but lost,
did Salvador Vega Bernal explain that he had only taken up arms to protect himself
from the attacks of Barrios’s forces, assaults that were orchestrated by his ‘personal
enemy’, José María Flores.20
Rogelio Vega Bernal’s assassination on the eve of rebellion, and his brother’s
surrender in 1924, seemed to mark the family’s final defeat, thus securing Flores’s
domination of Cuetzalan politics. Certainly, events in Zacapoaxtla district during the
delahuertista rebellion reveal the ways in which external priorities impinged upon local
issues. For a short period prior to the rebellion, civilian authority had begun to resume
prominence at the state level. Although federal troop presence was still needed in the
Sierra Norte to compensate for inadequacies in local forces of law and order, the au-
thority of Governor Manjarrez severely limited the ambitions of those relying on Barri-
os’s patronage. As soon as the state government declared itself in rebellion, however,
federal military authority became a priority in the Sierra and Barrios’s clients once more
gained the ascendancy. In a re-run of the revolutionary strife that preceded it, the
delahuertista rebellion underlined the fragility of local elite control. The situation in
Zacapoaxtla serves to highlight a more general point regarding rural politics and the
correlation between political power and military potential. In times of peace, the domi-
nance of elite groups might be secured by little more than the threatening presence of
armed retainers or tame caciques; in times of widespread mobilisation, however, the
fate of elite groups who lacked a significant coercive force of their own was at the mercy
of those who did. Their ability to overcome such periods depended on their adeptness
at managing relationships with such military leaders. The less successful might perish

19 AMC, Caja 153, Justicia, 48. See internal report dated 11 October 1923.
20 ADN, C, 2-754, ff. 291–293. See declaration dated 9 March 1924 made by Vega
Bernal to the Ministry of War.

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Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4 545
 Keith Brewster

in the heat of battle, but those who were able to maintain an understanding with tem-
porary power holders had a better chance of remaining in a position to assume a more
dominant role in local politics once a return to civilian authority came.

Factionalism from Rebellion to Reconstruction

The fact that Barrios held so much influence over the Sierra in the early 1920s was
largely because of the vacuum in state government authority during this period. Ex-
tending beyond his military brief, Barrios used his position simultaneously to strengthen
ties with local elite groups and to facilitate federal government influence within the
region. In a clear demonstration of political patronage, Barrios ensured that Flores was
placed in charge of the lucrative federal road construction project in the district. Con-
siderable amounts of federal expenditure and materials passed through Flores’s hands
in a venture that promised to boost the political and economic status of his town while
simultaneously demoting the cabecera to an economic backwater. Back in 1921,
Moíses Macip had tried to pre-empt such a move by suggesting to Obregón that local
cooperation for such a scheme could only be obtained by using the ‘moderation, good
sense and exquisite tact’ of the Zacapoaxtla local elite.21 This was, of course, a desper-
ate attempt to establish an allegiance between themselves and federal government
agencies that would avoid having to work through ‘ignorant Indians’ such as Barrios.
The fact that Macip’s petition failed is an indication that prestige at a local level
counted for little when state and/or national priorities took precedence. Not only was
it important to establish political allegiances at higher levels, but their value depended
considerably on the balances of power within state and national congresses, and also
between state and national governments.
The best hope of mounting a challenge to Barrios was to dominate state-level poli-
tics and to create an environment in which the state government could reassume con-
stitutional jurisdiction over the region. This appeared possible in 1925 when, after a
period of political turmoil characterised by violent factionalism and federal govern-
ment intervention, Tirado became state governor (Brewster, 2003: 73–77). One of Ti-
rado’s first acts was to appoint Wenceslao Macip as general secretary of the state
government.22 At a district level, Tirado’s men were equally successful and, despite
Barrios’s backing for a rival candidate, Ignacio Macip was elected as state deputy for
Zacapoaxtla in 1924 (see Figure 3).23 Failure to stop Ignacio Macip’s election under-
lines the fact that as military priorities subsided, civilian authority had the chance
to recover. In such circumstances, a hostile, yet stable, state government, was able to
expose the limitations of military caciquismo.

21 AMZx Fomento 1921, no. 1380.

22 AGN, O-C, 408-D-12, leg. 1. See letter dated 4 February 1926 from Tirado to
Calles.
23 AGN, O-C, 408-P-16. See letter dated 2 December 1924 from Ignacio Macip to Pres-
ident Calles, referring to Barrios’s forces trying to prejudice his electoral campaign.

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546 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4
 Survival Strategies

National State/regional Cabecera Municipality

Pro-Barrios Barrios Carlos Macip José Flores

bloc Moisés Macip faction

Constantino Molina

Anti-Barrios Tirado Ignacio Macip Vega Bernal

bloc Wenceslao Macip faction

Figure 3. Political Allegiances circa. 1924

Tirado was even more strident in his attempts to erode Barrios’s power base in
Cuetzalan. In August 1925, Tirado informed President Calles that Barrios’s cronies
had seized municipal authority and that he had responded to a ‘desperate request’ by
sending fifteen mounted police to Cuetzalan to restore the legally recognised municipal
authority.24 Barrios dared not risk the consequences of obstructing an armed force
with the backing of the legitimate state government. Instead, members of the Flores-
backed council and 680 cuetzaltecos withdrew from the town and took refuge on the
nearby ranch of Casastepec.25 Throughout the following year, accusations and counter-
accusations were made as both factions in Cuetzalan attempted to convince the federal
authorities of the validity of their claims. Tirado portrayed Flores as a constant threat
to peace and vecinos in Cuetzalan congratulated President Calles on combating the
military caciquismo of Flores.26 Flores stated that friction in Cuetzalan was as a result
of the political intrigues of a group in Zacapoaxtla that, together with Tirado, was
determined to suspend construction of a prestigious national highway project through
the district.27 Both factions took care to couch the local political dispute in the vocabu-
lary of post-revolutionary stability and progress.
The battle to control Cuetzalan was a symptom of the broader political struggle
between Tirado and Barrios. With federal elections looming in 1926, the centre of
friction again switched from Cuetzalan to Zacapoaxtla. Here, Ignacio Macip’s political

24 BLC.RHAM. Caja 1925. Reports received/sent August 1925. See copy of Tirado letter
dated 4 August 1925 sent to Barrios by the Jefatura; AGN, O-C, 408-P-20, leg. 1. See
telegramme dated 8 August 1925 from Tirado to Calles.
25 AGN, O-C, 408-P-20, leg. 1. See telegramme dated 7 August 1925. See telegramme to
Calles dated 10 August 1925.
26 AGN, O-C, 408-P-20, leg. 2. See telegramme from Tirado to Calles dated 10 August
1925 and from vecinos to Calles dated 21 August 1925.
27 AGN, O-C, 408-P-20, leg. 2. See telegramme dated 13 August1925 from Ortiz to
Calles; telegramme dated 13 August 1925 from Flores to Calles and dated 18 August
1925 from vecinos of Cuetzalan from their refuge in Casastepec to Calles.

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Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4 547
 Keith Brewster

rival, Constantino Molina, asked Calles ‘to help prevent unlawful attempts by the
Macip brothers to prolong their nepotistic control of political and military authority’.28
As a legitimate candidate, Molina appealed to the president to deploy federal forces to
ensure that fair elections took place. Molina’s appeal appears to have found favour:
two weeks later the Zacapoaxtla council complained that Barrios’s forces were work-
ing to ensure Molina’s election. In this, Barrios received the full support of the Jefatura
in Puebla City who confirmed that the deployment of his forces was in response to
complaints of abuses committed by the Macip brothers.29 Crucially, the question of
federal military deployment remained beyond the jurisdiction of the state governor. For
as long as Barrios could convince his regional commander that his troops were needed
to oversee law and order, he found a willing collaborator in limiting Tirado’s authority.
Molina was duly elected federal deputy for Zacapoaxtla for the period 1926–1930.
The fact that Barrios was able to install Molina in the federal congress boosted his
support base within national politics, and helped to swing political influence away
from Tirado. With the Ministry of War supporting Barrios’s presence in Zacapoaxtla,
and a pro-Barrios bloc in federal congress baying for Tirado’s blood, Tirado’s position
was desperate. On 16 August 1926, Tirado sent Calles a series of complaints from Si-
erra councils regarding the actions of Barrios’ forces. These included two reports from
the district of Zacapoaxtla alleging that Barrios’s men had entered Cuetzalan, arrested
several members of the council, and had disbanded the state-imposed authorities.30
Barrios later explained that his actions were a result of the spontaneous demands of a
community that was tired of the abuses of the officials.31 Reflecting the ongoing ten-
sion between federal military authorities and the state governor, Barrios’s commander
in Puebla City forwarded Barrios’s reply to President Calles in a letter that contained
the damning footnote: ‘If all your supporters worked with the loyalty and sincerity
that señor Tirado displays, then your Supreme Government would be lost and the
Revolution would fall into the most lamentable collapse.’32 Calles accepted the mount-
ing criticisms against Tirado and removed him from office. Having lost their political
patron, the influence previously enjoyed by Ignacio and Wenceslao Macip was severely
curtailed. With the anti-Barrios faction in Zacapoaxtla on the retreat, the Vega Bernal
family found their ability to resist the Flores faction weakened. In March 1927, Miguel
Vega Bernal was gunned down in the streets of Zacapoaxtla. As with his son’s death
years earlier, it was suggested that he was a victim of the ongoing factional dispute in
Cuetzalan, although no evidence of Flores’s involvement was ever produced.33 With

28 AGN, O-C, 408-D-12. See telegramme dated 23 June 1926 from Molina to Calles.
29 BLC.RHAM. Caja 1926. Reports July 1926. See copy of the letters dated 9 July 1926
sent to Barrios from the Jefatura.
30 BLC.RHAM. Caja 1926. Correspondence August 1926. See copies of various letters
and telegrammes dated 16 August 1926 and 17 August 1926 sent by Tirado to Calles.
AGN, O-C, 408-P-20, leg. 3.
31 BLC.RHAM. Caja 1926. Correspondence August 1926. See Barrios’s reply to his
Jefatura dated 30 August 1926.
32 AGN, O-C, 408-P-20, leg. 3. no. 9274. Memorandum dated 2 Sept. 1926 from Gen-
eral Amaya to Calles.
33 Interview with Salvador Vega Rodríguez, Cuetzalan, 12 December 1993; Interview
with Alberto Toral, Zacapoaxtla, 10 December 1993.

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548 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4
 Survival Strategies

Tirado deposed and with Barrios’s deputies lodged in state and federal congresses,
there was no serious challenge to Barrios’s influence in the Zacapoaxtla district until
1929, when governor Leonides Almazán joined forces with the federal government to
dismantle the Barrios cacicazgo (Brewster, 2003: 154–159).
Barrios’s removal from the Sierra de Puebla in 1930 brought something of a return
to the pre-revolutionary balance of power in the district of Zacapoaxtla. Despite the
fact that indigenous political and military power had influenced Zacapoaxtla politics
for over a decade, the 1930s saw the re-emergence of the white elite and the same, es-
sentially conservative, attitudes towards outside interference witnessed in the nine-
teenth century. As Vaughan suggests, a major factor allowing this move to the right
was the governorship of Máximino Avila Camacho, who led Puebla with an iron fist
and with considerable autonomy from the Lázaro Cárdenas presidency (Vaughan,
1997: 66–67). Initial gains in Zacapoaxtla politics by more enlightened, progressive
individuals linked to the Partido Nacional Revolucionario were curtailed by Avila Ca-
macho’s election as governor in 1932. The re-emergence of the local elite resulted from
their sponsorship of a mestizo cacique, Julio Lobato. During the Revolution, Lobato
had managed a hacienda owned by a local elite family and had not been above using
strong-arm tactics to ensure that it did not fall victim to peasant encroachment
(Vaughan, 1997: 117). While Lobato’s jurisdiction never reached that of Barrios in the
previous decade, at least the dominant coercive force within the district was in the
hands of a mestizo integrated into the system of political patronage at state level. Un-
der Avila Camacho’s governorship, Lobato became municipal president of Zacapoaxtla
and then, in 1938, its national congress representative. As such, the relationship be-
tween the local elite and Lobato became much closer to the mutually beneficial model
usually implied by analysts of cacicazgos. For the duration of avilacamachismo, Loba-
to’s cacicazgo in Zacapoaxtla was protected. For as long as Lobato was secure, so too
was the economic and political prominence of the local conservative elite. An indica-
tion of the practical effects of such an arrangement was that the federal road project
that had threatened the economic importance of the cabecera was allowed to deterio-
rate through lack of local support.34 Politically, the elite of Zacapoaxtla emerged as
the promoters of post-revolutionary stability and supporters of the federal govern-
ment’s broader aim of ending military-style cacicazgos such as that erected by Barrios.
In this manner, they were able to govern the degree to which neighbouring indigenous
communities could act independently – so much so that, as Vaughan shows, when
schoolteachers came to the district during the Cárdenas period seeking to spread the
socialist message in previously radical indigenous communities, conservative elements
within the local elite were able to repel their efforts. Only in the 1940s, when it suited
the local elite to be seen to support federal educational policies, did Lobato promote
rural schools, albeit with a much less radical curriculum (Vaughan, 1997: 124–134).

34 This deterioration was exacerbated by the construction of an alternative route between

Puebla City and the Veracruz coast that went through the Avila Camacho family’s
home town of Tezuitlán.

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Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4 549
 Keith Brewster

Broader Applications

Any analysis of rural politics must address the unique balance of factors that feed into
the local equation: demography, ethnicity, economic growth and land usage are just a
few of the many variables that impinged on the ways in which individuals and com-
munities related to themselves and outsiders. Yet accepting the specificity of each case
study, the district of Zacapoaxtla does offer the potential for comparison and applica-
tion elsewhere.
One clear observation is that, in common with many other districts, revolutionary
violence in Zacapoaxtla gave local factions an alternative means through which to
continue pre-existing rivalries. Yet a readiness to adopt the armed option was dis-
played with varying degrees of enthusiasm by the district’s elite. Tensions between the
elite families in Cuetzalan preceded the Revolution and continued long after the ces-
sation of widespread hostilities in 1917. Their reluctance to relinquish violence in
pursuit of factional objectives contributed significantly to the years of instability that
maligned the district in the 1920s. Factional rivalries in the cabecera, however, were
never sufficient to propel the elite into armed conflict. How can this difference in ap-
proaches be explained? One possible conclusion is that a resort to violence reflected
varying degrees of political integration. There may have been rivalry in the cabecera,
but it was generally contained within members of an established elite. In Cuetzalan,
however, the Flores faction had no intention of relinquishing its influence to late-com-
ers and the Vega Bernal family may have viewed the armed option as the most effective
shortcut to local dominance. This is completely distinct from serrano resistance to ex-
ternal threats on local autonomy. Significant sections of the local elite reacted to such
threats not by fighting, but by allying themselves to external agents whose military
actions, they hoped, would serve their cause.
Events in Zacapoaxtla also reveal the fragility of white elite authority in pre-
dominantly indigenous areas and forestalled the form of popular mobilisation by
elite factions that was witnessed, for instance, in Juchitán or San Cristóbal de las
Casas (Purnell, 2005: 53). Unless the elite could sustain a reliable armed force of
their own, everyday control of neighbouring indigenous communities relied on a
subtle blend of coercion and patronage. In many ways, the lack of direct access to
indigenous troops accounts for the elite’s reluctance to mobilise in times of more
widespread violence. There was no reason to rouse a military potential that could
then turn against them; indeed, there was every reason to portray such disputes as
largely external affairs that involved neither themselves nor their indigenous neigh-
bours. That the district’s indigenous communities largely shared such sentiments is
witnessed by the fact that their participation in the Revolution was generally limited
to protecting their communities and families from arbitrary violence. Interestingly,
this never reached the extent of using the ascendancy of a regional cacique to settle
old scores with their local white adversaries. A sense of mutual vulnerability, there-
fore, may have governed peace-time ethnic relations in such areas, preventing local
exploitation reaching such a level that might warrant ‘caste-war’ style retribution
when circumstances permitted.
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550 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4
 Survival Strategies

At certain junctures in a district’s history, such mutual vulnerability might help to

reveal the true depths of ingrained social and racial prejudices. There is little doubt
that ethnic groups in pre-revolutionary Zacapoaxtla occupied separate cultural and
social spaces. When it did occur, contact merely facilitated the maintenance of the
subtle balance of coercion and patronage that governed everyday life. Yet when faced
with unprecedented challenges, expediency overcame prejudice. Indigenous communi-
ties that, in other times, may have perceived Barrios as a menacing threat from beyond
were willing to accommodate him in the greater interests of community security. Si-
multaneously, members of a white elite who had initially declared him to be a blood-
thirsty, ignorant ‘Indian’ swallowed their pride and sought to reach an arrangement
with him to protect their interests from threats, be these local or external in origin.
This leads to another important observation. Events in Zacapoaxtla during and af-
ter the Revolution allow us to reconsider the position of the cacique. It is not always
helpful to assume that a cacique was a member of the elite, or that he aspired to join
it or represent its interests. For a number of reasons, in which class and ethnicity loom
large, we should be alive to the possibility that only with great sufferance might a
particular cacique be tolerated by members of the elite and that only factors beyond
their control may have prevented them from removing him from power. As such, the
local political and economic elite cannot be assumed to have enjoyed a situation of
uninterrupted, total dominance, nor should they automatically be seen as sponsors of
individuals (whether caciques or not) who wielded violence and intimidation. Rather,
the elite were frequently forced to keep their heads down as temporary political and/or
economic balances delivered influence to a figure not of their choosing. While members
of the elite may have sought an accommodation with a particular cacique, this is far
from creating a cacicazgo to do their dirty work.
Finally, the district of Zacapoaxtla clearly exemplifies the potency of political pa-
tronage. Members of the local elite could not hope to combat military caciquismo by
force. Yet at certain junctures in regional and national politics, a sophisticated network
of political allegiances that stretched from the mountain village to national congress
conspired effectively to curb Barrios’ powers. In doing so, the contest was shrewdly
moved into the political sphere, where the greater experience of the elite gave a better
chance of producing results. Throughout the 1920s, demilitarisation of the countryside
increasingly meant that Barrios had to construct a parallel network of political allies
to fight his corner. In arriving at an accommodation with Barrios, such allies were able
to place themselves into positions ideally located to take over the reins on his demise.
In many respects, local factionalism was being played out in regional and national
assemblies. That the established elite were able to resume a large degree of socio-
economic control during the 1930s and 1940s reflected their traditional capacity for
retaining a presence in higher levels of political power.
By recognising the ability of the elite to withstand temporary setbacks, it seems
clear that studies of rural political history need to consider the implications for other
groups. To what extent did elite ‘resilience’, for example, affect the behaviour of those
enjoying periods of ascendancy over them? If all sides playing the local political game
were aware of the ultimate result, did this affect the tactics they deployed? Could such
knowledge encourage subalterns to limit their demands to what they might achieve,

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Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4 551
 Keith Brewster

rather than to what they aspired? Might such an attitude help to understand why some
peasant communities were reluctant to embrace class identity and conversely sought
refuge in vertical ties of loyalty? Did the fact that alternative power-brokers had inse-
cure tenure affect the degree to which various groups were willing to identify with
them? Might a better understanding of the internal dynamics of the local elite offer a
more subtle appreciation of cacique rule? This case study of Zacapoaxtla does not
claim fully to answer all of these questions, but it does exemplify how issues relating
to some of them may have had a marked effect on the dynamics of local political
history.

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Huidobro, J. F. (1993) Son of José María Flores, 13 December, Cuetzalan.
Rivera, B. (1993) Servant in the Vega Bernal household, 12 and 16 December, Cuetzalan.
Toral, A. (1993) 10 December, Zacapoaxtla.
Vega Rodríguez, S. (1993) Son of Salvador Vega Bernal, 12 and 14 December, Cuetzalan.

© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Society for Latin American Studies
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