class="imgcenter" src="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@48053@48053-h@images@img-xxvi-t.jpg" alt="Hacienda de Endo, Sonora: residence, stable below." tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}img"/>
Hacienda de Endo, Sonora: residence, stable below.

The best-preserved hacienda buildings were those that continued to function as country properties or vacation homes. In these, Bartlett often found furnishings and utensils from the epoch of Don Porfirio, surrounded by the old traditions of Mexican country life.

As an artist, Bartlett's attention was drawn foremost to the hacienda buildings themselves and to the works of art that they housed. The majority of his illustrations and photographs therefore depict the main group of hacienda buildings or certain buildings—for example, the main residence, the church, the patios, and work buildings. However, among his rich materials, one can also find a testimony to hacienda work and life: machinery, irrigation devices and structures, farm implements, mining equipment, warehouses, barns, corrals, and carriages, among others.

The history of the hacienda spans three centuries. The first haciendas appeared in New Spain toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, when demand for agricultural products increased and the prehispanic supply system crumbled. Farming received an impetus at the hands of Spaniards, and the small farms and livestock ranches, which dated from the sixteenth century, expanded their landholdings. Many new sources of water were tapped, and a resident labor force was developed. These steps encouraged production and supplied the regional as well as the continually growing metropolitan markets.

The increase in hacienda production and in the number of hacienda workers made it necessary to expand the sixteenth-century facilities, which, with the exception of those of the sugar plantations, had been very modest. In this way, a large number of buildings were constructed, buildings that were to be preserved as the core of many haciendas until the Porfiriato.

There were three principal types of haciendas. Grain haciendas were the most important because they were dedicated to the cultivation of the subsistence crops corn and wheat. In addition, beans, barley, lima beans, chiles, and other crops were planted. Grain haciendas were established mainly in the vicinity of the urban centers, which they supplied. The important areas of grain cultivation were Puebla, Atlixco, Toluca, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, and Michoacán. Livestock haciendas occupied a second level of importance. They raised cattle and horses, as well as goats and sheep. This type of hacienda tended to be located in more remote areas, in an attempt to prevent the livestock from invading cultivated fields. Sugar haciendas were located in tropical regions, where they could count on sufficient water for the cultivation of sugarcane. The most important sugar regions were Veracruz, Cuernavaca, Cuautla, and Michoacán.

Throughout the seventeenth century the haciendas grew in significance. They held much of the land and water resources, expanded their labor force, intensified their control over the market, and consolidated their territorial rights in accordance with composiciones de tierras. (The phrase composiciones de tierras belongs to the legal terminology of the time. It relates to a legal mechanism that was instituted by the Spanish Crown during the first half of the sixteenth century but which was applied mainly during the seventeenth century. It made it possible to legalize properties whose titles were not in order.) They sought to make improvements by constructing, for example, buildings, irrigation systems, roads, granaries, and shelters for livestock. Together, these made it possible to increase agricultural yields substantially. It was not an easy process, often involving transfers of hacienda property, severe indebtedness of their owners, and great difficulties in production.

Hacienda expansion proceeded throughout the following two centuries. Huge tracts of uncultivated land were transformed into farmland and impressive water distribution systems opened up new areas to irrigation. The population, constantly growing, demanded an ever greater quantity of food. Much land that had been devoted to the raising of livestock was turned over to cultivation, and the stock were gradually displaced until livestock haciendas came to be located mainly in the north of the country. However, this was not a period of unimpeded progress: there were severe periods of crisis, sharp fluctuations in production, a lack of continuity in the transmission of property, and frequent bankruptcies. Hacienda properties tended to be deeply mortgaged to ecclesiastical institutions and to individual lenders.

Hacienda Uxmal, Yucatán: main gate.

When dictator Porfirio Díaz assumed power in 1877, a boom period for the hacienda began. Historical circumstances were favorable, and the government offered all manner of facilities to the livestock and farm impresarios. The substantial increase in the country's population, as well as the strengthening international economy, created a great demand for farm and livestock products. The consumption of goods from the tropics, such as coffee, cacao, sugar, tobacco, and vanilla, grew considerably during this time both in Europe and in the United States. The same thing happened with certain basic materials, among them henequén, rubber, chicle, and ixtle. (Ixtle or istle is the name given to the hard fibers that are extracted from different plants of the genus agave, of which the most important are the maguey and the lechuguilla. They are raised mainly in northern Mexico.)

As a result of laws that secularized communal land and set aside fallow land, huge areas of cultivation and land suitable for farming were placed at the disposition of commercial agriculture. Supporting capital for the most part came from foreign sources—from the United States, France, and England. Labor came from the impoverished peasants, from town workers, and from indigenous groups, among them the Mayas and the Tarahumaras.

Large landed estates appeared and a powerful class of hacienda owners arose. It was during this period that it was possible to overcome some of the endemic problems that had beset the hacienda since its birth: instability, indebtedness, lack of capital, and scarce revenues. During the Porfiriato, the majority of the haciendas were highly productive and provided their owners with plentiful earnings. Yet, at the same time there were haciendas that had to face financial problems and fluctuations in production.

Frequently, hacendados participated in other areas of business, such as finance, commerce, and mining. Their privileged economic position permitted them to furnish their rural properties with great luxury and to sustain a life of affluence. Bartlett found hacienda residences with twenty bedrooms, salons for dancing, Japanese gardens, billiard rooms and music rooms, swimming pools, bullrings, and palisades. Bearing witness to the interior splendor of these mansions, there was fine furniture from Europe, carpeting from Persia, velvet draperies, chandeliers of cut crystal, and valuable oil paintings. There were haciendas that possessed chapels that rivaled the provincial churches in size, architecture, and decor. Of course not all haciendas were this elegant: most had much more rustic appointments; many were in decline, poorly maintained, furnished with the very barest minimum.