For God and Revolution: Priest, Peasant, and Agrarian Socialism in the Mexican Huasteca

摘要

Mark Saad Saka seeks to explain the origins of the Huastecan peasant rebellion of 1879-84, when thousands of indigenous peasants from north-eastern Mexico rose up against the government of Porfirio Diaz, demanding 'political autonomy for their pueblos, the protection of their churches, and the restoration of the land, water, and foraging rights that were part of their heritage' (p. v). He argues that the causes of the rebellion were both material and moral in nature. The Spanish colonial system left the indigenous peasantry of the Huasteca Potosina in a precarious economic position, stripped of much of its territory and subject to the vagaries of subsistence agriculture. Liberal efforts to foster economic development during the second half of the nineteenth century, through the privatisation of communal lands and the promotion of commercial agriculture, turned a precarious economic situation into a desperate one, depriving peasants of much of their remaining land and forcing them into a highly exploitative labour system.