From Hacienda Villages to Municipalities in the San Luis Potosi Plateau

This article analyzes the formation and political status of hacienda settlements and their struggle to acquire the status of municipalities and town in San Luis Potosi. This effort, the author explains, was designed to grant them access to the corporate rights from which they had been excluded, regarding both entry into common lands and the creation of their own town halls. It shows how the Lerdo Law, which prohibited towns and town halls from owning and administering common assets, affected the hacienda villages of San Luis Potosi that became municipalities during that time, particularly as regards their attempt to obtain communal lands to become independent from the haciendas in which they were located.