Here is a plug to fill a gap long existing in the literature on Spanish administration in New Spain: the story of the Mexican Mesta, the first stockmen’s association in the New World. The author sets out “to show how Spanish authorities, through the medium of the Mesta, regulated and controlled the pastoral industry more efficiently in New Spain than in other parts of colonial Spanish America.” He accomplishes his task admirably.
The Mesta was born in Spain in 1273, out of the traditional and age-old friction between nomadic shepherds and sedentary farmers. Wool was so important to Spain’s economy that the owners of sheep were placed under royal protection by the organization of the powerful “Honorable Assembly of the Mesta Shepherds.” To say that this organization gave the edge to stockmen would be a gross understatement. After all, sheep owners formed the wealth of the kingdom, a massive block of political influence. The name grew out of meetings of Castilian stockmen during the early Middle Ages. Those gatherings were mainly concerned with strays, or mezclados, and so the name “mesta” came into being.
On January 2, 1494, Columbus landed in the New World with the first importation of livestock. In 1537, less than twenty years after the Conquest began, the Mesta arrived. In Spain the organization was primarily for sheep raisers; however, in the New World its organization and regulations were adapted to benefit all stockmen. For almost three hundred years, until 1812, the Mexican Mesta lasted.
Dr. Dusenberry has threaded the multitudinous records and regulations to tell of the organization’s activities, and to show the profound influence on ranching in not only Mexico but the United States, influence which lasts to this day. Between the lines of the discussion of branding regulations and their violations and the theft and damage cases, one can read stories of “rustling” which turn the present rash of Western television fare into the palest of imitations. The Mexican Mesta is recommended to any television or movie writer looking for a fresh outlook.
The Mesta eventually controlled land tenure, establishment of pasturage systems, and the movement of cattle. It reached into the area of slaughter and meat supply operations, with anti-monopoly controls to prevent price-fixing—this was in the sixteenth century. The regulations grew to embrace ranch labor and workmen’s wages. For example, “each employer was compelled by law to pay the wages in full of any hired man who desired to terminate his services and seek employment elsewhere.” The intricacies of expanding laws encompassed crop controls, the ownership of dogs, and even police functions. Naturally, difficulties of administration developed: public offices were sold to sweeten the royal treasury, and a lasting tradition of graft and corruption was established to stain Mexico’s future.
The author includes an appendix of early brands which will interest many a Western buff, to say nothing of intriguing design artists.
This, the author’s first book, won the 1962 Agricultural History Society Award. It deserved the accolade. One cannot quit a review of this volume without kudos for its typographical excellence; it is an aesthetic asset to the bookshelf, with or without its dust jacket.
