Topolobampo may not be a familiar name, even to students of modern Mexican history, but its story—which unfolded in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and spanned two countries—was actually a significant episode during the Porfiriato. Located in the fertile Fuerte River Valley of the northwestern (Pacific Coast) Mexican state of Sinaloa, Topolobampo represented, on the one hand, the North American utopian socialist Albert Kinsey Owen’s dream of a prosperous cooperative agricultural society. Owen also attempted to build a transcontinental railroad to link up the colony with the international market. On the other hand, the colonization of Topolobampo reflected Porfirian policies of national development based on attracting foreign capital, constructing railroads, and encouraging foreign colonization with the lure of cheap national land. Owen’s colony and railroad both failed; nevertheless, his projects did initiate the ultimately successful economic development of the Fuerte Valley in the twentieth century.
Sergio Ortega has done a masterful job weaving together a complex story into a highly readable account. Meticulously researched and carefully documented, this history of Topolobampo is firmly placed within the proper social, political, economic, and international context. Ortega apparently consulted all available sources in both the United States and Mexico (unfortunately, the papers of the Secretary of Fomento are still closed to researchers), providing at the end of the book a very interesting and useful annotated bibliography.
