Landscaping Indigenous Mexico

The Liberal State and Capitalism in the Purépecha Highlands

Fernando Pérez-Montesinos

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781477330999
• eBook ISBN: 9781477331019
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Mexican History
• Index: History

A history of the Purépecha people's survival amid environmental and political changes.

Landscapes are more than geological formations; they are living records of human struggles. Landscaping Indigenous Mexico unearths the history of Juátarhu, an Indigenous landscape shaped and nurtured by the Purépecha—a formidable Mesoamerican people whose power once rivaled that of the Aztecs. Although cataclysmic changes came with European contact and colonization, Juátarhu's enduring agroecology continued to sustain local life through centuries of challenges.

Contesting essentialist narratives of Indigenous penury, Pérez Montesinos shows how Purépechas thrived after Mexican independence in 1821, using Juátarhu's diverse agroecology to negotiate continued autonomy amid waves of national economic and political upheaval. After 1870, however, autonomy waned under the pressure of land privatization policies, state intervention, and industrial logging. On the eve of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, Purépechas stood at a critical juncture: Would the Indigenous landscape endure or succumb? Offering a fresh perspective on a seemingly well-worn subject, Pérez Montesinos argues that Michoacán, long considered a peripheral revolutionary region, saw one of the era's most radical events: the destruction of the liberal order and the timber capitalism of Juátarhu.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction. Landscaping Indigenous Michoacán: Ecology and Community, Liberalism and Capitalism in an Indigenous World, 1820–1920
• Chapter 1. Making and Remaking the Indigenous Highlands, circa 7000 BC–AD 1820
• Chapter 2. A Reliable and Resilient Landscape, 1800–1890
• Chapter 3. The Tumultuous Origins of the Reparto Era, 1821–1867
• Chapter 4. Contesting the Liberal Landscape, 1867–1875
• Chapter 5. Land Concentrations and State Interventions, 1875–1890
• Chapter 6. Capitalism Comes to the Uplands: Railroads Invade the Forests, 1890–1900
• Chapter 7. Assaulting the Landscape: Timber Capitalism, 1900–1910
• Epilogue. The Landscape Survives: Revolution Breaks Timber Capitalism, 1910–1920
• Acknowledgments. My Village
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index