History

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A mural that covers the outside of the people's market in Mexico City tells the story of the struggle for the land.

Beginning in 1000 BC, the ancient civilizations of the Olmecs, the Teotihaucan, the Maya, and many others inhabited the area now known as Mexico. In 1325, the Aztecs began a conquest of the peoples in the area of Lake Texcoco and beyond. The Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan on a lake which had formed in the mouth of an inactive volcano. The city was surrounded by canals and waterways, which separated plots of agricultural land, religious sites, public areas, and communities that held between 150,000 to 300,000 people in total. The culture was rich and so was the land, and the city was a metropolis of technology and innovation that served as a central trading place for trade among different tribes from coast to coast.
In 1519, Hernan Cortez arrived from Spain. Coincidentally, in accordance with a myth of the people, the Aztecs were expecting the eventual return from the east of an important white faced god- known as Quetzecuatl. When the white-skinned Cortez arrived, he was treated with great respect and hospitality. Cortez took advantage of this, and between the 16th and 19th centuries, Spain succeeded in conquering the people and over taking the land, eventually rebuilding it to Spanish style and standards. 
In 1810 Mexico declared independence from Spain, and for the next century, fighting, civil unrest and rebellion, dictatorships, and presidencies rise and fall, and Mexico loses nearly half of the country to the United States after a two year war.
Land Reform began in 1858, led by a mestizo named Benito Jaurez. In an attempt to redistribute hacienda land to the people, he divided it into plots, displacing the rich upper class. After  a short invasion by the French, another mestizo, Porfirio Diaz ran and was defeated for presidency and instead overthrew the government. It was during his reign that much of Mexico’s industries were sold to foreigners. In 1910, Diaz, who has ruled for over thirty years, is overthrown in the Mexican Revolution and succeeded by Madero. In 1912, the people call for agrarian reform, led by Emiliano Zapata in the south, and Francisco Villa in the north. After years of guerilla fighting, both men are killed, and Carranza is elected president. Government continues to be rocky for the next  twenty years. Today there are still many issues within the government and frustration due to rampant election fraud.
Because of the reforms throughout Mexico’s history, there remains today much debate about who owns the land. The Indigenous peoples hold that the land is a part of their ancestry, and it cannot be owned at all. The first wave of hacienda families still hold their land titles, which overlap with the land titles given out by the next government, which overlap with the land titles given out by the next government. On top of it all, land is also being bought and sold by large transnational corporations (TNCs). Displaced people, who once farmed and were self-sustained in their livelihoods are being bought out by TNCs or forced off their land due to oppression, and are flooding into the cities looking for employment that doesn’t exist. 

Concepts

Mestizo: a person of mixed heritage, with both Spanish and Indigenous ancestors. The majority of people living in Mexico are now Mestizo, although, due to colonial assimilation methods, many do not know their full heritage. 
Haciendas: large estates owned by wealthy families in Mexico in the early days after the conquest and up until the Land Reform of 1858. This is the only one of the ways that the land of Mexico has been sectioned up and owned, and while many haciendas were divided up further to please the people, there is constant dispute about who owns what, and even if the land should be owned at all. According to indigenous beliefs, the land cannot be owned, but is respected as a partner in the growing of food, and should be shared among the people peacefully and openly.
Transnational Corporations: companies, usually originating in wealthy first world countries, that grow larger and larger, spreading their factories, resource gathering, and product marketing to other countries. According to Norberg-Hodge, Merrifield, and Gorelick in the book Bringing the Food Economy Home, "many TNCs are now more powerful than entire nations... 51 of the 100 largest economies in the world in 1999 were corporations, not countries" (13).
Information about the history of Mexico found on this page was compiled from lectures given by our two guides Abril and Ariadna during class and the tour of the Zocalo in Mexico City. Specific dates were retrived from: 
http://www.latin-focus.com/latinfocus/factsheets/mexico/mexfact_history.htm



Inside a government building in the Zocalo (Mexico's political center), a mural records the history of the countryfrom ancient times to the present day. It is a testament to the nation's struggle for independence,sovereignty and peace.
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