The lights of Xanica, Oaxaca

by Carolina 24

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Private property and the market

According to Abel, many of today’s problems can be traced back to the 19th century. He says that communal property, “which is the most important thing for indigenous people,” was fenced off before 1900. Many people who only spoke the Zapotec language didn’t find out about the laws setting up the new private property regime, and consequently, their lands were stolen from them. They were left with only a small patch of land or no land at all.

Abel explained that around 1930, many farmers began to grow coffee, and by the 40s and 50s they had stopped growing corn, beans, and chili—just coffee. There were two big plantations near Xanica: Alemania and San Pablo, both of which had company stores that kept the laborers permanently indebted.

Since then, jobs in the area have mainly depended on the international price of coffee. When the price went down from 1980 to 1990, a lot of plantations were abandoned, which was a heavy blow for people who didn’t have land of their own for growing coffee: they had nowhere to work. Some started growing corn, bean, and chili again. When prices rise, there’s a lot of work in the coffee picking season from November to January, but it’s badly paid. Maybe they’ll pay a farm worker 300 pesos (≈ $27 USD) to work 15 days cleaning the coffee field.

In other cases, they may pay as much as 80 pesos (≈ $7.20 USD) a day, from 7:00 in the morning until 5:00 or 6:00 in the afternoon, depending on the boss. It takes the farm workers two hours to walk to work and two hours to get home and then they have to carry wood. They don’t even have a burro (donkey); they carry it on their backs.

Since the Free Trade Agreement was signed, coffee prices have gone down even more. Now there’s hardly any work. Ever since the 1990s the emigration from Xanica has been heavy.

Rebellion in Xanica in the 50s

In keeping with the rebelliousness of the Zapotecos against the lords of Monte Albán, their battles under the command of José María Morelos and Vicente Guerrero, their resistance against the French, their enlistment in the ranks of Emiliano Zapata’s army, the town of Xanica rose up in the 1950s.

Abel tells us that “there were problems much like the ones we have now.” People came from Miahuatlán to sell clothing and bread, and they also set up big butcher shops. They wanted the people of Xanica to work for them, and they also wanted to establish their own local authorities. They refused to respect the community assembly, the council of elders, and the traditional practices and customs for choosing public servants.

The people of Xanica, unwilling to accept this domination, rose up in arms. The army soon came in and there were deaths on both sides. “Some of the local people went to jail because they killed a soldier. The army was in the area for three months looking for the rebels, who hid in the mountains. The army finally left and people either returned or kept on hiding out.”
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