Oaxaca: family businesses, trade and investments at the end of 19th century

Abstract

This article provides data and analysis of commercial/business relations between foreigners, the social élite and local politician in the Oaxaca in late in the 19th century, with the aim of establishing textile factories, mining and banks. This phenomenon of familiar interrelations was common in the porfirian Mexico, so it is also reference in parallel to other entities where that situation favoured three social actors –foreigners, the élite and the politician- from an enrichment of political-industrial families, which gave them the opportunity to extract their monetary resources outside Oaxaca's State. The central difference of Oaxaca with the rest of the States is that industrialization, mainly in the textile area, occurred very late, as the 19th century Oaxaca was continuing with the model of agricultural production-exportation, with the cochineal, which provoked the late entry of machinery and mechanical polluting infrastructure in the industrial sector, as well as the absence of road infrastructure favouring mining sector. Finally, the absence of strong investment and accumulated capital mass reflected in banks by entrepreneurs, who from families ties, preferred to invest the minimum necessary in the State of Oaxaca and most accommodating investments in other States, such Puebla, Veracruz and Mexico City. We infer that this way of pristine investment in resources was linked to two facts: The large investment in cochineal and the concept of worker, mostly indigenous. As in all cases of industrialization and in this particular oaxaquenian case, the majority of the population of Oaxaca's State and its natural resources were not favored directly because most important gains were invested and spended out of Oaxaca.