UCLA Historical Journal

This paper follows one local agrarian communities and tequila industrialist Eladio Sauza through the bureaucratic avenues of Mexico’s post-revolutionary land reform. Over 14,115 hectares of land were redistributed as ejidos—landholding communities endowed by the agrarian reform—in the municipality of Tequila between 1927-41. The uphill battle agrarian reformists waged against Sauza to assert their right to land is not simply a story of victimization or economic setbacks. It is also an inquiry into the lives of individuals who through the state sponsored ejido system became empowered and integrated into the nation’s revolutionary project.

Before the land reform tequila companies produced the agaves needed for the process of distillation; shortly thereafter they became dependent on ejidatarios for their supply of agave. Using the correspondences, memos, and letters of Sauza, as well of those of the agraristas of El Medineño, I show that their stories are not only indicative of the change that the industry faced; their stories are also part of a larger national narrative on the development and implementation of agrarian and labor legislation in the Mexican countryside. What was ordained into law by decrees, more than often unfolded on the ground in different ways than the law intended. Although the legislative frameworks for land reform were provided from above, they remained mute as to how to implement them and were highly susceptible to the pressure from landowners and local communities.

Very little is known about the community leaders and those early participants in local agrarian reform movements that did not achieve national notoriety. We may never know the full extent of the backgrounds of the agraristas, but what the sources and this paper do convey are that among them were natural-born leaders adept in the politics of reform who sought justice in the name of the Revolution. Overwhelmed by revolution in land ownership that threatened to cripple his tequila business, Eladio Sauza fought for his definition of justice while trying to dictate the terms of his surrender to the revolutionary process. This story explores and historicizes the origins of conflict and reform in post-revolutionary Mexico—assessing its impact on the ground, to its people, and an industry.