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Concept
Economic history of Mexico
Summary
Since the colonial era, Mexico's economic history has been characterized by resource extraction, agriculture, and a relatively underdeveloped industrial sector. Economic elites in the colonial period were predominantly Spanish-born, active as transatlantic merchants and mine owners, and diversifying their investments with the landed estates. The largest population sector was indigenous subsistence farmers, which predominantly inhabited the center and south.
New Spain was envisioned by the Spanish crown as a supplier of wealth to Iberia, which was accomplished through large silver mines and indigenous labor. A colonial economy to supply foodstuffs and products from ranching as well as a domestic textile industry meant that the economy provided much of its own needs, with international trade mainly conducted through colonial monopolies. Crown economic policies rattled American-born elites’ loyalty to Spain when in 1804, it instituted a policy to make mortgage holders pay immediately the principal on their loans, threatening the economic position of cash-strapped land owners.
The Independence of Mexico in 1821 was initially difficult for the country, with the loss of its supply of mercury from Spain in silver mines. Most of the patterns of wealth in the colonial era continued into the first half of the nineteenth century, with agriculture being the main economic activity through the labor of indigenous and mixed-race peasants. The mid-nineteenth-century Liberal Reforma (ca. 1850–1861; 1867–76) attempted to curtail the economic power of the Catholic Church and to modernize and industrialize the Mexican economy. Following the Reform War and the Second French intervention, the late nineteenth century found political stability and economic prosperity during the Porfiriato (1876–1911). Mexico was opened to foreign investment and, to a lesser extent, foreign workers. Foreign capitals built railway networks, one of the keys for transforming the Mexican economy, by linking regions of Mexico and major cities and ports.
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