Household Mobility and Persistence in Guadalajara, Mexico by Hardin Monica L.;

Author:Hardin, Monica L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic

Source: The Guadalajara Census Project, 1791–1930. Vol. 1, “Guadalajara Population Censuses of 1821 and 1822.” Tallahassee: CD-ROM, 2007.

Comparative Data: 1811–1813 and 1839–1842

For cuartel thirteen, in the course of just two years, between 1811 and 1813, over 77 percent of heads of household had left the district. The reliability of that figure is enhanced by the careful work of the same census taker in both years (itself a rarity), providing a detailed survey of the cuartel’s residents for both years. What is fascinating about this cuartel is that two apparently distinct (or at least not obviously related) mobility patterns were unfolding at the same time. One is the movement of so many families out of the cuartel, a pattern that would be replicated elsewhere in 1822 and 1842. The other, however, is the great increase in families moving into the cuartel, compared to 1811, a pattern that was not replicated in 1822 (but is in 1842).

That increase is surely the reflection of a city full of newcomers, noticed by the authorities at the time. Both contemporary history and traditional patterns (if my thesis is correct) congregated in the same urban space. The shear crush of this convergence must have been a daily scene played out in the neighborhood streets, forced to make room for nearly one-third more residents, in the midst of the usual movement of peoples, touting their possessions, moved into, and out of, the cuartel. Those fascinating sights and sounds that would have been the backdrop of history cannot easily, if at all, be reconstructed. Still, the bare statistics do tell us something about the times, even as they leave much to the imagination.

The years at the end of the era under study—1838 to 1842—were not without the political turmoil of the earlier decades, but unlike the Insurgency, the fighting itself did not result in great movements of people, or involvement of large numbers of the populous. Despite the role played by the Guadalajara region in opposing Santa Anna’s centralist government, only around three hundred individuals from the region were sent to fight in the military actions of 1841–1842, by one historian’s estimate.28 The region’s economy had rebounded from the uncertainties of the first several decades after independence. Banda’s Estadística lists a wide range of shops and small scale industries, along with the area’s first textile factories.29 The seventy-eight carpentry shops Banda lists, and the numerous brick masons, painters, joiners, and other construction artisans counted in the censuses attest to the era’s increased economic activity.

While one might consider that the economic activity attracted migrants, as no doubt it did, the relative lack of political violence contrasts sharply with the Insurgency years. Yet, as with the earlier era, the attempt to trace the heads of household from 1839 to 1842 found an enormous transient population. Over 80 percent of cuartel five heads of household in 1839 were unaccounted for in 1842 (see Table 3.1). The portion of transients is greater than either 1813 or 1822, but the gap between the 1839 and 1842 censuses was also longer than either of the other census pairs by several years.

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