Patron-Peon Pattern Among the Spanish Americans of New Mexico

A major element in the Spanish American rural social organization was the patron-peon pattern. Although the pattern is Inow in the process of dissolution, the underlying cultural values remain and create many difficulties in the adjustment and acculturation of the Spanish Americans to the dominant English-speaking society of modern New Mexico. IN THIS paper an endeavor will be made to delineate the role and structure of the patron-peon pattern in the rural social organization of the Spanish American people of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, the changes that have taken place in this system, and the social and cultural implications of these changes. Living for the most part in rural farming villages, the Spanish Americans are a unique ethnic group different in language, culture, and historical experience from other Spanish-speaking groups in the United States.' The rural Spanish American social organization structured upon the interlocking institutions and patterns of an extended patriarchal family, the Roman Catholic Church, the independent self-sufficient farming village, and the patronpeon system has been until recently quite resistant to acculturation toward the dominant English-speaking society. This resistance has been further intensified by the unfortunate historical experiences of the Spanish Americans. Stripped of much of their land by English-speaking Americans, exploited economically, treated with contempt and prejudice by many and forced into a subordinate social and economic position within their own state, they have reacted in the past by withdrawing from all but essential social, political, and economic contacts with the dominant English-speaking group.2 The cultural and social isolation of the Spanish Americans lasted until the depression of the 1930's. Mass unemployment, serious loss of land and water rights, growing population pressure upon a narrowing resource base, the temporary termination of traditional occupations such as migrant agricultural labor, sheepherding, and track work for the railroads destroyed the independent self-sufficient nature of the Spanish American villages. The villagers, unable to maintain themselves by their customary economic activities, were forced to accept economic assistance from the government agencies. Through these agencies, large numbers of the Spanish Americans became dependent upon the larger English-speaking world outside the village.3 'See Lyle Saunders, Cutltural. Differences an;d Medical Care (New York: Russell Sage Foundations, 1954), pp. 42-103; John H. Burma, Spantish Speaking Groutps in the United States (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1954), pp. 3-34; George I. Sanchez, Forgotten People (Albuquerque, N. M.: The University of New Mexico Press, 1940). 2 Burma, op. cit., pp. 6-7. See also Allan G. Harper, Andrew R. Cordova, and Kalervo Oberg, Man anld Resources of the Middle Rio Grande Valley (Albuquerque, N. M.: The University of New Mexico Press, 1943), pp. 60-62. 3Saunders, op. cit., pp. 51-54; Hugh G. Calkins, Village Livelihood in the Upper Rio Grande Area (Soil Conservation Service, Department of Agriculture, Albuquerque, N. M., 1937); Charles P. Loomis, "El Cerrito, New Mexico: A Changing Village," New Mexico Historical Review, 33 (January 1958), pp. 56-57; Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico (New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1949), pp. 75-79; Kalervo Oberg, "Land Use Planning in Cuba Valley, New Mexico," Rural Sociology, 5 (December 1940), pp. 438-448. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.112 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:35:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms PATRON-PEON PATTERN 13 The destruction of the village economic structure was accompanied by a serious wealkening of its social integration. The gradual erosion of the extended patriarchal family, the slow decline in the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, the intrusion of Protestant denominations, the destruction of the patronpeon system, the development of an educational system dominated by Anglo values, the draft of young men into the military service during World War II and the Korean War, the accelerated rise of new social and economic expectations, the development of a massive emigration movement away from the villages an(d into the urban areas of the West, and the rise of large urban centers on the fringes of the Spaniish American area not only threaten the existence of the traditional village culture but the survival of the Spanislh American culture as a separate cultural entity. A culture that has managed to survive almost three centuries of vicissitudes has now entered a period of suclh rapid economic, social, and cultural changes that its continued existence is perhaps problematical.4 One of the first cultural patterns that began to break down under the impact of the invading English-speaking culture was the patron-peon system. Among the Spanish Americans, the patron was and is a person who is able to provide employment, social and economic security, and leadership to those who must work for a living. He is usually a person of substance belonging to a family that is socially prominent in the area. His position as a patron is not based primarily upon his personal characteristics, but rather upon his ability to perform the institutionalized role of a patron.5 Two basic types of a patron evolved in thle Spanish American culture area. One was the large powerful landholder so clharacteristic of much of Latin America. This type developed primarily in the cattle and sheep ranching areas of southern and eastern New Mexico, althouglh scattered patron families of this type were, and are, found in other sections of the state. The second and more commoon type of patroni was the village patron encountered at onie time in almost every Spanish American village. The Spanish American land owning system was not in general characterized by the concentration of land in the hands of a few. It was marke(d by the predominance of self-sufficient agricultural villages inhabited by small independent landowners owning plots of irrigated land and possessing grazing rights on the village coIml-