page_title: Justo Rufino Barrios
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Justo Rufino Barrios / Government / Economy
caption_attribution_description: estadoguatemala1832
context_page_description: Justo Rufino Barrios Auyón was a Guatemalan politician who was President of Guatemala from 1873 to 1885. He was known for his liberal reforms and his attempts to reunite Central America.
context_section_description: During Barrios' tenure, the "Indian land" that the conservative regime of Rafael Carrera had so strongly defended was confiscated and distributed among those officers who had helped him during the Liberal Revolution in 1871. Decree # 170 (a.k.a. Census redemption decree) made it easy to confiscate those lands in favor of the army officers and the German settlers in Verapaz, as it allowed to publicly sell those common Indian lots. Therefore, the fundamental characteristic of the productive system during Barrios' regime was the accumulation of large swaths of land among few owners and a sort of "farmland servitude," based on the exploitation of the native day laborers.
  In order to ensure a steady supply of day laborers for the coffee plantations, which required many, Barrios' government decreed the Day Laborer regulations, labor legislation that placed the entire native population at the disposition of the new and traditional Guatemalan landlords, except the regular clergy, who were eventually expelled form the country and saw their properties confiscated. This decree set the following for the native Guatemalans:
  forced by law to work on farms when the owners of the farms required them, without regard for where the native towns were located.
  under control of local authorities, who were charged with ensuring that day laborers were sent to all the farms that required them.
  subject to "habilitation:" a type of forced advanced pay, which buried the day laborer in debt and then made it legal for the landlords to keep them on their land for as long as they wanted.
  Created the day laborer booklet: a document that proved that a day laborer had no debts to his employer. Without this document, any day laborer was at the mercy of the local authorities and the landlords.
caption: Guatemala territory during Rafael Carrera and Vicente Cerna conservative regimes. Soconusco territories were given to México in exchange for their support for the Liberal revolution in 1871 by Herrera-Mariscal treaty of 1882.
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