Lands of Common Distribution and Small Property in San Juan Teotihuacan, Mexico State, 1856-1940

The objective of this article is to analyze the concept and function of “lands of common distribution,” their connection to small, privately-owned parcels of land and their importance in the taxation system of the Mexico State municipality of San Juan Teotihuacan over the course of a long period that extends from the expropriation law of 1856 up until the 1940s. It aims to explain the legal and fiscal changes that this concept underwent following the liberal reforms, as well as its persistence during and after the agrarian reform. Supported by quantitative and qualitative data, it argues that, despite the expansion of the hacienda system during the Porfiriato and the post-revolutionary agrarian reform, small parcels of privately-held land survived in a world of ejidos and even thrived, with an increasing number of transactions and an expansion small property ownership, to the extent that small property owners owned all of the municipality’s most fertile irrigated land, which consequently made them into the most important producers in the Valley of Teotihuacan in the mid-20th Century