Editing New Spain (section)

===North===
Since portions of northern New Spain became part of the United States' [[Southwest United States|Southwest region]], there has been considerable scholarship on the Spanish borderlands in the north. The motor of the Spanish colonial economy was the extraction of [[silver]]. In [[Bolivia]], it was from the single rich mountain of [[Cerro de Potosí|Potosí]]; but in New Spain, there were two major mining sites, one in [[Zacatecas]], the other in [[Guanajuato]].

The region farther north of the main mining zones attracted few Spanish settlers. Where there were settled [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous populations]], such as in the present-day state of [[New Mexico]] and in coastal regions of [[Baja California (region)|Baja]] and [[Alta California]], indigenous culture retained considerable integrity.

====Bajío, Mexico's breadbasket====
The [[Bajío]], a rich, fertile lowland just north of central Mexico, was nonetheless a frontier region between the densely populated plateaus and valleys of Mexico's center and south and the harsh northern desert controlled by nomadic Chichimeca. Devoid of settled indigenous populations in the early sixteenth century, the Bajío did not initially attract Spaniards, who were much more interested in exploiting labor and collecting tribute whenever possible. The region did not have indigenous populations that practiced subsistence agriculture. The Bajío developed in the colonial period as a region of commercial agriculture.

The discovery of mining deposits in Zacatecas and Guanajuato in the mid-sixteenth century and later in San Luis Potosí stimulated the Bajío's development to supply the mines with food and livestock. A network of Spanish towns was established in this region of commercial agriculture, with Querétaro also becoming a center of textile production. Although there were no dense indigenous populations or network of settlements, Indians migrated to the Bajío to work as resident employees on the region's haciendas and ranchos or rented land (terrasguerros). From diverse cultural backgrounds and with no sustaining indigenous communities, these indios were quickly hispanized, but largely remained at the bottom of the economic hierarchy.<ref>{{harvp|Tutino|1986|pp=52–54}}</ref> Although Indians migrated willingly to the region, they did so in such small numbers that labor shortages prompted Spanish hacendados to provide incentives to attract workers, especially in the initial boom period of the early seventeenth century. Land owners lent workers money, which could be seen as a perpetual indebtedness, but it can be seen not as coercing Indians to stay but a way estate owners sweetened their terms of employment, beyond their basic wage labor.<ref>{{harvp|Brading|1978|pp=76–77}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Tutino|1979|pp=339–378}}</ref> For example, in 1775 the Spanish administrator of a San Luis Potosí estate "had to scour both Mexico City and the northern towns to find enough blue French linen to satisfy the resident employees".<ref>{{harvp|Tutino|1979|p=354}}</ref> Other types of goods they received on credit were textiles, hats, shoes, candles, meat, beans, and a guaranteed ration of maize. However, where labor was more abundant or market conditions depressed, estate owners paid lower wages. The more sparsely populated northern Bajío tended to pay higher wages than the southern Bajío, which was increasingly integrated in the economy of central Mexico.<ref name="Tutino_1979_364">{{harvp|Tutino|1979|p=364}}</ref> The credit-based employment system often privileged those holding higher ranked positions on the estate (supervisors, craftsmen, other specialists) who were mostly white, and the estates did not demand repayment.<ref>{{harvp|Tutino|1979|p=363}}</ref>

In the late colonial period, renting complemented estate employment for many non-Indians in more central areas of the Bajío with access to markets. As with hacendados, renters produced for the commercial market. While these Bajío renters could prosper in good times and achieved a level of independence, drought and other disasters made their choice more risky than beneficial.<ref>{{harvp|Tutino|1979|p=366}}</ref>

Many renters retained ties to the estates, diversifying their household's sources of income and level of economic security. In San Luis Potosí, rentals were fewer and estate employment the norm. After a number of years of drought and bad harvests in the first decade of the nineteenth century Hidalgo's 1810 grito appealed more in the Bajío than in San Luis Potosí. In the Bajío estate owners were evicting tenants in favor of renters better able to pay more for land, there was a disruption of previous patterns of mutual benefit between estate owners and renters.<ref name="Tutino_1979_364"/>