In The Bajio Revolution, John Tutino examines how popular insurgents reshaped Mexico, the US, and global capitalism during the nineteenth century. After detailing New Spain's silver-driven wealth, Tutino shows how the Bajio insurgency of 1810-1820 broke silver flows and Asian trades, opening markets to industrial cloth made in England of cotton made by enslaved hands in the US South - while Bajio women claimed pivotal roles making maize to sustain families and guerrilla bands. As Mexico gained independence in 1821, mining remained broken while family growers held strong. Then in the 1830s, a new silver-industrial capitalism fed by family maize makers rose in the Bajio. Women still led rural families and took on mill labor; one woman became Mexico's leading silver capitalist. Facing that competition, in the 1840s the US invaded to claim Texas for cotton and slavery and California for gold. The new Mexican capitalism carried on until the US mobilized gold taken in war to join a global gold standard in the 1870s - blocking Mexico's independent route to capitalism.

About the Author
John Tutino is Professor of History at Georgetown University, author Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajio and Spanish North America, and editor of New Countries: Capitalism, Revolutions, and Nations in the Americas, 1750-1870, both also published by Duke University Press.

Reviews
"Culminating a distinguished career of research focused on the colonial economies of silver mining, artisanal manufactures, livestock ranching, and food production in Mexico's western provinces, John Tutino interprets the revolutionary impacts of popular insurrections in the Bajio that reverberated throughout North America, Europe, and the world. Arguing that rural uprisings seeking basic sustenance shattered the silver economy of the Bajio that had sustained early modern global capitalism, Tutino connects local ranching economies to the rise of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism and enslaved plantation labor that shaped a new world order." - Cynthia Radding, Gussenhoven Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"I marvel at John Tutino's ability to reveal a world long past and the granular view he offers readers of a society in the midst of revolution. By shifting perspectives between peasant agriculturalists and local and state elites, Tutino widened my understanding of the period and made me rethink the broader context in which the events that unfolded need to be understood. The Bajio Revolution should be of interest to anyone studying North America and Atlantic in the nineteenth century. Tutino reminds us of what excellent social-historical scholarship can achieve." - Steven Hahn, author of Illiberal America: A History



Book Information
ISBN 9781478028703
Author John Tutino
Format Hardback
Page Count 568
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 572g