Abstract
Latifundismo (ownership of large landed estate) is a feature which Spanishspeaking countries have in common, of which Spain and Mexico are two countries which somehow have experienced agrarian reform. In this article I have tried to pursue the features of agrarian reform laws of these two countries from standpoints of judicial history as follows:
(1) The origin of latifundismo is said to be due to the Spanish reconquer in Spain, Spanish conquer in Mexico, and the laws of Toro enacted in 1502 whereby amortización (amortization) of church property and commons as well as right of primogeniture were established.
(2) In the nineteenth century, laws of desamortización were enacted first in Spain (1812. 1813. 1822. 1823. 1837. 1841. 1855) and second in Mexico (1856. 1859) whereby church property and commons must be sold at auction. The purpose of these legislations was to create a class of small and medium ladholders, however, new bourgeois and great land holders bought these properties and enlarged their holding. Moreover, in Mexico, hundreds of thousands of small farmers lost their property by the Uncultivated Land Law which Porfirio Diaz enacted in 1894.
(3) The solution was carried over to Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) and Second Republic (1931-1939). The peak of Agrarian Reform in Mexico was under the Presidency of Lazaro Cárdenas (1934-1949) which was done under the ideal of collectivismo partially inherited from Aztecan tradition, Calpulli. Agrarian Reform of Second Republic began in earnest when Popular Front came into power in June 1936. and was set back by the victory of Franco. However, Franco undertook also a sort of reform through colonization, although incomplete.
(4) According to Malefakis, the land tenure system of Mexico remained far more unbalanced than that of Spain even after decades of agrarian reform. Thus, in 1940, after the presidency of Cardenas, Mexico had 9, 697 privately owned holdings of more than 1, 000 hectares each, which collectively occupied 61.9% of its total land surface. By contrast, in 1959, the 1, 078 Spanish holdings of this type occupied only 5.0% of the total area.
