COMPROMISE AND CONFLICT: THE TOBACCO WORKERS OF MEXICO CITY AND THE COLONIAL STATE, 1770-1810 the colonial in people' lives a

men and women finding themselves in certain social relationships which involve authority and obedience are constantly struggling over the limits, the frontiers at which obedience begins nnd ends. It is in the continual search from both sides for a better bargain that the dynamic of the Iabour process in labour's history can be seen to lie te.


SUSAN DEANS-SMITH
The few histories of urban labor in the colonial period unfortunately still tend to be characterized by reifications of the colonial state, based on its strength, weakness, or naive reflections on its paternalism. The most recent example of the paternalist state interpretation is Doris Ladd's otherwise first rate analysis of the silver miner's strike in Real del Mon te in 176 7. Ladd argues that «Spanish government sanctio ned the grievances of labor and facilitated the worker' victory over the exigencies of expanding capital, creating and old and new accommodation that dignified the place of labor in econo-1nic development» :-1. At the other extreme, analyses of urban l�. bor, especially of the tobacco workers, tend to be dominated by uncritical assumptions as to the strength and oppressive natu re of the colonial state 4 • While both approaches make com pelling arguments, how are they to be reconciled? It is clear, for example, that Ladd's vision of the colonial state's vie,v of labor does little to explain the situation of the textile wor kers. One of the problems here is that there is a danger of remaining trapped in the not particularly useful dichotomy of the paradigms of a weak versus a strong state, when what would be more useful a systematic analysis of what Peter Evans. Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol have called «state capacities», and the «differentiated instances of state structures and actions» whereby as Sckocpol in particular argues «that states are not likely to be equally capable of in tervening in different areas of socioeconomic life» trends in labor history have questioned the wisdom of ana ]ysing workers' actions within a teleological framework which judges those actions according to the degree to which politi cization and class consciousness is developed, or not as che case may be. Invariably, such interpretations assume that the workers remain passive agents who contribute to their own continued subordination and exploitation. Again, to take Doris Ladd's study, even though the author has provided what is probably the best reconstruction we have of silver miners' voices, she argues that their victory created an obstacle to their own best interests as «the flow of workers' class cons ciousness» was directed into «the mainstream of royal pa tronage» ,; . The studies tof the tobacco workers previously mentioned portray the workers as passive in the face of state reform, assume the exploitative nature of their working con ciitions, and in the process reduce the workers to objects rather than subjects 7 • I am not implying that we should engage in a «meaningless empiricism», simply that: 4 SUSAN DEANS-SMITH terests. l\1y approach to the consideration of state-worker :.e lations is very much influenced by the works of labour his torians Michael Sonenscher and Richard Price, both of whom argue that to understand working class formation, labor move ments, and the role of the state, scholars should avoid «the teleology of writing labour history as either conforming to or deviating from a certain trajectory. By doing so, this shifts one's perspective to examine the workers' on their own terms, according to their own logic and takes into account the cons traints under which they operated. This is' to not to imply a re gression to meaningless empiricism, but to examine the varia tions in state capacities

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This brings me to the central argument of this paper. If the object of � the colonial state in relation to the tobacco wor kers, effectively their employees in the royal tobacco manufac tories, was to contain, rather than provoke, social conflict, then for the mos part, it succeeded. The Mexico City tobacco manufactory, like many other early manufactories, was not a <<crucible of consciousness nor an epicenter of rebellion» 1 º But, during the state-building process of the Bourbons and the monopolization of the tobacco trade, the workers proved them selves capable of defining and defending their interests, and in shaping work in the manufactories to satisfy their own needs. In the process, they helped to shape the limitations of the Bourbon absolutist state and its powers as an employer through an ongoing process of negotiation. The workers rarely enga ged in collective protest -two walkouts and one strike in almost half a century. But perhaps the lack of collective pro tests indicates not their weakness or unsophistication, what Michael Sonenscher has termed the «immaturity» of labor in the eighteenth century, but the workers' ability to bring pressure to bear upon their employer, in their case, the colonial srate, to satisfy their demands without having to resort to collective protest. As I shall argue, however, there was some thing more at stake in the contention and confHct which de veloped between the monopoly and the tobacco workers than sitnply a question of wage levels or retention of customary practices. The workers' actions and grievances illustrate not only attempts to preserve their material conditions but a wider process of cultural assertion in the face of Bourbon moderni zation which valued independence and upheld the moral obli gations of the monarch. The discourse used by the workers to make such assertions was shaped not by the vocabulary of, and the precepts and canons of Spanish law per se but by popular religion 11 • As such, the workers' defense of their in terests was founded on belicfs and ideas -ideology may be too grandiose here-which competed with those of the co lonial state: the former based on popular religion, the latter on increasingly secular, rational ideology which laid the foun .. dations for Mexican Liberalism 12• Back to the beginning then with the simple observation rhat monopoly-worker relations were characterized, for the most part, by a functioning consensus borne of negotiation and compromise, rather than conflict. Why? There are seve-1al reasons which provide an explanation. First, the opportu nities for, and conditions of, work in the manufactories. There were few alternatives for work in the cities for semi-and unskilled workers, particularly for women. The tobacco ma nufactories provided one of the best opportunities for survi val in late eighteenth century Mexico. Second, the paternalist ethos of the manufactory and its establishment of dispute pro-t SUSAN DEANS-SMITH cedures, which drew on long established traditions of the Spanish state, institutionalized and channelled conflict and dis �ipated worker conflict. Third, the organization of work and wages contributed to divisions within the workforce, which were reinforced by existing divisions based on status, gender, and ethnicity, which prevented the formation of a broader class identity among the workers. Fourth, the wider imperial objectives of the colonial state favored social stability in its cclonies which contributed to decisions made in favor of wor ker demands, and which, in turn, perpetuated the legitimacy of the Bourbon polity.
Part of the explanation must also be sought in the me thods employed by the state to establish the manufactories and the organization of production. Between 1769 and 1780 six state managed tobacco manufactories were set up in Mexico City, Orizaba, Puebla, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, and Querétaro. At the same time, private tobacco stores and manufactories were abolished throughout the viceroyalty. The flagship of man uf actories was located in Mexico City, the very heart of the administrative and commercial capital of the viceroyalty of New Spain, and which at its peak, employed almost 9,000 workers. It is the Mexico City manufactory which forms the f ocus of this paper.
The abolition of the tobacco shops took almost ten years to complete with the intention of allowing the workers to adjust to such reorganization. Those individuals affected were assured of alternative employment in the manufactories. For those disgruntled tobacconists whose businesses had been des troyed, they were placated with the offer of lifetime position in the manufactory in the high paying supervisory positions. As a result, workers were incorporated as collaborators in the establishment of the manufactories and acquired a vested in terest in the monopoly's existence. The monopoly presented itself as a paternal employer willing to assure workers of em ployment with similar rates of pay and <<perks» given to them in the private workshops.

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The paternalist ethos was conveyed in the informal name given to the manufactory, The Casa del Rey (House of the King), further supported by the use by the workers of the term El Rey Padre (the Father-King). The manufactory func tioned as a microcosm of colonial Spanish rule, in which the ideal of political authority and religious orthodoxy was cons tantly promoted and upheld, and where, guided by its «un written constitution>> the state encouraged negotiation, and comprom1se . Work conditions and organization reflected monopoly pa ternalism in severa! ways which encouraged workers to re main in the manufactories. The manufactories offered work en a relatively regular basis. Seasonality of work did not affect the workers in the tobacco manufactories to the same degree as it did in other trades. There were fluctuations in the wor king week and year but the . extant time sheets suggest a re latively regular working year based on a six day week, punc tuated by the normal religious holidays 14 • The periods durin g which workers could be laid off coincided with shortages of paper supplies or adjustments in production levels. During reductions in production of cigars and cigarettes, instead o f laying off workers, production guatas were divided on a pro rata basis so everyone could earn something. When it was nec.essary to el ose the man uf actory f or severa! days or weeks (which was very rare) the monopoly advanced loans to the workers. Since the demand curve continued upward into the first decade of the nineteenth century, howevet, regular pro duction ensured regular work for those workers who wanted it. The Concordia, the workers' trade confraternity or mutual aid society, provided ·rudimentary social insurance against ill ness and death.
The transfer from prívate to public management of the tobacco industry incorporated change as well as continuity, transformation as well as modification in the organization and conditions of work. As a result, it is likely that the daily rou tines associated with tobacco manufacture in the prívate work rhops, although modified, continued within the manufactory to bridge the home and workplace and thus made the impact of the manufactory regime less sharp than has been argued.
Perhaps the most significant bridge between work and home was the «putting out» practice of the manufactory. Ci garette rollers received quantities of paper based on their daily quotas, tareas, every evening to prepare at home for the fo Ilowing day's work in the manufactory, preparation which they often carried out with the aid of their families. In addition, the manufactory eventually established an escuela de amigas in the man uf actory to take care of nursing babi es and young children, the formalization of an informal practice by women workers since the first day they began working in the manu factories. The ability to bring children into the manufactory, and to prepare part of a day's work at home permitted a fle xible integration of productive and domestic labor, and sorne cúntinuity with past practice.
The «benefits» of working in the Mexico City manufac tory are reflected in the supply of labor. The manufactory �:ttracted labor despite work in hot, unhealthy, and cramped conditions. lt became one of the most important industrial activities in late eighteenth century Mexico. By 1790, tobacco \vorkers comprised approximately 12 per cent of the econo mically active population of Mexico City. The tobacco workers r11ade up 5 5 .1 per cent of all workers engaged in industrial work who received a cash wage, f ollowed by textil e workers who made up 13 per cent, and, in third place, workers in food production who made up 9 .3 per cent us. Between 1770 and 1810, the number of workers in the Mexico City manufactory increased from 5,600 in 1771 to a reported 8,988 in 1796 . As a result of policies to reduce worker numbers, by 1809, the Mexico City workforce decreased to 5,437.
What we have i here then, is a mutuality of interest but a mutuality which was constantly challenged and renegotiated with costs to both sides. As Richard Price argues: men and women finding themselves in certain social relationships which involve authority and obedience are constantly struggling over the limits, the frontiers at which obedience begins nnd ends. It is in the continual search from both sides for a better bargain that the dynamic of the Iabour process in labour's history can be seen to li e te .
The search f or the << better bargain» brings us now to a consideration of the respective agendas of the monopoly admi nistration and the workers. Y will examine the former briefly, and then go on to discuss more extensivcly worker associa tions, their interests, how they set about defending them, and with what success.
Bourbon reform measures sought to increase the strength of the state and the prosperity of its subjects, to produce a <<culture utilitaire et culture dirigée» 17• Throughout the eigh tcenth century, the colonial stnte was haunted by fears of po litical disorder and the degeneration and immorality of Me xico's lower classes. Both prívate and public life came under the scrutiny of the Bourbon reformers, and it seemed at times ns though the colonial state waged its own interna! war on popular culture 18 • Drinking and gambling were regulated, the popular expression of religious practices was attacked, and, the forces of law and order were expanded 19 • Regulation of movement, of space, of morals, provided the backdrop to the social advantages the manufactories offered in addition to their profit potential. Manufactory discipline and social discipline were inseparable. Although the man uf actories themselves were not a res ponse to changing technologies or industrialization, but to fiscal pressure, their organization and management created a series of problems typical of many early industrial establish ments. Attempts at interna! regulations and their daily enfor cement depended upon the much wider problem of main taining a regular work force. It is a commonplace now that the concentration of large numbers of workers and their sub-• jection to work discipline «was one of the most difficult pro blems encountered by early Í8ctory masters. Cheap labour was of no advantage unless it could be effectively transplanted from the traditional to the modern sector» 20 The Mexico City tobacco workers proved to be no exception. As such, the tobacco 1nanufactories provided a miniature version of the Bourbon project to reform and control the colonial populace. Within this context the directorate-general viewed the ma nufactories' role as a vehicle through which to create not just discipline and order, but: the perf ect school to instruct ali who work there not only in their tasks but in ali those qualities which make a civil man ... because in the manufactory every person lives subject to the voice which comman ds 21.
In the minds of the bureaucrats, then, good workers an d obedient servants of the state were synonymous. Manufactory  r�gulations provided the basís through which to inculcate ha bits of regular, diligent work, sobriety and obedience. Three broad groups of inf ractions which the administration sought 10 eliminate to improve organization and discipline may be identified as follows: (1) those which related to achieving a reliable, organized work environment by penalizing late arrival to work, failue to register with the manufactory guards, theft of monopoly goods, inefficient use of raw materials; (2) those which mandated obedience and which regulated worker -su pervisor relations-disobedience and physical attacks on su pervisory staff or on other workers were all penalized; (3) tho �e which encouraged good morals and «civil» behaviour by punishing drunken or offensive behaviour, gambling and card playing in the manufactory, gossip, and other «scandalous» behaviour. All these infractions carried gradations of punish ment which ranged from a stint in the manufactory stocks, payment for materials wasted,. suspension from work to per manent prohibition from employment in any of the state to .. bacco manufactories 22 • Herein lies one of the critica! differen ces between monopoly and worker objectives: manufactory regulations transcended the limits of the workplace and de-1nanded reform of workers' morals and social mores, a re form which impinged upon their wider popular culture 28 • The resentment of attempts to reform the workers' general li ves is reflected in their grievances and actions which convey an underlying concern with their ability to live their lives as 22 AGN, Tabaco 146. Ordenanzas de la Real Fábrica de Puros y Cigarros, 15 June 1770; AGN, Tabaco 67, «Prevenciones de la dirección general, que deben observarse exactamente tn la fábrica de puros y cigarros de esta capital, asf en las oficinas de hombres, como también en las de las mujeres mientras no haya .nuevas órdenes que deroguen algunasi., /20 March 1792. 23 As has bcen argucd for cconomic reforms promulgatcd agaínst the journeymen in eigh tcenth and ninctcenth ccntury Europe: «rcform ... promulgatcd by ... the authorities, was directcd not only against a specific form of economic but also against a spccific form of popular culture. The state was less than successful in disciplining its ma nufactory workers. As late as 1817, the director-general re ported that the standard of manufactory cigars and cigarettes still left a great deal to be desired and resulted in constant los ses to �he monopoly as consumers sought out contraband pro ducts M. In the long term, however, the state's gains from the tobacco monopoly were considerable. The Bourbons took over an industry which experienced an increase in profits from one mi Ilion to f our million pesos, and an in crease in the volume of production of cigarettes from 40 million to 120 million packets. In the process, the monopoly administration demons trated the double-edged nature of its paternalism. As Patrick Joyce has pointed out, the affective and coercive are rarely strangers in paternal and deferential relations •. The pater nalist ethos of the man uf actory certainly did not prevent the directora te-general f rom implementing reforms which increa sed the profitability of the monopoly at the expense of the workers, nor to use the power of the state {legal, religious, nnd military when necessary, although rare) to control the ,vorkers. The monopoly proved to be at its least paternal in the gradual reduction of piecework rates for the cigarette rollers during the 1790s �. The tobacco workers, like many other urban workers experienccd the effects of late colonial inflation. The monopoly also gradually abolished many (not c1Il) of the non-monetary «perks» ( «bonuses» for chocolate and free cigarettes to smoke while «on the job») traditionally received by cigarette and cigar rollers during the 1780s and l 790s and, at the same time, introduced fines to penalize workers who wasted tobacco or paper. How the workers co- ped with such changes, what they perceived to be their inte rests, and how they defended them are the questions which I shall now consider.

Thamcr, Hans-Ulrich: «Journcyman Culture and Enlightcncd Public Opinion» in
There is no evidence that the tobacco workers were or ganized within a guild prior to the monopoly. One of the ma jor changes in the workers' lives incorporated the ability to form associations on a scale impossible in their previous si tuations dispersed throughout Mexico City. The associational lives of the tobacco workers were shaped through a variety of institutions and social relations which incorporated both work and home, through the occupational cuerpos within the manufactory, and the trade confraternity or mutual aid so ciety, the Concordia, through f amily, and neighbourhood, church and tavern. Such associations enabled the workers to act collectively yet contributed to social cleavages among then1. lf anything, the workers' actions resemble what Alf Luedtke has identified as eigensinn,' ohserved in the case of German factory workers, the phenomenon whereby the work experien re and domestic situation promoted a sense of collective iden tity and, at the same time, a corresponding sense of individua lism 21

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The colonial state exhibited ambiguity towards corpora te bodies in the late eighteenth century. On the one hand, it carried out an offensive against trade guilds and the corpo i-ate structure of the Church. On the other hand, it was ins trumental in supporting the creation of new corporate enti ties such as the military fuero and the mining guild primarily to create a sense of identification, with and loyalty to, the state. The tobacco workers proved to be beneficiaries of the latter practice. lndeed, it was the concentration of such large numbers of workers in one place which provided the imperative and conditions for the development of such corporate orga- http://estudiosamericanos.revistas.csic.es nization within the Mexico City manufactory. The workers, on their own initiative, requested permission to organize a confraternity, the Concordia. The colonial state agreed to its establishment and approved its regulations. In so doing, it increased the dependence of workers upon the monopoly if they were to benefit from their weekly monetary contributions, but simultaneously the Concordia became the workers' symbol of independence and security.
The visitar-general and architect of the tobacco monopo ly, José de Gálvez approved of an instítution which enabled the manufactory workers to «clothe the naked, aid the sick �nd ensure decent burials for their members» 28 • A doctor was appointed at an annual salary of 250 pesos paid for out of Concordia monies. If the Concordia's main function was to provide monetary benefits to support workers during illnesses, and their relatives after their deaths, it also functioned as a source of credit from which workers could borrow money to cover costs of marriages and baptisms, and the daily cash needs when the manufactory was closed because of fiesta days.
The Concordia's General Ordinances were drawn up in 1770 and approved by a Royal Order of 24 May 1771. Both male and female workers were eligible to join. By the end of 1771, the Concordia's membership totalled 5,600 29 • Tobac co workers who wished to become members of the Concor dia were requested to contribute 1/2 real on weekly basis. The Concordia's governing officials consisted of the manufac tory administrator as director, with two head foremen elected as accountant and theasurer, and eleven conciliarios (repre sentatives) chosen from the different manufactory cuerpos, including the cigarette workers. Concordia funds were quite considerable. Surplus funds were used to invest in property which included houses in the calle Lagunilla and the calle At the centre of the Concordia's establishment was the election and veneration of a patron saint. Originally the Con tordia members chose two patrons: San Isidro Labrador and the Virgin of Guadalupe ;� 1 • San Isidro Labrador became the major patron saint and an image of him was commissioned by the officials of het Concordia which, on completion, was placed by the workers in the church of Santiago Tlatelolco. Every May 15, his saint's day was celebrated with a mass and sermon and «all the solemnity and pomp possible» 82• The Virgin of Guadalupe, nevertheless, continued to play an i m portant role in the lives of the workers who often called upan her as their divine mediator and signed their petitions in «the name of the Virgin of Guadalupe» a:�.
It was not only the Concordia, however, which provided the main focus of worker identity, but the individual cuer pos. The latter were organized around the different manufac tory tasks of wrapping, shredding, rolling, stamping, packing, to givc a few examples, and it was the cuerpos which repre sented workers' grievances to the manufactory administration, not the Concordia. The existence of these two corporate entities, however, created tensions as workers were brought to gether through membership in the Concordia, while the cuer pos divided them again according to their task specific pro• blems. I will return to this point in a moment.  The residential patterns of the workers suggest that many of the workers and their families lived concentrated together in barrios close to the Mexico City manufactory 34 • The parish of Santa Catalina Martyr was a popular neighbourhood for many of the workers and their families, who attended mass and were conf es sed in the local churches. Single tobacco wor kers also lived in the same casas de vecindad ( tenement hou ses) as other tobacco workers 35 • Another common social mi lieu for gatherings were the pulquerías. In the parish of Santa Catalina Martyr, for example, there were four very popular ones, la Celaya, la Aguila, la Vizyaga and las Papas frequen ted by the workers, much to the dismay of the ministers of the Royal Court of Audit who observed that: «it was not uncommon for almost 1,500 workers, most of them from the man uf actory, to go to the pulquerías on their way home from the manufactory during the week» 816 • Gambling was an equa lly popular pastime for the tobacco workers. Indeed, Michael Scardaville f ound that cigarette rollers were arrested for gam bling twice as often as the next most important group, the w·eavers 87 • If the associations had a mixed impact upon the workers' organization, so did the composition of the manufactory labor force, distinguished and divided by status, family, occupation, ethnicity, income, and gender. Historians who have argued that the reorganization of the prívate tobacco shops transfor med the tobacco shop owners and their workers into an !-io mogeneous workforce of wage earners, have overstated the 34 Ros: La producci6n ci&arrera ... , paga. 70-7'. 3.5 Brun Mardnez, Gabriel: «La or¡anización del trabajo y la estructura de la unidad do méstica de los zapateros y cigarreros de la ciudad de Mt!xico en 181b, in 0r&"nlzacl6n de la producción y relaciones We know that the people who made cigars and cigaret tes were a diverse group composed of small entrepreneurs who employed between thirty and forty rollers, artisans in their workshops who relied on their families for labor, and women who made cigarettes at home on a putting out basis. lt was from such divergent backgrounds that the Mexico City manu factory's work force was recruited. The differences were made 3reater when the colonial state began to use positions in the manufactory as pensions and forms of patronage for Spanish widows, retired military or retired bureaucrats_ The man uf actories employed the former tobacco shop owners and their f amilies of whom, according to the director general Silvestre Díaz de la Vega, there were «a considerable r�umber... (including children) . who work in the fábrica» 89 • Outside of such occupational families, male workers tended to be married, while female workers were more likely to be single or widowed. One study of the manufactory work.force (based on a sample of 1,753 cigarrette rollers) suggests that by 1811, the majority of male tobacco workers were married in comparison to 7 2 per cent of the women who were either single o widowed • 0 • Tobacco workers were recruited from different ethnic groups but supervisory positions, such as head foreman and women, table foremen and women, and guards were domina ted by peninsulars and creoles · 41 • Gabriel Brun's analysis of the 1811 census showed that 69 per cent of the sample of • Finally, the Mexico City manufactory workforce also incorporated migrants from rural areas who made up approximately one-third of the workers 43 • Differentiation within the workforce \Vas reinforced �c c.ording to income and occupation, and by whether a worker was on piecework or earned fixed wages. As with any other trade, ' the real level of a worker's income depended upon the comestic situation of the worker. If an entire family was em ployed in the manufactory, the collective total of weekly wa ges could actually be quite lucrative. Single wage earners, par ticularly if they were cigarette rollers on piecework, however, barely earned a subsistence wage. The variations in income were wide and ranged between 87 pesos to 560 pesos (based on a 260 day work year).
The workforce was divided among eleven separate task categories which incorporated the administrative, supervisory, &nd manual tasks. Despite such divisions, it must be emphasi zed that the cigarette rollers, all of whom were on piecework, f-ormed the overwhelming majority of manufactory workers -81 per cent of the total workforce, followed by cigarma kers who comprised 6 per cent of the total workforce. What is significant, however, is that the cigarette rollers, instead o f forming a homogeneous group of pieceworkers levelled by the division of labor within the manufactory created new identi fications and boundaries which reinforced corporate vertical ties. Possibly as a �response to loss of control over hiring prac tices and status, the older cigarette rollers distinguished them selves as professional cigarette workers, de la profesión (and by implication, skilled), as opposed to those workers who were employed in later years, literally «from the street» de la calle (by implication, unskilled). The distinction was pointed Gut by workers who considered themselves de la pro/ esi6n on severa! occasions to justify complaints against reduced work The variety of associational forms among the workers reinf orced divisions among the tobacco workers throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They maintai Hed vertical as well as horizontal ties based on corporate di visions, and their loyalties remained with the king, their fa milies, and their priests, not to one another in the sense of class identification.
The objectives of the tobacco workers' actions, however, were not to challenge the monopoly or the state -the soutce of their security-but to defend what they perceived to be their rights which included a particular way of life, the very one the colonial state attempted to extinguish.
A revie,v of worker petitions and actions revea! five Lroad categories which brought the workers into conflict with the monopoly: management of time and work discipline, fraud and abuse of power by supervisory staff (including intimida tion and physical abuse); wage levels; violation of customary practices (provision of non-monetary «perks», access to raw n1aterials); and hiring practices ( this included both unfair dismissal and securing positions for relatives).
The Mexican tobacco workers' responses to their new work regime resemble those of many other workers subject to � imilar changes such that: Man uf actory regulations give the in1pression of an or dered and uniform work day yet practice suggests something rather different. The time constraints to which the workers were required to adhere remained remarkably flexible largely due to piecework. For supervisers, the working day began at , a.m. for the men, and 7 ,30 a.m. for women, and could finish any time between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Technically, the cigar and cigarette rollers of both sexes could be admitted to the manufactory until 8.30 a.m. after which time no worker was allowed to enter. At 9 a.m., along with those for whom there were no tareas, those who did not choose to work also left after having collected their paper quotas far the next day; at noon, those workers who wished to leave coud do so. Fi nally, from 3 p.m. until 4 p.m. workers could leave as they finished their day's work. Thus, the working day could extend for the supervisors from between ten and twelve hours, while for the cigar and cigarette rollers, anywhere from five to eight hours.
The manufactory administrator elaborated on the pro blems of enforcing regular work habits «since thc workers have always been able to come and go from their work as they please» 46 • The problem was not that workers did not go to �work each day but that they often only worked for half a day and lef t at noon only having completed a proportion of their tareas 47 • E ven after the manufactory administrator successfully engineered the reduction of the Mexico City work . force between 1795 and 1798, with an eye to a more rationalizcd work force, he continued to complain of problems related to � more disciplined, regular work force. Puchet reported. that en one day approximately 4,900 tareas were distributed based on the number of workers listed. Y et no more than a total of 3,600 were completed leaving 1,300 unfinished due to «the continuous and voluntary Iack of attendance by workers on  • By the beginning of the nineteenth centu ry, however, the director-general still complained that levels of production remained uncertain due to discretionary atten dance by sorne of the workers 49 • W e must also bear in mind that these are observations and simply that, and tell us nothing about the frequency of. worker absenteeism, undoubtedly less than bureaucratic reports would have us believe, given the vo lume of cigarette production annually. Indeed, this is certain ;y the case for the supervisory workers who. demonstrate a very low turnover within their group which suggests at least a mí nimum satisfaction with their positions. In the case of the fe-1nale supervisory staff, by 1812, 39 per cent of the total su pervisory staff entered the Mexico City manufactory between l 771 and 1780, and possessed an average of 37 years' ser vice. If we add on the next decade, fully 63 per cent of the su pervisory staff started at the manufactory between 1771 and 1790 and were still listed as working there by 1810 w. While we are confident in arguing that the supervisory staff demons trated low rather than high turnover in their ranks, the evi dence for the pieceworkers, predominantly the cigar and ciga rette rollers is mixed. Monopoly reports suggest there was a high turnover among the cigarrerías, especially the men, a characteristic which was also used as a justification for employ ing women only. The director-general repeatedly complained about the male cigarette rollers and emphasized their shiftles sness epitomized by their continuous migration and the aban donment «of their souls as well as their families so that ( the women) find themselves without fathers, husbands, brothers ilSl cr sons» .

SUSAN DEANS-SMITH
continued ability to n1anage their time in the workplace was known as la voz fletes. Veteran cigarette rollers and supervi sors alike «sold» their tarea to their fleteros (generally children or apprentice workers or relatives). While their substitutes (ge nerally less skilled) carried out their piecework guatas, the wor-1.ers left the manufactory to tend to other needs but returned in time to make the delivery of their tareas to their supervi sors. The repeated prohibitions against the practice of flete-10s is indicative of the popularity and persistence of the prac tice among the workers 152

•
The point of all of this is that the workers found ways in which to accommodate their needs by manipulating the work regime without taking to the streets. Discretionary movement in and out of the workplace, made possible by piecework was undoubtedly a response to changing needs of household eco-1:omies and individual workers alike. Despite the regularity of 111anufactory work, declining wages and the potential for layoffs only exacerbated uncertainty about daily survival and created ímperatives which conflicted with those of the monopoly which demanded regular attendance and careful work habits. Richard Whipp has argued that in constructions of time and work: The emphasis is on uncertain outc.omes. Timing becomes crucial in the experience of work ... The points of intersection between an individual's or family's lif e cycle with wide.· economic movements become vital in understanding how people experience work in a total sense 63.
If the practices of the workers reflected theír belief s c-f what was fair in the disposal of time and how tht.!y used it for their own, rather than the monopoly's needs, the same could be said in their use of monopoly material. By far the most widespread and controversia! practice was embezzlement of rnanufactory materials: paper and shredded tobacco. Once at the worktable, supervisors and workers alike could take ad vantage of the materials at their disposal. Despite daily sear ches by manufactory guards opportunities abounded for wor kers to take small quantities of tobacco and paper out of the manufactory and to sell them in the streets for whatever pri.ce peo ple were ,villing to pay f or them often to acquire ad di tional income to supplement the inadequate one gained from piecework. Paper provided a commodity which could help to supplement a worker's income, through its sale, barter or the manufacture of contraband cigarettes. Access to paper for the tobacco workers occuoied the same function that the uartido (share of silver ore) did far the mineworkers in colonial ivfexico, and certainly generated as much controversy when attempts ,vere made to eliminate it. Not surprisingly, the great c.st losses occurred due to the · sanctioned manufactory practi ce of preparation of cigarette oaper at home. When the ciga rette roller returned to work, he was armed ,vith cheap subs titute paper bought, or bartered, from one of the stores clase to the manufactory. Far those supervisors who took their jobs �eriously, however, it was not difficult to detect. From i:he perspective of the monopoly administrators such practices rmounted to theft and were punished as such. From the wor kers' perspective, their «appropriations» mav indicate their expectations of retaining non-monetary «perks» 14 • Apart from shaping working conditions to their own needs, the most common method used by workers to defend their interests was the one established by the state -the sub mission of petitions, a procedure which promoted negotiation and cooperation. Complaints carne from both individuals and cuerpos, and more rarely, ns a generalized response which cut 24 SUSAN DEANS-SMITH 2-. cross such cuerpos. We cannot illustrate each type of grievan ce but the ones which follow exemplify the modus operandi of petition, negotiation, and resolution.
In 1777, the directorate-general reduced the wages of the cigarette makers of the Patio de Mexico. The workers responded and hired a lawyer to protest the decision. Rafael de Malina, the lawyer in question, argued that the reductions violated the provisions of the boleta given to each cigarette maker prior to beginning work in the manufactory. Following little action on the part of the directorate-general, a petition �igned in the name of the «común de cigarreros» arrived on the viceroy's desk. In the petition, the workers complained that many of the former tobacco shop owners had not yet received positions promised to them when the monopoly took over and they were working for low wages. The decision to eliminate bonus payments for chocolate, and additional wr,1p ping tasks created severe hardship among the workers who protested: «There is no law which says that an operario must work more to earn less.» The:directorate-general remained un sympathetic, argued that the changes were necessary to ratio nalize man uf actory production and that a petition signed by only 63 individuals was insignificant M. No further action was taken by the workers.
Workers' complaints often reflected antagonisms towards manufactory management. Specific individuals became the fo cus of aggression and represented the physica.l embodiment of workers' problems, perceived as «bad government». For the workers in the Mexico City manuf actory, their nemesis proved to be the administrator. The general conscnsus among http://estudiosamericanos.revistas.csic.es the tobacco workers was that the administrator was the «ene my» of all of them, and described him as a «despot» or «ty rnnt». For his part, the administrator complained of the toll that an excessively Iarge manufactory workforce took on him with the daily flood of complaints and petitions. The workers' grievances concentrated on «maligning others of hetter merit ar me ... because I refuse to accede to their requests» 68 • At the same time, workers relied upon the directorate general to help solve their domestic problems which suggests that they took the idea of paternal obligation seriously. In 1800, for example, severa! cigarette rollers petitioned the monopoly to help with excessive rents demanded of them in the Villa de Guadalupe, an adjunct to the Mexico City manu factory fj 7 • The fiscal finally found in favor of the workers and dtcreed in 1805 that property owners must maintain their rents at the levels which existed prior to the establishment of the manufactory in the villa css.
Individual petitions, which reflected the workforce at its most atomized, also flowed into the administrator's office. In similar manner to the cuerpo petitions, indíviduals sought wage increases, promotions, pensions, retribution for abusive treatment at the hands of the supervisors, or employment for their relatives -in short, improvement of their existing situation.
The reactions of the colonial state to the workers' pen c.hant for complaint bring to mind a point made by E. P. Thompson in his now much criticized, but still much quoted, Hrticle on the moral economy of the English crowd. Thomp son argued that «this moral economy impinged very genera lly upon eighteenth ceritury government and thought and J.id not only intrude at moments of disturbance» :sn. Perhaps this ls best illustrated in the Mexican case by the manufactory ad ministrator's decisions which were clearly guided by assess ments of workers' reactions, usually negative, to changes in their daily routine. The clearest example is that of the inves tigation of the misuse of Concordia funds in 1781. The begin-1,ing of the investigation coincided with Holy Week. The di tectorate-general argued that normally, loans were advanced to the workers during the feast but that with the investigation in process, no advances should be made. The administrator countered such a suggestion «knowing the character and way of thinking of these people ... we will have a riot aimed at the directorate-general or the Royal Palace to request the loan» 00 • For the administrator, the issue was not whether the action suggested was justified but how to avoid conflict. The loans were paid. Even with such pre-emptive actions, however, worker discontent could not always be bargained away. State-worker relations, for the most part reflect a conti nuity of Spanish imperial practice which encouraged negotia tion and compromise, despite the centralizing and sometimes confrontational actions of the Bourbon state. That resolutions made by the monopoly were not always made in f avour of the workers' petitions, and that they did not perpetually take to the streets suggests a general acceptance of the authority which 1nade such decisions and íts legitimate right to do so. There were limits to compromise, however, which resulted in collec tive protest by the tobacco workers. Worker disatisfaction cc,uld escalate into crowd action and «bargaining by riot», a strategy which continued to be used by manufactory workers in the 1830s and 1840s 61 • In the remainder of this paper, I will examine the two most serious examples of state-worker conflict which demonstrate the causes and contingencies of �uch conflict. They serve to clarify further the nature of wor-1er grievances, the responses of the state, and to shed sorne light on the workers' perceptions of power, authority and a moral order. The first example concerns the unsuccessful at tempt of the directorate-general to abolish the Concordia; the �econd, the workers' strike action in 1794, what I shall term the Paper Riot.
The first example of conflic is not actually concerned with strikes or street violence but a protracted, successful le gal battle of the tobacco workers against the directorate-ge neral's attempts to abolish the Concordia. The reasons for such failure are firmly embedded in expediency tinged with humanitarian reasoning. Although the final resolution in fa vor of the workers worked to the advantage of the monopoly, the workcrs probably perceived the decision in their favor as a result of a fair investigation which only reaffirmed the pa ternalistic qualities of their employer.
Between 1770 and 1793 the Concordia's management bec..ame the focus of suspicion, attack and investigation. Prac tically from the founding of the Concordia, from 1770 until 1783, its funds were subject to abuse and embezzlement by severa! members of the Concordia's council. The immediate response of the directorate-general and the manufactory ad ministrator was to press far the Concordia's abolition. They argued that concordantes often failed to receive fair compen sation in accordance with their contributions. They advised that the Concordia should be abolished on the grounds that the majority of workers neither wanted, nor benefited from its operations, that all loans to workers should be called in, and Concordia property (houses) sold 62 • Behind allegations of such corporate mismangement and abuse of the workers, the evidence suggests that the directorate-general feared the corporate qualities of the Concordia an the «representative voice so inclined to influence the very movements which one tries to avoid» 68 • The workers, for once acting collectively as a «cuerpo de varias clases», argued that they did not wish their Concordia abolished, only its «despotic management» tw. The determination of the workers to keep their Concordia is not diff.icult to understand -for many, it was the only thing which stood between them and destitution.
In a statement to the viceroy, despite threats from the administrator, the workers outlined the reforms necessary to elimina te past abuses: a new election of conciliarios to super vise the management, collection, disbursement and investment c.f Concordia funds and a reassertion of their «right» to elect officers. They requested that the chest which contained Con cordia funds be moved out of the manufactory altogether and into the Hospital de San Juan de Dios, and expressed their <<right» to decide whether to remain at home when ill or to en ter one of the hospitals �.
In 1791, ten year after the initial investigation began, Viceroy Revillegigedo ordered against the abolition of the Concordia and immediate implementation of revised Concor dia regulations designed to prevent further abuses. Responsi bility of their implementation was delegated to the oidor don Ciriaco González Carbajal in his role as «protector» of the workers 68 • While the colonial state may have taken its Christian and 1r1oral duties to protect the poor and encourage them to better themselves seriously, it did so with one eye on profit. The re visions represented a move by the directorate-general to use the Concordia as a means to enforce what manufactory re gulations had failed to achieve -regular attendance of wor kers. The reforms made access to Concordia contributions in creasingly dependent upan both regularity of attendance at work and the length of time worked in the manufactory. Death benefits were restricted to those who had worked in the ma nufactory for at least eight years and for all other benefits, a jninimum of one year. Those workers who stopped working for at least a month, even though they had paid their weekly contributions, lost their benefits �n. If they chose to return t o the manufactory, «benefits» time had to built up from the time they entered. Those workers who attended regularly year after year, gained the security of access to loans, a daily income when dck, and assurance of a decent burial; those who did not found themselves excluded from Concordia benefits. All of this was predicated on the assumptions that efficient records would be maintained to prevent further abuse, fraud and embezzle ment 68• lnterpretations of the Concordia and the decision of th e �olonial state to permit its continuation vary. Sorne historians argue that it became the «tool» of the monopoly through which to domina te and control the workers 69 • I do not disa-67 Thc prescncc of forasteros in thc manufactory workforcc was acknowlcd¡ed and alven consideration. Workers whosc families lived outaide of Mexico City were permltted time off to travcl to scc them. Provided they acquired the rcquisite pcrmission to travel from the Ad ministrator, on thcir rctum, thcy would not lose thcir benefits. AGN, Tabaco ,OO. http://estudiosamericanos.revistas.csic.es gree that the Concordia was used to strengthen control over 1he workers' movements and to enforce regular attendance but I would make two additional observations. Since there ,vas no outcry against the revised Concordia regulations, this may reflect approval of them by many of the workers ·who worked regularly, expected to receive the benefits from their contributions, and wanted a more honest management of their f unds. I would also argue that the Concordia possessed a wi der symbolic importance for the workers which transcended rhe issue of reformed regulations and ,vhich countenanced their sense of independence. Suggestive here is their concern with the ability to control both institutional and personal space as illustrated by two of the workers' demands already cited: removal of the Concordia treasury from the actual phy �ical space of the manufactory to the Hospital de San Juan de Dios, and the workers' insistence on their right to choose where to be ill 7°. The first was not implemented, but workers retai ned the right to choose whether to be cured in hospital or in their homes.
The second example of conflict relates to the tobacco workers' first, and as far as the evidence suggests, only at tempt to organize a strike. The origins of the controversia! reform which culminated in the call for a strike are to be found in monopoly attempts to rationalize production and to reduce theft and waste of cigarette paper. The paper used in the ma nufactories was imported from Spain. While Spain's wars and embargoes interrupted shipments of paper which called for economy of use and efficient stockpiling, the real problem was the «appropriation» of paper by workers and wastage through unskilled rolling. The solution was to exercise grea ter control by making the cigarette rollers prepare their paper �1t work, as their first task each morning.
Following the posting of new orders in the Mexico City 1nanuf actory which decreed that workers were no longer per-70 For a discussion of the idea of space «as a strategic clement in games of power, as " stake in social struggles» see Perrot, Michclle: «On the Formation of thc French», pags. JJ-84.

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(c) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Licencia Creative Commons Reconocimiento 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0) http://estudiosamericanos.revistas.csic.es mitted to take paper home at night, petitions were submitted, in the usual manner by cigarette rollers, to protest the arder. Denial of their request to suspend the reform provoked a ra dical reaction. Sorne cigarette rollers placed posters on the manufactory walls which appealed to their co-workers not to ge to work the following day. On the morning of Monday 13 January, 1794, an estimated crowd of 1,400 workers, w omen and men (approximately one-quarter of the cigarette ro llers) marched on the viceregal palace shouti11g and demanding repeal of the order. Witnesses la ter testified that strikers stood in front of the manufactory and pelted them with stones as they passed by them to go to work 71• Troops were ordered to (.lispel the crowds and make them return to work in the ma nufactory. By 10.30 a.m. everybody, reportedly, had returned to work ri. Once again, representa ti ves in the «name of the workers» (both men and women) petitioned for the revoca tíon of the order. They argued that the preparation of paper was simple but arduous and a worker could not roll and twist 1n the same day without damaging his fingers and shoulders. Preparation at home with the help of family members took anywhere from half an hour to a couple of hours. The repre sentatives conceded that theft and substitution of poor for high quality monopoly paper occurred, but that it was actually r;ot a very advantageous practice because poor quality paper could not be worked easily and quickly and jeopardized com pletion of a tarea 73 • Assessments were made as to the long term effects of the new work order on both workers and manufactory production. The manufactory administrator argued that in the long term the tate of production would. decline and the quality of products would worsen. Preparation of paper at the beginning of each day placed and excessive burden on the workers. The workers, in the attempt to complete their tareas despite the extra work, would become exhausted and ill 74. As a result of the inves tiga don the reform was quickly abolished. By 26 January 1794, two weeks after the riot, preparation of paper in workers' homes was in practice once more. The workers' repre sentatives responded by proclaiming their gratitude to the King such that «only with silence can we thank you. There is no other language more meaningful for a prince as perfect as your excellency» 7 t).
The organization of the Paper Riot demonstrates the capa city of the workers to act collectively, if not unanimously. I ts resolution reveals again, the state's concessions to worker de mands but, at the same time, to take action designed to re move the possibility of such collective protest happening again 76 • Workers' testimonies gathered during an investiga tion of the Paper Riot illustrate how the organization of the strike was carried out and supported by associations outside of, as well as inside the man uf actory, and the strength of local íntelligence networks. Workers repeatedly referred to conver sations and petition gathering which took place in the barrios close to the manuf actory, in the pulquerías, in the churches, even in local hospitals where it was an ailing worker who un wittingly revealed the protesters' plans. But why did some workers believe themselves justified in their strike action against the monopoly? The participants and instigators of the strike, as,far as I can ascertain, were all cigarette rollers, men and women, and made up one quarter of the total number of cigarette workers. Other than these general characteristics, there is no information on the individual backgrounds of the participants, so we cannot know if they possessed other cha iacteristics in common, if they were recently employed, if they were migrants, and so on. I would speculate that they pro bably represented workers who were most recently employed, nnd therefore, earning the lowest piecework rates, and who probably comprised a floating part of the workforce, and who worked only sporadically. But this is pure conjecture based on theories put forth by historians of the laboring classes of �ighteenth century France who argue that «militant activity is perhaps inversely proportional to the organic cohesion of the trade, the strength of the organization, and the ideology of the group ... the highest level of militancy existed among the poor relations, those trades • that were a crossroads or a cat chall; ... A strong militant identity among workers in a craft seems to imply a weak collective professional identity and vice versa» 77• Such a construction is possible given the variation within the manufactory workforce, but without a better sense of the strikers' general characteristics, it is impossible to make �1 compelling argument one way or the other. There is little doubt, however, that the protesters were provoked by a re f orm which threatened their livelihoods and their living stan dards and which would remove not only the flexibility of time which preparation at home gave to them, but access to a com modity which was used to supplement their income. lt may fven be that the Concordia reform which demanded a certain commitment from the workers in terms of time spent in the manufactory if they were to reap its benefits, affected their perception of monopoly employment. What their actions de monstrate above all, is �orne form of a plebian moral econo my in action.
Workers' testimonies convey again the divisions within the workforce. lt was severa! supervisors and guards who in- f ormed the administrator of the impending strike and pro test, after their accidental discovery of the plan. What this reflects, at its simplest, is that not only did the reform not ,1ffect them directly, since they received fixed daily wages, out that they preferred their jobs to protest, and felt no fear cf retribution from the workers.
The Paper Riot of 1794 confirmed the colonial state's worst fears. At the same time, it laid bare the contradictions rf Bourbon state-building, and the sometimes tenuous compa tibility between social stability and economic prosperity. The 1ninisters of the Royal Court of Audit denied that the wor kers constituted a political threat to Mexico City, primarily to avoid complaints from the colonial elite or pressure to elimi liate one of the most lucrative and stable sources of govern n1ent income. They described the tobacco workers as: possessed of a timid and submissive spirit which makes them obedicnt and quick to carry out any orders, specially when aide d by the troops which they naturally respect 78.
Such soothing rhetoric, however, did not prevent a rapid rnove to rationalize and reduce the number of workers in the Mexico City manufactory in arder to exert greater control. One of the solutions was a to employ only women in the ma nufactories, particularly as cigarette rollers, a task which was becoming increasingly identified as a «female» occupation. The policy was put into practice. In 1795, women comprised 43 per cent of the Mexico City manufactory workforce (3,055); by 181 O, their percen tage share increased to an es timated 71 per cent (3,883), which, although there was a reduction in the Mexico City workforce, the percentage share still represented íln absolute increase in the number of women employed 7 D. In all likelihood, after a few months of the new system, with of without worker protest, the old method of paper pre paration would undoubtedly have been reestablished to avoid a fall in cigarette production. The important considerations here, however, are first, that the resolution was ostensibly in the workers' favor which affirmed the justice of the pro cedure of investigation, and resolved the uncertainties created by the intended reforms. Second, the colonial state remained unwilling to undertake economic innovations at the price of social peace. After 1794, no further attempts were made by the Bourbon administrators to implement reforms in the orga nization of production in the manufactories, and no further strikes or collective action of the magnitude exhibited in 1794 was reported. Petitions, negotiations, shouting matches, and <<clown tooling» continued apace as part of the daily negotia tion.
These two examples of state-worker conflict illustrate the problems which confronted monopoly management. The �tate was confronted by a paradox whereby associations crea trd to maintain loyalty to, and dependence upon the monopo ly, could be used to challenge the state's mandates. As a re �ult, to reestablish peace, it acted in a concessionary manner, but attempted, at the same time, to turn such concessions to the monopoly's advantage. Both resulted in compromise so iutions which, on the one hand, may have increased the sta te's control over the workers, but which, on the other hand, �atisfied to sorne degree the demands made by the workers.